An essay by my friend, Alan Skontra

The America That Michelle Obama Isn't Proud Of
-Alan Skontra

While stumping for her husband's surging campaign last week, Michelle Obama admitted that she had never been proud of being an American until now.

Conservatives immediately attacked the comment as part of a pattern of blame-America liberalism. They ask, what has Michelle Obama got against America? Has it not allowed her to attend Harvard, become a lawyer and raise a family? They cite the litany of American benevolence, from the Marshall Plan to the charitable giving of Americans after the Asian tsunami. They charge that if she really is proud of her country, it is only because her husband might actually get to lead it. What they neglect to consider however, is why someone like Michelle Obama might have lacked the degree of pride that they espouse.

The specter of racism might have something to do with it. When polled, the majority of whites consider civil rights legislation and affirmative action and believe that racism isn't so prevalent anymore, while the majority of blacks recall getting stopped by the police or not being able to hail a cab and say that they still feel it.

Both groups can be correct. Racism might best be described as a cancer in remission but with a chronic entrenchment within the body politic. This strand feeds into a greater debate that has always existed within America, about whether it would remain benefiting only a privileged few or expand opportunity equally.

After 9/11 and the launching of the Iraq war, we've seen this debate recast along with-us or against-us nationalist lines. Because there's also a pattern to the way that many on the right have sought to manufacture controversy about patriotism. If they're ready to pounce now on the Obamas, it's because they've already had their knives sharpened in anticipation.

A smear campaign already contaminates the web claiming that Obama is actually a Muslim with fifth-column intentions to hand the country over to Osama Bin Laden. Mitt Romney's gaffe of mixing their names while talking to reporters might have been an accident, but others who believe and spread such a rumor see little distinction between the two men.

A publicized photo of Obama shows him not holding his hand to his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, and he has been criticized for declining to wear an American flag lapel. Now with his wife's remark added, expect a blitz questioning the Obama family's patriotism and their credibility to inhabit the White House. If the right-wing political script has labeled white veterans like John Kerry and Max Cleland as unpatriotic, expect it to cast as treacherous the liberal son of an African father who, because of his viable chance of becoming President with a new coalition of voters, poses a threat to some tribal sense of nationalism.

Perhaps Michelle Obama hesitates to feel national pride because too many people still believe her husband is a covert terrorist, and that because of his race and political beliefs, such insinuations are predictable and inevitable. You could see these insults coming, and if he wins the Democratic nomination, we all know they will get worse.

Just look at the last few years. Two years ago Virginia Senator George Allen ridiculed a staffer for his opponent who was sent to videotape his speeches. At a campaign stop Allen paused to mention the presence of the young Indian-American man in a white crowd. Rather than ask the young man for his name, he labeled him "Macaca, or whatever his name is," later claiming ignorance that Macaca is a racial slur. Even giving Allen the benefit of doubt, the episode still seems to have been calculated to remind the crowd of someone there who was very unlike the rest.

Before the 2000 GOP primary in South Carolina, an unidentified group noted John McCain's adopted daughter from Bangladesh and called voters asking if they could still support McCain if they knew he fathered a black, out-of-wedlock child. The group wagered that the false charges would work, just like eight years later when Mike Huckabee tried to rally support by urging South Carolinians to continue waving the Confederate flag.

No, not everyone on the right is a racist or doubts that liberals can love their country too. But let's not dismiss the fact that Barack Obama will continue to be undermined by some vocal forces for his race, and disparaged as anti-American for his politics. These scripts were in place well before Michelle Obama opened her mouth.

At least the polls suggest that a critical mass of Americans aren't going to buy into either smear this time. Too many citizens look to Obama's campaign as post-racial and beyond a narrow definition of patriotism, and this coalition might actually give him a November victory. That would be a feat for more Americans to be proud of.