Why Don’t Americans Love Americans/ 7. Identity Politics
I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
— Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
“And dear me, you’re a human child!” A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and
in another moment it had darted away at full speed.
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
1.
The much praised I — in its turn: adored, despised.
The I, finding its voice had once sung “the body electric.”
Now, it’s only me, myself, and Identity.
All bound in perpetuity.
Whitman’s song,
His all-too-American obsessions
Apollo-like, Diana-like, singularities
Or Dionysian irregularities.
But no, we are not Whitman’s children.
Nor good students of the Greeks.
Identity is fraught with precipitous descents.
But only occasional ascents.
A herd is composed of Is
Bleating Is, then bleeding Is.
They say the Is have it, but the truth:
Every I dies and Identity is a graveyard.
At the end of the day, the I yearns for a good night’s sleep
In its own bed, between fresh white sheets,
Following the spectacle it made of itself the day before
Caught in flagrante.
“I am.” What a sad declaration, because naked and not nude.
Identity reduces the genius of our species
To an ant hill of shared compulsions.
The I is assembled of broken parts, broken promises.|
Names given or adopted, accepted or rejected
Each ridiculous, all utterly pointless assertions.
“Call me by this race, sex, or faith.”
As if identity portents immortality.
“What is your name?”
The wisdom of Odysseus, the tragedy of Polyphemus.
Lessons no longer taught.
2.
What is Identity?
That which I call myself and ask you to call me.
The list always ignores giraffe,
Instead run straight to Norseman, African, indigenous person.
Ignoring owl, preferring Ashkenazi, Pacific Islander, or homosexual.
What is Identity?
— These are my colors.
They fade.
The me, myself, and I?
— Plucked out of dust, passes through dust, and to dust returns.
Sticks and stones
—Will break your bones
And Identity is death.
I want a flag, my own flag, a flag that’s bigger than your flag.
A flag as fresh as spring, one the length of a slow August slough.
One crisp as an apple in October frost,
Or that sends a chill up my spine when I wrap it around me.
Every flag is a shroud
And Identity is death.
Rilke observed, “We ignore the gods and fill our minds with trash.”
I tell you, Identity is trash.
A flag is trash.
A flag is a strap raised to lash the heavens
But that falls back on our backs.
Every flag is a shroud
And, Identity is death.
Identity, birthright, the alpha and omega.
The end-all.
No, the end of all.
Every flag is a shroud
And, Identity is death.
Once upon a time, Alice met a fawn.
Alas they weren’t friends for long
Because each spoke too soon
Each learned the other’s identity.
The die was cast
And, Identity is death.
