Why I have Trouble Rooting for Team USA

Now. There is a partial hesitation to rooting for Team USA for the World Cup because well, I feel there is a level of insincerity about it. We don’t have the avid fan base. We don’t have the people who count every game. We don’t have the hooligans (which is probably a good thing) or the WAGs or the craze that other countries do. It would be like someone winning a contest and then just tossing the prize away at the end—there is pride in winning it, but ultimately the country searches onward.

This first tenant does avoid the feelings of the actual team. Our team is a team, my friend K was right to point out, that never gets the love and affection that other teams get. So, this would be everything to them. So yes, there is that, and to say that they don’t deserve it because we as a country might not deserve it is rude and unfair to the players, but the true reason I find rooting for Team USA comes from a different place entirely.

There are people in the states who firmly believe that America is the best place in the world, that there is no other place that comes close to the perfection that is the current American state. It comes from the idea of the American dream, that you can be whatever you want to if you work hard enough. It comes from the idea of the Founding Fathers actions when they decided to leave something they saw as wrong. It also comes from blunt arrogance and ignorance and an inability to break out of a severe myopic view of the world. I hate these people.

Yes, I do have pride in being an America. My abuelo immigrated here when he was 17 and did give his family more opportunities and chances (see my cousin: Nora Campos, next assemblywoman for California). My grandfather fought in WWII and Korea and was proud of his country. I have pride in being from here, but I also have the knowledge to see the flaws in our country. I have the ability to hold two somewhat contradictory ideas inside at once (doublethink) and not get mad or confused or even get heartburn about it.

I love America.

I also think we have to change to keep being good, and that to revert to old ways is never the best idea.

So, left-leaning politics aside, I see the grandeur in America, and in being American, but I try to hold back the blanket statements of “the best” and “the greatest” and “none other.” This is a society put together by people. People are flawed. The society will be inherently flawed.

So, it’s with this idea that I turn back to the big fan of any Team USA sport (not just the World Cup). It seems that these fans are so often the same people who are blinded by the pablum that has been offered from Day One of public school: America can do no wrong. America can do no wrong and it is our duty to show everyone how awesome we truly are. America! Fuck yeah! Number One!

And I find it disgusting.

Cocky American emperialism has created a world with a MacDonald's or Starbucks on every corner and Wal-Mart products in every household, to the (supposed) benefit of America and the detriment to other countries. It is a hatred of "The Man" that divides me. How can I view with pride something that I abhor?

And unfortunately, I can't seem to differentiate these small-minded people from the fans in the stands, when they are both shouting the cheers of the States, I fail to see them as anything but those simpletons. And that is unfair to them. And it is unfair to the team.

But for us to win, I almost feel as if we are continuing our Scorched Earth policy and taking everything that was someone else's and turning it to our own. It is sports afterall. They aren't capitalist trying to take over. They are just playing a game. A game I love in a contest I love even more.

K, whose father used to work with the USA World Cup team, has pointed out again and again how I am unjustly applying these prejudicies to players who have nothing to do with that. They just want to play. They want to play for the country they live in, and I should stop being a crazy poltical person and just enjoy and support.

And so, today on the cusp of the first Knockout round game with good ol' USA, I will be cheering and supporting those men. For K, and for the parts of America I like, I'll eagerly await every kick and goal, every shiny head butt and every piece of fancy footwork. But, don’t expect me to join in and resounding cheer of “U! S! A! U! S! A! U! S! A!” Now if only I could get my hands on a vuvuzela...