The canvas of our dreams
by Elouise
The canvas of our dreams
Writ deep in hazy memories
Unfurls a Master Narrative
Embraced with godly fervor
Layer upon layer added thereto
Fills in once empty gaps
With stuff of dreams and whiffs of smoke
The snake oil of deceivers
Here, drink to this and drink to that!
We’ve always been the greatest
Just raise your glass and repeat with me
Our mantra of salvation –
Then head right to your voting booth
And punch for victory!
In the opening pages of his monumental history of multicultural America, Ronald Takaki defines what he calls “the Master Narrative of American History.”
According to this powerful and popular but inaccurate story, our country was settled by European immigrants, and Americans are white. ‘Race,’ observed Toni Morrison, has functioned as a ‘metaphor’ necessary to the ‘construction of Americanness’: in the creation of our national identity, ‘American’ has been defined as ‘white.’ Not to be ‘white’ is to be designated as the ‘Other’ – different, inferior, and unassimilable.
Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (Little, Brown and Company, 2008 edition, p. 4)
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness in the Literary Imagination (Cambridge, Mass., 1992, p. 47)
This rules out groups such as those Takaki focuses on in his book: Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Irish Americans, Jewish Americans, Mexican Americans, and Muslim Americans.
The only way to fight surreal snake oil is with knowledge and committed resistance to the purveyors of snake oil.
As a highly persistent woman, I am yet again highly recommending this book. Even though you may not make it through all 445 pages, you’ll find a goldmine of correctives to our current misguided, surreal national obsession with who’s really ‘American.’
Cheers to all my neighbors, near and far. We’re in this together–even when it seems we’re not.
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 October 2017
Image found at hallidaysutherland.files.wordpress.com
Daily Prompt: Surreal
Telling the Truth 
Oh, this is beautiful.
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Thank you, Herminia.
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cheers cheers E, no snake oil please….my snake does just fine without it and stays out of my way too which is a win-win 🙂 I’ll have to check that book out when I get the time 🙂 peace and love and hey L ❤
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Sounds like a win-win to me! 🙂
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just set loose the next installment to the thrift store 🙂 almost forgot about it, been a few days 🙂
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Thanks! I’ll be over to check it out….:)
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Well done Elouise. I am glad you are saying some of these things. When I commented some time ago I got a comment saying that as a foreigner I had no right to say anything about America, because the rest of the world doesn’t really count anyway. After I commented on the number of times Australia had gone to stand besides the Americans since Korea etcetera etcetera. He/she replied with words that my spam filter nearly short circuited.
So now I say as little as possible. Except to say this; In Australia , a “Corker” means that something is really good. When they make wine, the workers all have a taste and if they approve, they say, well this is a corker. That means it is good enough to bottle and seal up with a cork.
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Thank you, John. I appreciate your encouragement more than you can know. I have more I want to say as well, but in bite-size pieces that help me articulate what I see and can do from the belly of the beast, as it were! I’ve appreciated hearing your take on what’s happening over here. You have every right to speak your mind since, as I believe, we’re in this together. Which is why many Australians ‘get it’ at a level we don’t–that is, because of their long history of stepping up to fight alongside other countries including our own. No country is an island 🙂 — not even Australia, and certainly not the USA.
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