WHAT’S WRONG WITH BEING SMART? by Libba Bray
Libba Bray is the New York Times bestselling author of the Gemma Doyle trilogy.
What's Wrong with Being Smart?
Like some of my compatriots here, I grew up a Christian. My father was a Presbyterian minister, and he and my mother were supporters of the civil rights movement. They were weekend activists. “Community organizers” of a sort. My mother fought against Union Carbide when they polluted her beloved hills of West Virginia. We boycotted Nestle because they sent tainted baby formula to third world nations, and my mother explained to me why I could not have Nestle’s Quik. I was standing in our green-and-white kitchen one day when my father, having heard someone use a racial epithet, explained to me why words like that were hurtful. “If I ever hear you use those words, Martha Elizabeth” he said, using my full name so I would understand the importance of his admonition. “I will wear your bottom out.”
Taking responsibility, both for yourself and your fellow human beings, was an important lesson—in my home, in m school, my neighborhood, and in my church, where an organized militia of old ladies in hats and going-to-services gloves were happy to let you know what would and would not fly on their watch. I remain grateful for their benevolent, if occasionally annoying, interference even if I have fallen woefully short of the mark myself on too many occasions to count. I was helped to understand that not everyone gets the same opportunities. That it’s hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don’t have any boots. I was taught the lessons of the New Testament as my parents interpreted them: compassion, understanding, a call to do your best, to help others and make the world a better, fairer place. I was taught to understand that what helps you helps me also. That we’re in this together. All of us.
In my neighborhood, we had names like Rodriguez and Ramos and Celeski. Some of the kids were first-generation Americans whose parents spoke Spanish at home. All of us were expected to work hard to make something of ourselves, to become educated and grab our piece of the American Dream, which we believed in—and why not? Above us, astronauts—these symbols of a new hope—hung weightless in the sky and touched down on a moon that now seemed within reach for every one of us, making so much more seem within reach. For a brief time, the impossible was shelved.
Education was paramount. How can you understand and find your place in the world if you don’t actually know about the larger world? The working class parents of my neighborhood expected their kids to study and expand their minds, to get ahead and move up, to surpass them. They wanted the best for their kids. Being smart was something to be proud of. It was a goal.
I know that we are here to speak of Senator Obama, and why I support his candidacy. Bear with me. The “past is prologue,” as Shakespeare tells us.
I tell you all this because it’s 2008, and I keep asking myself this: What’s wrong with being smart? When did wanting to become well-read and knowledgeable about the world become a bad thing? Something that marks you as somehow not a “real” American but as an “elitist” as Senator Obama has been painted? When did feeling a compassionate commitment to other human beings—human beings who may be different from who we are—fall by the wayside? When did it become okay to be a “dumb” American?
This baffles and frustrates me.
Personally, I don’t need a President I can have a beer with. Lots of my friends can drink beer, and not one of them could get us out of this financial crisis or the trouble in Iraq. That’s why I want the smartest person in the room to be my president. And Senator Barack Obama is the smartest person in the room right now. “I’d vote for him just BECAUSE he’s elitist!” my mother said. (My mother, I should tell you, is a retired teacher.)
Over the past eight years, we lost our way as a nation. We were frightened and vulnerable, and we allowed ourselves to be misled. To have our fears played. To play dumb. It is has been policy for the Bush administration and the Republican Party to pander to the worst in us. To fan the flames of xenophobia and isolate us further from the rest of the world. It has become a rallying cry during this election to celebrate “Joe Sixpack” and to use that as code for a working class voting block that, frankly, the Republicans don’t seem to think much of. The truth is, many of the policies they advocate—deregulation, smaller government, private healthcare, the continuing of the Iraq War—hurt rather than help the working class.
Frankly, this is an affront to Americans. It’s an affront to those working class parents from my neighborhood who worked hard to educate their children. It’s an affront to the citizens of today who are worried about paying their mortgages and sending their kids to college and holding on to their jobs during massive layoffs, not whether or not they can be given a cute moniker. It is, in essence, saying to them, “There’s no need to try. To strive. To change. Just stay where you are. Those other guys have funny names, for Pete’s sake. They’re elitists! They’re not like you and me.”
Here’s the subtext: “We don’t expect much of you, anyway.”
How insulting and infantilizing. How cynical. How wrong.
To me, it’s the equivalent of soma, the anesthetizing drug given to the citizens in Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD. It’s about us versus them in our own country. It’s about suspicion and fear, and fear is the enemy of progress. Of hope. Of vision. The parents in my neighborhood knew that.
I prefer Senator Obama’s call to action: “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington…I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
Yes. Thank you.
Senator Obama’s plan makes us, the American people, partners in this future. It entrusts us with the care of our country and our fellow citizens rather than placating us with empty, unrealistic, we-won’t-have-to-change-a-thing promises. Let’s be honest—we’re going to have to change how we live and think. We’re going to have to make some tough choices and some sacrifices. We’re in a rough place right now. As rough as I’ve ever seen it. The American Dream feels like it is out of reach for many people. And the world is changing. We must meet those changes or fall away.
But this is also an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to shape the future. To think expansively, as if shooting for the moon were once again the goal. I would like to see us really enter the 21st century with vision and hope and a plan for safeguarding the environment, for educating our children so that they can be not only citizens of the United States but citizens of the world.
I want a president who makes a solid commitment to that future in terms of an energy policy that focuses on renewable energy sources, advancing biofuels, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and creating a “clean energy economy” with five million new jobs.
I want a president who recognizes that universal healthcare is a right, not a privilege, and who is dedicated to healthcare reform. The majority of bankruptcies in America come from overwhelming medical bills, and most of those people are insured. I can say from personal experience, as a self-employed family, that our insurance premium per month costs us more than our mortgage—and that’s a New York City mortgage—yet my for-profit insurance carrier has reduced our coverage—we’ve had to drop prescription drug, dental, and vision because we couldn’t afford them. And they fight us on every single bill, once refusing to pay for my artificial eye because it was “cosmetic.” Trust me when I say we need healthcare reform.
I want a president who will make college more affordable for most families in the form of tax credits and a community service-for-tuition reimbursement plan. Education has always been a cornerstone of Senator Obama’s beliefs. In fact, his first bill increased the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100. I went to college on a Pell Grant, so I know firsthand how this helps ease the burden.
I want a president who commits to the future of America by expanding Head Start, which has faced budget cuts in the past few years. A president who will reform the deficiencies of No Child Left Behind by allowing teachers to teach again and helping students to learn to think rather than learn to cram for state tests. Investing in education is never a cynical act; it shows you believe in the future of your nation, because, as Whitney Houston once sang, “I believe the children are our future,” and I promise that is the only Whitney Houston reference I will make.
I want a president who will help us repair our strained friendships with the rest of the world and restore our reputation by reaching out rather than striking out.
I want a president who will make sure that Wall Street, oil companies, and large corporations will be regulated and held accountable, that people like my mother or my in-laws, who are retired or close to retirement age and living on fixed incomes or running small businesses, will not have their life’s savings wiped out—life’s savings which they entrusted to the care of those Wall Street companies whose CEOs take vacations in the midst of economic meltdown.
I want a president who believes in the fair shake. The level playing field. A president who might have experienced discrimination firsthand and so understands in his gut that the world is only just when we make it just. I want a president who will make an investment in the people and in programs that serve the people. A president with a plan to end the war in Iraq and bring home our troops who have already sacrificed so much. I want to know that our government will be honorable and respect their service by providing them with decent VA hospitals and proper care once they have returned to us.
I want us to move forward, not slide backward. I want the smart one to win.
I’ve had time to think about this a lot. For the past two weeks, I traveled through Germany and Italy on a book tour. Everywhere I went, I was asked about the elections. About Obama. “Germany is 90% for Obama,” one teen told me. “We don’t understand how your election can be so close.” Another said, “Who you elect affects us all. I think we should get a vote, too.”
Word.
Three days later, I stood inside a hall at the U.S. Embassy in Rome talking to a group of 140 Italian teenagers, a long way from the tract house of my childhood in Corpus Christi, Texas. One of the students raised his hand and asked me how I felt about the elections, about the time now in the United States.
“This is probably not the place to ask you,” he said nervously.
“No, it’s the perfect place to ask me,” I answered, even though I felt a little nervous myself. “I’m for Senator Obama. And I’ll tell you why.”
I talked for a minute or two about George Bush’s presidency and how decisions were made during that administration with which I deeply disagreed, that I was critical of my government during this time, attending marches and protests. I talked about dissent being a patriotic act. But, I said, the important thing was that I was able to do that in my country. I had the freedom to criticize my government when I disagreed with it, and that was important to know about America, too.
“After 9/11, my country was in a state of shock and mourning…” I began. I talked from the heart—that I felt our country’s grief had been exploited and used to justify some pretty dodgy things, some stupid, un-American things. But that now it was time to walk away from our grief and our anger, our fear, and look to the future and that I felt Senator Obama would help to take us there.
I believe fundamentally in the strength of our people. In the expansiveness of our vision. In the bottomless reserves of our hope. The American Dream. It is a dream worth having, worth sharing, worth striving for. We deserve a president who honors that goodness, that strength, that optimism, and not someone who will cynically pander to the worst in us: our fears and prejudices, the things that divide us or keep us from reaching higher. I want a president who respects how smart we are. A president who makes us want to be even smarter.
After all, this is the world you will inherit. The world my son will inherit. It is a world we will have to fight for, a world worth fighting for, but it will take struggle and sacrifice, hard work and vision, a belief in tomorrow and not a fearful glance at the past.
What's Wrong with Being Smart?
Like some of my compatriots here, I grew up a Christian. My father was a Presbyterian minister, and he and my mother were supporters of the civil rights movement. They were weekend activists. “Community organizers” of a sort. My mother fought against Union Carbide when they polluted her beloved hills of West Virginia. We boycotted Nestle because they sent tainted baby formula to third world nations, and my mother explained to me why I could not have Nestle’s Quik. I was standing in our green-and-white kitchen one day when my father, having heard someone use a racial epithet, explained to me why words like that were hurtful. “If I ever hear you use those words, Martha Elizabeth” he said, using my full name so I would understand the importance of his admonition. “I will wear your bottom out.”
Taking responsibility, both for yourself and your fellow human beings, was an important lesson—in my home, in m school, my neighborhood, and in my church, where an organized militia of old ladies in hats and going-to-services gloves were happy to let you know what would and would not fly on their watch. I remain grateful for their benevolent, if occasionally annoying, interference even if I have fallen woefully short of the mark myself on too many occasions to count. I was helped to understand that not everyone gets the same opportunities. That it’s hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don’t have any boots. I was taught the lessons of the New Testament as my parents interpreted them: compassion, understanding, a call to do your best, to help others and make the world a better, fairer place. I was taught to understand that what helps you helps me also. That we’re in this together. All of us.
In my neighborhood, we had names like Rodriguez and Ramos and Celeski. Some of the kids were first-generation Americans whose parents spoke Spanish at home. All of us were expected to work hard to make something of ourselves, to become educated and grab our piece of the American Dream, which we believed in—and why not? Above us, astronauts—these symbols of a new hope—hung weightless in the sky and touched down on a moon that now seemed within reach for every one of us, making so much more seem within reach. For a brief time, the impossible was shelved.
Education was paramount. How can you understand and find your place in the world if you don’t actually know about the larger world? The working class parents of my neighborhood expected their kids to study and expand their minds, to get ahead and move up, to surpass them. They wanted the best for their kids. Being smart was something to be proud of. It was a goal.
I know that we are here to speak of Senator Obama, and why I support his candidacy. Bear with me. The “past is prologue,” as Shakespeare tells us.
I tell you all this because it’s 2008, and I keep asking myself this: What’s wrong with being smart? When did wanting to become well-read and knowledgeable about the world become a bad thing? Something that marks you as somehow not a “real” American but as an “elitist” as Senator Obama has been painted? When did feeling a compassionate commitment to other human beings—human beings who may be different from who we are—fall by the wayside? When did it become okay to be a “dumb” American?
This baffles and frustrates me.
Personally, I don’t need a President I can have a beer with. Lots of my friends can drink beer, and not one of them could get us out of this financial crisis or the trouble in Iraq. That’s why I want the smartest person in the room to be my president. And Senator Barack Obama is the smartest person in the room right now. “I’d vote for him just BECAUSE he’s elitist!” my mother said. (My mother, I should tell you, is a retired teacher.)
Over the past eight years, we lost our way as a nation. We were frightened and vulnerable, and we allowed ourselves to be misled. To have our fears played. To play dumb. It is has been policy for the Bush administration and the Republican Party to pander to the worst in us. To fan the flames of xenophobia and isolate us further from the rest of the world. It has become a rallying cry during this election to celebrate “Joe Sixpack” and to use that as code for a working class voting block that, frankly, the Republicans don’t seem to think much of. The truth is, many of the policies they advocate—deregulation, smaller government, private healthcare, the continuing of the Iraq War—hurt rather than help the working class.
Frankly, this is an affront to Americans. It’s an affront to those working class parents from my neighborhood who worked hard to educate their children. It’s an affront to the citizens of today who are worried about paying their mortgages and sending their kids to college and holding on to their jobs during massive layoffs, not whether or not they can be given a cute moniker. It is, in essence, saying to them, “There’s no need to try. To strive. To change. Just stay where you are. Those other guys have funny names, for Pete’s sake. They’re elitists! They’re not like you and me.”
Here’s the subtext: “We don’t expect much of you, anyway.”
How insulting and infantilizing. How cynical. How wrong.
To me, it’s the equivalent of soma, the anesthetizing drug given to the citizens in Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD. It’s about us versus them in our own country. It’s about suspicion and fear, and fear is the enemy of progress. Of hope. Of vision. The parents in my neighborhood knew that.
I prefer Senator Obama’s call to action: “I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington…I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
Yes. Thank you.
Senator Obama’s plan makes us, the American people, partners in this future. It entrusts us with the care of our country and our fellow citizens rather than placating us with empty, unrealistic, we-won’t-have-to-change-a-thing promises. Let’s be honest—we’re going to have to change how we live and think. We’re going to have to make some tough choices and some sacrifices. We’re in a rough place right now. As rough as I’ve ever seen it. The American Dream feels like it is out of reach for many people. And the world is changing. We must meet those changes or fall away.
But this is also an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to shape the future. To think expansively, as if shooting for the moon were once again the goal. I would like to see us really enter the 21st century with vision and hope and a plan for safeguarding the environment, for educating our children so that they can be not only citizens of the United States but citizens of the world.
I want a president who makes a solid commitment to that future in terms of an energy policy that focuses on renewable energy sources, advancing biofuels, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and creating a “clean energy economy” with five million new jobs.
I want a president who recognizes that universal healthcare is a right, not a privilege, and who is dedicated to healthcare reform. The majority of bankruptcies in America come from overwhelming medical bills, and most of those people are insured. I can say from personal experience, as a self-employed family, that our insurance premium per month costs us more than our mortgage—and that’s a New York City mortgage—yet my for-profit insurance carrier has reduced our coverage—we’ve had to drop prescription drug, dental, and vision because we couldn’t afford them. And they fight us on every single bill, once refusing to pay for my artificial eye because it was “cosmetic.” Trust me when I say we need healthcare reform.
I want a president who will make college more affordable for most families in the form of tax credits and a community service-for-tuition reimbursement plan. Education has always been a cornerstone of Senator Obama’s beliefs. In fact, his first bill increased the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100. I went to college on a Pell Grant, so I know firsthand how this helps ease the burden.
I want a president who commits to the future of America by expanding Head Start, which has faced budget cuts in the past few years. A president who will reform the deficiencies of No Child Left Behind by allowing teachers to teach again and helping students to learn to think rather than learn to cram for state tests. Investing in education is never a cynical act; it shows you believe in the future of your nation, because, as Whitney Houston once sang, “I believe the children are our future,” and I promise that is the only Whitney Houston reference I will make.
I want a president who will help us repair our strained friendships with the rest of the world and restore our reputation by reaching out rather than striking out.
I want a president who will make sure that Wall Street, oil companies, and large corporations will be regulated and held accountable, that people like my mother or my in-laws, who are retired or close to retirement age and living on fixed incomes or running small businesses, will not have their life’s savings wiped out—life’s savings which they entrusted to the care of those Wall Street companies whose CEOs take vacations in the midst of economic meltdown.
I want a president who believes in the fair shake. The level playing field. A president who might have experienced discrimination firsthand and so understands in his gut that the world is only just when we make it just. I want a president who will make an investment in the people and in programs that serve the people. A president with a plan to end the war in Iraq and bring home our troops who have already sacrificed so much. I want to know that our government will be honorable and respect their service by providing them with decent VA hospitals and proper care once they have returned to us.
I want us to move forward, not slide backward. I want the smart one to win.
I’ve had time to think about this a lot. For the past two weeks, I traveled through Germany and Italy on a book tour. Everywhere I went, I was asked about the elections. About Obama. “Germany is 90% for Obama,” one teen told me. “We don’t understand how your election can be so close.” Another said, “Who you elect affects us all. I think we should get a vote, too.”
Word.
Three days later, I stood inside a hall at the U.S. Embassy in Rome talking to a group of 140 Italian teenagers, a long way from the tract house of my childhood in Corpus Christi, Texas. One of the students raised his hand and asked me how I felt about the elections, about the time now in the United States.
“This is probably not the place to ask you,” he said nervously.
“No, it’s the perfect place to ask me,” I answered, even though I felt a little nervous myself. “I’m for Senator Obama. And I’ll tell you why.”
I talked for a minute or two about George Bush’s presidency and how decisions were made during that administration with which I deeply disagreed, that I was critical of my government during this time, attending marches and protests. I talked about dissent being a patriotic act. But, I said, the important thing was that I was able to do that in my country. I had the freedom to criticize my government when I disagreed with it, and that was important to know about America, too.
“After 9/11, my country was in a state of shock and mourning…” I began. I talked from the heart—that I felt our country’s grief had been exploited and used to justify some pretty dodgy things, some stupid, un-American things. But that now it was time to walk away from our grief and our anger, our fear, and look to the future and that I felt Senator Obama would help to take us there.
I believe fundamentally in the strength of our people. In the expansiveness of our vision. In the bottomless reserves of our hope. The American Dream. It is a dream worth having, worth sharing, worth striving for. We deserve a president who honors that goodness, that strength, that optimism, and not someone who will cynically pander to the worst in us: our fears and prejudices, the things that divide us or keep us from reaching higher. I want a president who respects how smart we are. A president who makes us want to be even smarter.
After all, this is the world you will inherit. The world my son will inherit. It is a world we will have to fight for, a world worth fighting for, but it will take struggle and sacrifice, hard work and vision, a belief in tomorrow and not a fearful glance at the past.
Add a Comment
20 Comments
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Comment by Zara on November 15, 2008 at 10:32pm - Oh, and sorry that this is my second comment in about two seconds, but I just wanted to say that there are Catholics that voted for Obama (I'm Catholic). In fact, there's an entire website devoted to Catholics for Obama. Just so you all know. :)
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Comment by Zara on November 15, 2008 at 10:29pm
- YES! Thanks so much for writing this...I don't understand why people would want a president or vice-president that is 'just like them'. Personally, I want a president who's at least 200x smarter than me and can actually use coherent English. Like your mom said: I'd vote for Obama just because he was elitist. Besides, isn't elite--in every other sense of the word--something we strive for as a culture? Don't we all want elite doctors, dentists, airplane engineers, pharmacists, and architects because they'll know what they're doing? So why not elite politicians? Because we don't want our government to function properly? Sometimes I think a frightening amount of Americans have completely lost touch with what's actually going on.
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Comment by Paula Chase Hyman on November 5, 2008 at 12:54pm - I'm reeling b/c I've read so many hurtful, narrow-minded comments on various sites today. This article is balm for my soul. I don't usually hide among people who only agree with me, but right now it's comforting to be around those who "get it."
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Comment by Chelsea S. on November 5, 2008 at 3:01am - I love this post. I want a president who has a much higher IQ than me. I'm sick of presidential candidates saying "oh, I'm normal" NO you're not! You're running for president! That's not normal. Which is ok. Because I want my president to be smart & educated & basically I want him or her to blow me away with how incredibly smart & prepared they are to be president. Because I know that no one I know that is "normal" is ready or smart enough to be president.
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Comment by tallpoppy on November 4, 2008 at 5:53pm - Well said! I don't want for the next President to be friends with the citizens of America, I want him to be able to lead America.
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Comment by Maria D on November 4, 2008 at 1:51pm - Brava!!! Most job applications I've seen have a part that tests whether or not you're compatible with the job you're after. If the presidential elections are going to be treated like a popularity contest, with no regard given to intelligence, qualifications, or compatability, I say that everyone should be allowed to be president for a day or two. If all you need to be a president is experrience fighting a war and the ability to have a beer with the American people, grab any vet off the street from any war and he or she can do the job. Their foreign policy experience will be at least a s valid as Sarah Palin's.
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Comment by L.K. Madigan on November 4, 2008 at 12:01pm -
Ahhhh.
This is the Libba Bray post I've been looking forward to since her short-lived blog rant four years ago, which I was lucky enough to read.
Thank you.
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Comment by Sarah Rees Brennan on November 3, 2008 at 6:23pm - Wonderful post, and absolutely bang-on that McCain's strategy is actually insulting people and then expecting them to vote for him.
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Comment by Melinda on November 3, 2008 at 6:22pm -
Well said!
He will be a great president! He won't be able to do it all while he is in the White House, but most importantly, he is going to help Americans help themselves and this will be what he is most remembered for. He is going to give the power back to the people and America will be a better place for that.
I simply wish I could make my support for Obama count but alas, I am Canadian. I hope that many people get out tomorrow and help make a difference!
Cheers ("Here's to America getting what it desperately needs—Leadership!")
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Comment by Mary Pleiss on November 3, 2008 at 5:59pm -
I agree, Ellen--no more fear. I have so many friends and family members whose reasons for voting for McCain and other Republican candidates boil right down to that. Some of their reasons are *not* fear-based, but many of them are, and I just...I can't live like that.
I don't know how any Catholic can vote to put Sarah Palin in arm's reach of the presidency. All the anti-abortion talk is lip service--I don't believe they'd really *do* anything--and yes, her church holds some very nasty views about Catholics.
I'm holding my breath, getting ready to scream--with joy, or with rage if they try to steal it. I've never been an activist before, but I've faced down a lot of fears to work for Obama this week. I'm not going to let it be for nothing.
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