what does it mean?

[cos]

Please comment on this post before you read anyone else's comments.

This weekend, I saw a bumper sticker that said,
Straight, White, English-Speaking
Proud American
For a moment, I was offended ... then I started thinking of several different possible intentions, meanings, and contexts for this slogan. After a bit of confusion, I settled on curiosity. What does it mean? What did the people who sold it intend for it to convey, and what did the person who put it on their car intend to say by it? I can think of several different possibilities or nuances, and maybe there are more.

So tell me, what do you read in this bumper sticker slogan? And if, like me, you see several possibilities, which one came first, before you thought about it?

Comments

[soulchanger.livejournal.com]

It appears to me to be an equivalent sticker to the multitudes of other stickers proclaiming the racial, sexual, or linguistic identities of the car's driver. I would assume, upon seeing it, that the owner of the sticker sees ample reason to be proud of who and what he is despite the fact that he or she is of the "oppressing" class of people in our country. To be offended by such a sticker is equivalent to a gay pride sticker - it suggests that one does not believe that straight white male English speakers should advertise their identity.

I personally do not find any of these things things to be proud of. I am proud of my accomplisments and my choices. Being white is not something you can choose or accomplish. Being straight might be, depending on who you ask, and speaking English is something you can choose or accomplish but it is likely for the sticker bearer that English was not a choice but a default. I am proud to speak English as well as I do, but not that I can speak it at all.

Of course, it is possible that the sticker is simply satirizing the other stickers, or satirizing the fact that straight white English-speakers act like they are fast becoming the minority, or satirizing almost anything. And it is also possible that the sticker represents a distaste for people who are not members of these groups, although, I would not assume so.

Upon a third reading it occurs to me that "Proud American" might refer to the fact that many people in our nation don't like America or are not proud to be Americans.

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

I'll second this notion. See my post deep down. I note you identify as conservative -- I identify as liberal.