Yesterday I watched the latest installment of Katie Couric’s interview with Sarah Palin and I had to retract my previous view of Mrs. Palin. A view in which, I had categorized her in the lower educational tier but I had to upgrade her to just plan ole mediocre. Sarah Palin’s mediocrity is what endears her to so many Americans, she is the emerging face of America, the face of mediocrity, a face that does not represent the need to “better” ones self.
Sarah Palin proves to Americans that you can be an average Joe or Jane and reach the Governor’s Mansion and even dare to reach for the highest office in the land. Sarah Palin typifies the problem Americans face in an increasingly globalized world: the sentiment that it is alright to be anti- intelligent. It is a hard pill to swallow but I get it. I thought being dumb or pretending to be less than smart was strictly a black culture phenomenon. The rise of Palin in the Republican Party has quickly disavowed me of that notion. America as a whole has an anti-intelligence problem.
Before I was of age to attend school, my mother was teaching my brothers and I our alphabet, the sounds of vowels, colors, and numbers. There was always an opportunity to learn. She was preparing us to face a world that would not accept anything less than an above average (at times I would find that above average was not even enough) black person living in America. When it came time for college I had to take the SAT twice not because I did not get the average score that was excepted by my college of choice (1200) but because my mother thought I could do better (and she was right).
For those of us that decided to seek knowledge (through traditional means or nontraditional) to be labeled or accused of being uppity or practicing elitism is outright laughable. America has become a culture that is spoon fed with few electing to research and learn. I fear for this country, I fear that our lack of desire and thirst for knowledge, like days of old, will result in our continued lagging educational performance behind developing nations. I fear that America will not be able to regain its once hard fought and earned respect. I fear for those people that believe knowledge and those that possess it are full of malevolence for the common man, immoral, or better yet “uppity”.
