Let's Be Americans First

When will the word American once again be used as a stand-alone adjective? Today we seem to be awash in hyphen American. You know Hispanic-American, African-American, and without the hyphen Native American.
When you take this in the context of what the Islamic world is like you can draw some surprising parallels. What is the biggest cause of friction in the Muslim world? The fact that they identify with a particular sect of Islam, Sunni, Shiite, or Wahhabi first and then maybe their tribe or village and somewhere way down the line they associate themselves with a nation. One of the biggest obstacles facing our rebuilding efforts in Iraq is the fact that these different groups cannot or will not unite under one banner.
In America we are sliding down this path. It used to be all one had to say was he was an American. Not anymore. Previous waves of immigrants strived to be known as Americans with no qualifiers in front. They pushed their children to become Americans. This doesn’t mean they forgot the old customs of their homeland or that they completely abandoned any connection to their past. Quite the opposite. They folded their heritage into the fabric that makes up America.
This very trend to now be known as something first with the word American coming second is no different then the Muslim who first and always considers himself Muslim and then something else. This is why the Muslims have such a hard time mixing into the countries they immigrate to and become alienated. In a lot of cases they want to change their new homeland into what they left. That very thing is what is threatening America now.
If you want to include your previous ethnic identity why does it have to come first instead of after American. Why was it decided to be African-Americans instead of Americans of African decent or Americans of Hispanic origin?
As a young man serving in the Army in Germany I saw the transition from being viewed with suspicion by the Europeans to being able to walk down the sidewalk head high with an almost cocky air because of President Reagan speaking loud and embodying the American ideal. It started with him and trickled down to the least of us. Our hockey team beating Russia in the Olympics further promoted this. In each case it mattered not what the color of your skin was, what kind of accent you had, or where in the world your ancestors came from you were now simply an American.
The recent events surrounding the immigration bill that has captured the attention of the American public once again brought this sort of nationalistic pride to come forward only to be beaten down once again by the usual list of suspects who started smearing critics as racists and bigot. It seems to be the one thing that will get most Americans to sit down, shut up and go hide is a corner is the use of these words. It is time to realize that anybody who wishes to crush public dissent will somehow manage to get these words into any debate to cow their detractors. I say it is time to quit being ashamed of being called a racist or bigot. Even the Islamic mouthpieces such as CAIR have begun using the word racist to silence critics. I thought Islam was a religion not a race. Are you racist if you express reservations about Catholics or Mormons? If you are proud to be an American, and just that, an American, start taking the word back. Make the word American mean something again. No qualifiers, no need to identify with sub group, no some sort of primal instinct to pigeon hole yourself into a group based solely on your skin color or country of origin of your ancestors.
One thing I learned in the army, that was not taught by getting in touch with my inner self or any of the embracing diversity stuff that is so common now, but learned by acts of facing a shared difficulty or enemy. Whether that enemy was a Drill Sergeant or the Soviet Army, once you faced hardship and conditions, that most people would brand you as certifiable nuts, when you came out the other side you were only one thing, a soldier. A running joke was we were all green, granted some were light green and others dark green but we were all green. That unifying spirit is why reenlistment rates are so high while the recruitment rates lag. It is the reason that our Armed Forces are the best in the world in spite of what seems at times as everybody else in the world doing their best to keep them from succeeding.
It is that spirit that must be reborn in America. We must begin to define ourselves as Americans first and foremost. I just hope that unlike the military who instills this through trials by fire that we, the average citizen of this country, will not have to have a this trial to recognize that we are all in this together. We must be Americans only.
I think Red Skelton said it best with his explanation of the Pledge of Allegiance.