Coworker chat

I mentioned in a recent post that a coworker of mine who was born in Ghana voted for McCain, explaining that he saw no point to vote for someone just because they shared the same skin color. The other morning I arrived a little earlier than usual and with just the two of us around we got to talking. I began by asking him how long he has lived in the U.S. "Fourteen years!" he exclaimed. "In America I have had opportunities you can't find anywhere else."

He began to tell his story.

Growing up in a small town about 30 miles outside of Accra he told me that he couldn't afford shoes, owned a single pair of pants and two shirts. Every night he washed his clothes in order to have something clean to wear for the next day, and I'm guessing it wasn't a GE Profile washer-dryer. When he was 17 he left home to go to Nigeria to work as a "houseboy." On his 18th birthday he decided to celebrate by making himself a bowl of oatmeal. Caught by the wife at the house, she took the pot and bashed him over the head with it. He showed me the resulting scar.

"Americans, they don't even know what poverty is. I wish every American would go visit a third-world country to see what life is like. It doesn't even have to be Africa, they can just go to Mexico. They have no idea."

Leaving Nigeria he worked in Libya for two years followed by Ivory Coast where he found employment as a security guard. Befriending a U.S. Marine he was able to obtain a visa to come to the U.S., arriving in the country without even a high school education. "I came here, saw all of the opportunity there was, and decided to take it!" he added.

Indeed he did. He went to school, got an education, and even studied at Oxford. He recently finished law school. He said that while at Oxford he took some time and decided to travel through Europe. While on a train in Italy he began to type on his laptop and noticed that people were eyeing him strangely -- it was just that unusual to see a black man with such an expensive piece of equipment. He said the looks were so obvious that he became uncomfortable and put the laptap back in his bag.

"Americans talk about racism between black people and white people but in Africa we are all the same color and we still discriminate against each other -- we call it tribalism."

Racism, he pointed out, was relative. He was impressed with how well people got along with each other in the U.S. Sure, he said, there are white people that don't like black people and he knows black people that don't like white people, but that isn't an unusual trait in humans. Growing up with his father he said that he didn't meet his birth mother until he was a teenager because his parents were from two different tribes.

In a similar vein on race relations he pointed out that after working on the gubernatorial campaign for Mitch Daniels in Indiana that there were some open positions in the government and his name came up for consideration to fill them. He was blocked, however, by some black political types that said he wasn't an authentic African-American. Of course, he is the very definition of an African-American -- further demonstrating the utter silliness of the term as it is typically employed.

Why do I bring this up? Well, for starters it is always good to be reminded of what a fundamentally decent country this is. More importantly I get sick of hearing the constant condemnations of this country by so many on the Left. America, they love to explain, is virtually the source of all evil in this world. It is an empire of oppression, nursed from an early age with the blood of native people and imported Africans. Continued sustenance is derived from an endless series of wars launched to feed the demands of its corporate masters while it exports a particularly virulent strain of capitalism that leaves a trail of destruction in its wake.

While there are elements of truth in some of these accusations and only the most blind among us can deny a less than perfect track record I find such denunciations both trite and gutless. It isn't brave. It won't cost you your job. Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore have literally made a living out of it. Bill Ayers tried blowing up the Capitol and seems to have done OK for himself. You want to know what's brave? Marching into downtown Havana and selling copies of Free To Choose. Going to Pyongyang and announcing that you are running for President against the Dear Leader. Praising Jesus in Riyadh. That's brave.

Denouncing the U.S., meanwhile, will probably get you an A on your history mid-term in college and possibly even a book deal that will rocket to the top of the bestseller charts in Europe.

This is not to say that all self-criticism is bad. A confident country should be able to acknowledge its flaws and shortcomings. But I am so sick of hearing about how bad poverty is in the U.S., how bad hunger is, how much racism there is. etc. Open your eyes and see how good we've got it.