Are you a real American? If you’re an American citizen, I’m sure you’re ready to quickly reply in the affirmative. But don’t be so quick with your response. As Sarah Palin and others have made clear over the last few weeks, there aren’t so many left.

On Oct. 16, Palin stated: “We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation … This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans.”

How much more moronic can this woman get? “Pockets of pro-America areas?” I tend to believe that all of America can be pro-America. Red state or blue state, Republican, Democrat or Independent, Americans can all love America and support its promises. No, we don’t have to pretend that we believe that the country is getting better in the face of an economic collapse and a vacuum of congressional and presidential leadership, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still love America.

But perhaps I should pipe down, as I surely don’t fall under Palin’s definition of a real American. Though my ancestors lived in New York well before the Revolutionary War — a stark contrast to Palin’s own husband, who from 1995 to 2002 belonged to the Alaska Independence Party, whose Web site lists its mission as promoting “state’s rights through a return to territorial status, all the way to complete independence and nationhood status for Alaska” — I am not from a small town, and I do not currently grow my food or work in our factories. We do not have, and should not be led to believe, that we have a two-part America of those who love it and those who do not.

Yet my hope for a quick fade-away of Palin’s comments was unmet. Michele Bachmann, a Republican congressperson from Minnesota, legitimized Palin’s words the day after her speech. As she said, “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? People would love to see that.”

What I would love to see is this congressperson lose her seat. In questioning the members of Congress, she is really questioning all of the Americans they represent. Maybe we can just label Bachmann as someone who took Palin’s comment too far, and be glad that the McCain team did not take things further.

But they did. As McCain’s main spokesperson, Nancy Pfotenhauer, commented on the presidential race in Virginia, “I can tell you that the Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into northern Virginia … but the rest of the state, the ‘real Virginia,’ if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message.” This only makes things worse, revealing what Palin had only said between the lines: That real, pro-Americans are Republicans, while fake, anti-Americans are Democrats.

As laudable Representative John Lewis of Georgia, which would seem to be a pro-America state in Palin’s mind, said, the McCain campaign is “sowing the seeds of hatred and division,” just as the staunchly racist governor of Alabama, George Wallace, did back in the 1960s.

The racism of pro-America is there, right at the rallies, as some words from an Al-Jazeera interview video of “real Americans” at a Palin rally in Ohio illustrate:

“I’m afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over.”

“He’s related to a known terrorist.”

“Just the whole Muslim thing … a lot of people have forgotten about 9/11 … but I dunno.”

“He thinks us white people are trash.”

Is this how we want our country to appear to the rest of the world, especially the Muslim world, where we are decrying ethnic strife and allegedly spreading equality? I hope not, and I hope that McCain will speak up before it’s too late, as he commendably did to the woman who said that she was afraid of an Obama presidency because he is Arab.

I also hope that American citizens will not buy into this notion of a divided America, in which all America-loving Republicans have to live in small towns and be racist, and all America-hating Democrats have to live in cities and be wholehearted socialists. We can be whatever we want — just not racist.

Of course, this might all seem like something foreign, as small-town Ames and greater Iowa are full of very pro-America, non-racist Democrats and Republicans. But no state is immune. Just last Saturday, at the football game, I overheard a gentleman say to another that “we better watch out if Obama gets all them n—-rs to vote.”

I am ashamed to admit it, but I did not turn around and say anything. Although I pride myself on being a real “real American,” a citizen who supports democracy, freedom and equality, I just kind of froze. If given another chance, I hope that I will not do so again. Speaking up against such racism, or refusing to buy into the divisiveness that the McCain-Palin team is spreading, is what being a real American is all about.

— Steve Adams is a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Annapolis, Md.