Better the Knock of fake American, than Invisible

This bit about who is a real American did not originate with the wacky harebrained muttering of a Vice Presidential candidate, or with a few screwball congresspersons. Nor is simply a not so thinly veiled knock at a guy who's multi-ethnic, African-American, had a Kenyan father, allegedly attended a Muslim school, has the middle name of Hussein, has an outspoken African-American wife, has a daughter who at one time sported braids, went to effete Harvard, and worked in a hardcore, poverty area, in rock solid Blue State city. That guy by chance is the odds on favorite to bag the White House.

Actually, there's long been the suspicion that Latinos, Asians, and especially African-Americans are somehow different than real, red-blooded (white) Americans. I say especially African-Americans not because that's how Obama identifies, but because of the eternal suspicion that African-Americans are perennial, unpatriotic malcontents and racial rebels. The notion that blacks are America's ritual outcasts has been immortalized in the title of the towering classic, the Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison. But I guess when you think about it maybe it's better to be a fake American, than invisible.