American Exceptionalism By Wilson Riles BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator

Editor’s Note: The following are the words of the late Howard Zinn (1922-2010, historian, author, political activist, playwright, intellectual and Professor of Political Science at Boston University). The notion of American exceptionalism—that the United States alone has the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to bring civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the world, by violence if necessary—is not new. It started as early as 1630 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Governor John Winthrop uttered the words that centuries later would be quoted by Ronald Reagan. Winthrop called the Massachusetts Bay Colony a “city upon a hill.” Reagan embellished a little, calling it a “shining city on a hill.” The idea of a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what George Bush has spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of liberty and democracy. People can look to us and learn from and emulate us. In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill. A few years after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words, the people in the city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot Indians.” -0- Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker (Washington Post) challenged President Obama to give an address on the meaning of ‘American exceptionalism.’ She points out that “…in the coming months …Republicans… [will] try to out exceptionalize each other…” and that “the exceptional issue may be political, but it isn’t only that. The idea lies smack at the heart of how Americans view themselves and the role of government in their lives and in the broader world.” In my view, American exceptionalism feels a whole lot like the lethal falsehood of ‘white supremacy’ and both are the consequence of our collective Western cultural acquiescence to xenophobia. Obama briefly spoke to the issue at an overseas news conference when he said “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” His statement is akin to the defense of the Black is Beautiful jingo that articulated that one can be pro-blackness without being against anyone else.  Parker was not satisfied; she called for Obama to differentiate his conception of American exceptionalism from that which Republicans genuflect to in as thoughtless, as knee-jerk, and as blind a way as they do to patriotism. Parker will be disappointed; what we got is what we’re going to get from Obama. She may want and expect to be disappointed so that she can more easily justify her opposition to Obama’s otherness. Mainstream Republican and Democrat ideology is laced with the supremacists’ social psychological need to deny failings and assuage guilt. Conceptualizations of supremacy and exceptionalism are framed in an ends-justifies-the-means paradigm that is not only morally corrupting but, also, dangerous in the real world. This paradigm is the ‘first step’ down the road to dilatory acts of discrimination. This Western cultural paradigm is accompanied by adherence to the either/or paradigm versus a both/and paradigm; the falsehood only one right. It is a denial of reality. It is irrational. Americans are both exceptional and not. Americans are both good and bad as are everybody else. One perfect in terms of human comparisons – individual, community, cultural, racial, or national – is not findable in the physical world. Authenticity is more discoverable, more physically real, and it fits the both/and paradigm allowing the apprehension of more truth about who we are. It is this deeper truth of our character that will not be expressed in our political debates. The nature of partisan politics, by which Parties and individual candidates advance, vigorously punishes any allowance of a humble admission that we are not only unexceptional but bad sometimes. No politician who hopes to get elected can own up to the true history of the US that includes genocide of the indigenous people and various forms of slavery of those from the Asian, Latino, and African continents. Supremacist politicians must put forward the lie that the ‘other’ would be worse off if those US-resourced and US-implemented holocausts had not happened. Kathleen Parker knows that President Obama is too smart to fall into her political trap but is not smart enough to find another means to help this nation cleanse itself of powerful supremacists’ conceptualizations and ideologies such as the mythology of American exceptionalism. BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator Wilson Riles is a former Oakland, CA City Council Member.  Click here to contact Mr. Riles.