Perception & Perspective

Spend enough time in any country and it's likely you'll start to adopt a few national traits. The locals start to think you're one of their own as you soften your g's and exaggerate your t's.
After the guts of five months in the United States they've begun to accept me...in all their various forms. In the course of this adventure I've been asked which part of New England I'm from on and whether I'm related to the Kennedy family on multiple occasions.
At it's most bizarre I've been considered more yankee doodle doo than even the natives. Allow me to explain.
One month ago my friend and fellow volunteer Sanjay were out on a voter registration drive in a shopping mall in Clear Lake. Sanjay's parents are Indian but he has spent most of his life in Texas and has a proper American accent. To my dismay he loves 'college football' and supports the Longhorns so he's pretty much as Texan as can be.
While we were signing up new voters it became apparent that I was having a tad more success than my pal. Much as I would like to think I was the consummate volunteer (and indeed I tried) it seemed as though other factors were in place. Or should I say race.
While we were working the crowd a potential voter said to Sanjay, "You're not even a citizen," which in fairness he laughed at. The problem was this person was serious and just for the record such an accusation has never been leveled at me or should I say mise - the non citizen.
Was it simply because my skin tone was considered more American? One would like to think in the 21st century race wouldn't be an issue but let's not delude ourselves and think it doesn't exist. Hence all the column inches devoted to the so called 'Bradley effect.'
Racial divisions are likely to remain whether Senator Obama is elected on Tuesday or not. Often they are present in an inoffensive way like the other day when I was chatting to a vendor who was selling all forms of Obama merchandise. He told me that he sold a bunch of Obama buttons to a guy who wanted to flog em in his local community. The buyer only wanted the pins with the happy smiling face of Obama and passed up the opportunity to acquire the Obama/Biden mugshot variety.
To quote the buyer, "I'm from a black neighbourhood and they don't want to be looking at no white people on their badges." One could argue the budding entrepreneur was a racist. More likely he was a keen eyed businessman who knew what would sell in his market. Barack Obama shifts badges and Joe Biden doesn't. Go figure.
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An often cited criticism of America and by virtue of that Americans is how insular they supposedly are. Take a quick glance at the news networks and you'll find very little in the way of international coverage unless there is a major crisis somewhere. CNN America is certainly a contrast to the one we're used to at home. During the primary it earned the title Clinton News Network by Obama volunteers and then there is Fox News or should I say Fixed Noise as some call it.
Whatever. With the general election on the home stretch there is wall to wall saturation and while I've formed a bond with my colleagues another one has been created with Chris Matthews of MSNBC. He's the only guy who can wear a red jumper and baseball hat on air and not get ridiculed. We consume the news, devour every poll and get flustered when we have to remind someone that the voter registration deadline passed a month ago.
Living in the midst of an election cycle renders everything else irrelevant. I've tuned out of football and the financial meltdown in Ireland only registered on my radar because America sneezed and the rest of us caught a cold. You lose perspective.
Then something happens and you regain your senses. For the past few weeks I've been living in the museum district of Houston but my only interaction with the said museums has been watching the silhouettes entering the buildings in the morning. One day I had a few hours to myself and paid a visit to the Holocaust Museum just round the corner from my temporary home.
Anyone who has been to a Concentration Camp will tell you how sobering the experience is. My abiding memory of being in Dachau last year was how talkative people were on the train out to the Camp. On the way back there was total silence.
Spending time in the Holocaust Museum brought me back to reality with a thump. I've learnt about Goldwin's Law recently, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwin%27s_law, and observing the media during my Stateside stint I've seen Nazi comparisons made far too willingly just to prove a point.
No words can even begin to quantify the horrors of the Holocaust and I for one am not going to even attempt to here. While in the Museum I say a plaque bearing the words 'Operation Texas' about how Lyndon Baines Johnson as a young Congressman worked to provide a safe refuge for Jews fleeing Hitler's Germany. Hundreds of lives were saved by his brave actions and it wasn't until some 20 years later that the project became public knowledge. The plaque I'm referring was subtle in size and message but it left an effect on me. Political sway can be used for good.
Later that day I told my friend Ken about 'Operation Texas' and to my surprise he had never heard of the project. Ken graduated from the LBJ school of Public Affairs so clearly the tale of the future Texan President during the Second World War remains a little known fact.
A few days later I re-visited the Holocaust Museum and Ken accompanied me. For a man who lives and breathes politics he switched his phone off for an couple of hours to take it all in. As we stepped out the door later he was completely quiet, just like the people on the train back from Dachau a year earlier.
Perspective.