As we watch future Dancing With The Stars contestant that is Sarah Palin continue to pollute the American discourse with her new show, "Real Americans," I thought it might be time to explain that, unlike Sarah Palin, I'm a fake American.
Let me count the ways.
1. I'm a Fake American because I'm only a fourth generation child of immigrants.
My parents didn't come to this country until the 1910s through Ellis Island.
Back then, my Polish and Russian Jewish great grandparents were spit on by Real Americans who called them dirty immigrants and ethnic slurs.
Real Americans did not want "undesirables" from Russia, Eastern Europe, Italy, Poland, France and Ireland. Real Americans feared that these Catholics and Jews would take jobs away from Real Americans.
Real Americans were so outraged, they passed new immigration laws in the 1920s that curtailed how many immigrants could come to the United States.
Real Americans kept those laws on the books as hundreds of thousands of European Jews and other politically persecuted groups attempted to flee Europe in the 1930s, but were prevented from coming to the United States.
Real Americans turned away boatloads of European Jews, sending them back to die in Concentration Camps at the hands of the Nazis.
2. I'm a Fake American because I live in a large city.
I live in an urban area with many other ethnicities and races that are also Fake Americans. Some of us dare not to be white. Others of us dare to be only first or second generation Americans. Which are, of course, Fake Americans.
3. I'm a Fake American because I believe in multiculturalism.
I have a concept of America as a "Melting Pot," in which many cultures can come to the United States and bring with them their culture, their religion, their ethnic traditions.
4. I'm a Fake American because I believe it's okay to speak languages other than English in the United States.
I often eat in Chinatown restaurants in my large city, many of which have Chinese written on the signs.
I often eat in Little Italy in New York, which dares to play Italian music and paint Italian flags on their shops and restaurants.
I enjoy Mexican food, and French food, and I celebrate St. Patricks day with my Irish friends.
5. I'm a Fake American because I voted for Barack Obama and believe that majorities democratically elected in the United States Government have a right to enact the policies they campaigned on.
I do not believe this is totalitarianism, or fascism, or incorrectly and ill defined "socialism."
6. I'm a Fake American because I believe in the principles of Franklyn Delano Roosevelt's New Deal.
I believe in a social safety net in place to ensure all Americans, not just the wealthiest, have the right to a basic standard of living, including enough money not to live in poverty in their old age after a lifetime of work, basic access to health insurance, public schools, public libraries, and a police and fire department there when anyone needs them.
7. I'm a Fake American because I'm a Jew.
I've been told by Real Americans that America is a Christian Nation, founded on Christianity, and Christianity should be the acknowledged official religion of the United States of America.
Clearly I cannot be a Real American since I do not share this religious belief.
8. I'm a Fake American because, while I'm not gay, I don't care if other people are.
Since I do not see the threat to the American way of life that gay people clearly represent, especially when they try to marry each other, I clearly cannot be a Real American.
9. I'm a Fake American because I believe in intelligence, facts, evidence, science and the complexities of the real world, and think "Common Sense" is what morons tell each other to excuse their own ignorance.
Since I think "common sense" is code for "ignorant" and "incurious," as opposed to some magical ability to think reality into easy to understand simplicities, I clearly cannot be a Real American.
10. I'm a Fake American because I opposed the Iraq War.
I opposed it before it began, and now that it's over, I refuse to excuse those who sent thousands of my fellow Americans to their pointless death, while causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi deaths, and adding a trillion dollars to the national debt.
Clearly Real Americans celebrate starting wars without evidence, then never think about them again when they turn into seven year fiascoes.
11. I'm not a Real American because I do not own a gun, and never plan to buy a gun.
This means I am not macho and virile, and a truly masculine Real American. For without a weapon capable of killing and destroying, I am merely a Fake American. And possibly gay.
Thankfully, Sarah Palin is there to tell me that I am not a Real American. Her lack of education, her inability to speak basic English, her failure to finish her term as governor, and her desperate need to be a Reality TV star like the kids on "American Idol," all represent Real American values, which I can never understand or be a part of.
Yet I like the Fake America I live in.
And I love my fellow Fake Americans.
Because if there's one thing my family and I have learned in the nearly 100 years we've been a part of this great nation, it's that Real Americans don't talk about how American they are.
Real Americans live by American ideals.