What makes someone a true American?
You might say it’s the people someone associates with, the books they read or how driven they are to succeed. Perhaps you think they simply need to be human — in which case a quarter of LSU students, who are of non-white heritage, could be considered un-American.
Craig Paul Cobb, a 61-year-old in North Dakota, has publicly equated non-whites to farm animals.
The man is currently trying to turn Leith, N.D., a town of barely 30 residents, into Cobbsville — a place in which all its citizens would be “racially conscious,” also known as white supremacists. He’s already helped a few move in.
The reason he chose Leith over other towns is because all but one of its residents are white. The exception, black resident Bobby Harper, lives in Leith because of its sentimental importance to his wife.
The couple and Cobb met face-to-face for the first time on a recent episode of “The Trisha Goddard Show,” which is hosted by a black woman. When she asked Cobb what he thought about the interracial couple, he replied, “In Leith, it’s against the rules to have livestock.” After Sherrill Harper defended her husband, Cobb insulted her IQ level.
Additionally, the host showed some pre-recorded footage of Cobb giving a tour of the land he had bought. In it, Cobb pointed to the future jail and explained, “We’ll keep the non-humans here.”
As would be expected, many media outlets have been discussing this man’s plans.
None of the ones I have come across, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post, are asking the question I want answered: What environment created this man?
The pairing of this omission with Cobb’s mentality reveals just how scarce the concept of “life-education” is in our nation.
Looking back, I realize the only time a learning institution has taught me this concept was when it addressed how to deal with drugs through the D.A.R.E. program.
None of my teachers addressed how to deal with people.
And until the fifth grade, they didn’t need to. In those first years, I went to schools on military bases. I was used to being around children of varying skin tones and facial structures.
It was as if someone had placed us in an isolated white room. We learned the same things and played the same games. When the yellow girl with braces on her legs was “it” in a game of tag, we all made sure to run slower. There were no forces pushing us to think of any of our peers as vastly different from ourselves.
Only when I entered public school did I see a playground divided into black sectors and white sectors. Yet I saw my peers enjoying the same activities — basketball, bullying, gossiping and eating. People just practiced them separately.
A walk through the Quad will show you the same racial groupings.
This is why I fear Cobb’s vision of creating “white-nationalist intentional communities” across the world. I know humans enjoy the company of people like themselves. That makes sense. However, I see people, especially Southerners, being too narrow in their searches. We tend to exclude those of a different color or social class when we should include those of like hobbies, philosophies and life goals.
In my eyes, the ability to accept the best of another’s character is what makes someone a true American. Our country has the capacity to bring together various cultures, something I only see as a positive toolset in helping America move forward.
Alix Landriault is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Natchitoches, La.