I AM ACUTELY CULTURALLY OFFENDED! NOW YOU OWE ME!

In retrospect, I suppose it all began my freshman year in college.  Filled with foreboding, I entered the classroom, as ready as I would be, for my first speech in Communication 101.  Thankfully, the ten minutes went by more quickly than I had anticipated, and I was able to return to my seat. However, I was stunned when my speech professor began her critique.  According to the instructor, I had a severe problem with a "Southern twang which would definitely work against success in life."  Furthermore, the most acceptable accent, the class was told, was Midwestern English, such as that spoken by Walter Cronkite  And so began my evening vigil before the TV in the dorm lounge, where I tuned in to the CBS News with Walter Cronkite and intently struggled to bend my accent into a semblance of Walter's acceptable Midwestern English.  Now that I think back on that experience, I am acutely culturally offended!

Early on in my college career, those who got to know me knew that, like many with a Southern heritage, I honored my ancestors and was proud of my great-grandfather and his two brothers, who rode with Company H of the 7th Missouri Confederate Cavalry.  In investigating family history, there was no indication that my relatives owned slaves;  but, rather, their involvement was as a result of Federal depredations and campaigns in and around their home town, coupled with resentment toward long-standing Federal tendencies to curtail states' rights.  When anyone even implies that my great-grandfather and his brothers were traitors, racists and criminals, I am acutely culturally offended!

Having spent a long-running career in higher education, I distinctly remember when it became the fashionable thing to have Black History Month, Hispanic History Month, or even Women's History Month.  For the life of me, I could never figure out what might have been wrong with having just a plain old American History Month.  But with the way fads take off in the education world, might we not hope, in all fairness, to have Anglo History Month, Italian History Month, Polish History Month, or perhaps Men's History Month?  So, when I am exposed to special groups having their special months and find that my group is left out in the cold, so to speak, I am acutely culturally offended!

Like many who heeded the Obama siren song, with its "bring us togetherish" lyrics, I cast my vote in 2008, hoping that a black president would be the ticket to enhancing national unity.  However, not far into Obama's first administration, it became crystal clear that togetherness was not what he had in mind. In fact, we are farther from being brought together than at any time in my recollection. Furthermore, presidential pronouncements and speeches revealed a president who was poorly prepared, especially in his grasp of the history of  world culture, language and politics, areas that could make or break foreign policy.  Thus, when I hear individuals insinuate that, owing to my opposition to the Obama administration, I must be a racist, I am acutely culturally offended!

Growing up, I was taught that church was a place to go to worship.  Consequently, I was expected to present myself in a respectful manner, in both my appearance and demeanor, and follow the order of worship in harmony with other worshipers. However, today, church has become a noisy place, sometimes even habituated by people wearing short pants and carrying water bottles to the pews.  Parents seem more likely, also, not to control raucous outbursts from their children, who spoil any chance of a meditational atmosphere for others. For this, I am acutely culturally offended!

Church was also a place where the Gospel was preached and not politicized according to the hot-button issues of the day. However, lately, I have even seen parishes of the denomination with which I am affiliated flying the LGBT Rainbow flag in front of their churches.  And even the presiding bishop of my denomination, Katherine Jeffords Schorri, cavorts in vestments and  a mitre displaying the Rainbow flag colors. Whatever happened to the regular colors of vestments according to the canonical year and the standard Christian flag? Bishop Katherine (aka "Rainbow Girl") and her minions have made me feel acutely culturally offended!

As one who taught college-level courses in Western civilization, American history and in the Middle Ages and Renaissance and Reformation, and who spent an eternity in university libraries researching and reading, there was no doubt that Western civilization, and particularly that side of it as represented by the United States, was exceptional.  In other words, all civilizations are not created equal.  But, now, we hear from on high that we are no more exceptional than Third World societies which have barely struggled from unenlightened existences into the 21st century.  And, even more preposterously, systems of law, economics and politics masquerading as religion but with a 15th century mentality are regularly spoken of as being on a level with the oldest continuously functioning constitution in the history of the world, the United States Constitution.  In this regard, I am acutely culturally offended!

For the past 7 or 8 years, I have noticed an increasing number of obese, tatooed, barely dressed individuals paying for groceries with food stamp cards in grocery store lines.  Invariably, many of these folks display attitudes of "You owe me!"  And, also invariably, they will exit the supermarket to automobiles equipped with mobile sound amplification systems, from which they proceed to pollute the airwaves with high-decibel bass poundings of ear-shattering, aboriginal-style "music."  Yes, and because of these "new barbarians," I am acutely culturally offended!

This litany of cultural offense could continue indefinitely; however, as it now stands, it would seem to make a sufficiently compelling case that I have been acutely culturally offended.  Thus, I am now able to join the increasingly numerous American tribalists in their never-ending chorus of "YOU OWE ME!"