Royal Weddings and Birth Certificates

This week, the British monarchy took part in royal fanfare, fully asserting their role as the world's ultimate Brits. On the other side of the pond, an American president went on national TV, just to prove he is American.

It was quite the juxtaposition. The Mother Country, steeped in tradition, reaffirming its commitment to pomp, circumstance, and national unity. America, toying with tribalism, conspiracy theories, and race-baiting. A high paired with a low, both must-see TV.

What makes one nation cling dutifully to its figureheads, and the other have theirs jump through pointless hoops?

For one, the monarchs have no responsibilities as heads of government. They exist to stand around and look regal, wear fancy hats and remind Britain of past empire. They are meant to be nothing more than symbols. But our American president serves both as head of state and head of government. He's an elected king, and while he gets to preside over state dinners and such, he also has to deal with the dirty game of running a country full of political parties and splintered interest groups, deficits and wars, cable news and sound bytes.

This makes things difficult. He will never make everyone happy. There will be nothing like "Long live the Queen" for Barack Obama. And it's almost fair, that to a certain extent, discord and anger should perpetually surround an American president, at least from the side of his opposition.

But this week was different. The climax of Birthergate wasn't just political. It touched at the very core of the American struggle: what exactly "American" means and who gets to fit that definition.

Our nation's founding was an exercise in the rejection of strict rules of royalty, class and religion. It was a middle finger to British rigidity and what our founders thought were pointless rules and traditions. And of course, that whole taxation without representation thing.

Over time, the American experiment became the British monarchy's antithesis, the idea that you weren't born into your place in life. The belief that anyone could be anything.

Of course we know that that has not always been true. Our history has been an ongoing struggle to give that "right to be anything you want to be" to more and more marginalized groups: immigrants, women, the disabled, minorities, gays and lesbians.

But that anti-monarchical belief has been what's made America, at least as an ideal, so inspiring.

Which is why this week is so upsetting. We are reminded not of our great American ideal in this latest saga, but confronted with our lingering obsession with the "other," and our need for them to prove themselves and their very fitness to be fully American. Centuries ago, immigrants had to change their last names and quickly lose their accents to become White and American. A Civil War was fought, and decades of political and legal struggles endured to determine that Black people could actually be full citizens who worked for pay and got to vote. Women struggled for suffrage and still fight for the right to equal pay. And even today, Brown people in the American Southwest, citizen or not, might soon be forced to have their papers on them at all times, just to avoid detention and deportation.

We are a nation full of hoops.

The other has always had more to prove. More to fight for. A longer path to full American-ness.

For some, Barack Obama, even though he is our president, represents that other. His name is "funny." His father is foreign. He may or may not be Muslim, or the Antichrist, or a chain-smoking unicorn who "pals around with terrorists."

For those, there should be hoops. He needs to prove he's one of... whatever it is they think they are.

The Brits, through their monarchs, have always known exactly what they are, at least romantically, symbolically, in an archetypal sense. Prince William is a royal. Kate Middleton is a commoner. Their marriage made them the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. And that's that.

Not so for Barack. He is our nation's leader, it's ultimate representative, and at the same time, millions in this country don't know exactly what he represents. A poor kid who made it from food stamps to Harvard, or a wealthy liberal elitist. A Black man who went to a crazy Black Christian church that hated White people, or a Muslim who studied in a madrassa. A man whose election and presidency is a sign of national progress, or someone whose ongoing otherness reveals the worst about America.  

And in the best and worst sense, that is the American way. Not having a monarch means that roles our figureheads occupy are more fluid. Heads of state can be questioned, everything can be challenged. But just because scrutiny of an American president is justified, the level of that scrutiny, and the often sinister motives behind it, are not.

That undue scrutiny is a symptom of America's relationship with the other. It makes us ask female politicians if they can handle running for office and raising children at the same time. It makes us force our leaders to go to church and talk about their religion. It made us ask Sotomayor if she could be both a "wise Latina" and a fair Supreme Court justice.

It makes some of us want to see Barack Obama's birth certificate.

It is a reality, even if it is wrong.

But in weeks like this, I don't want reality, when London is full of centuries-old fantasy, and carriages and boys choruses and big, gravity defying hats. I'd rather do without America's complex treatment of its current leader. For at least a day, I'd like there to be a parade. With a band and police on horseback. And a kiss on a balcony. And throngs waving at people who knew exactly where they fit, and who they are, and who are loved for that very reason.

Some days, I don't want to fight over who gets to be what. Or confront existential crises of American identity. Some days I want it easy.

Some days, I'd rather have a king.