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" I had heard so much negative talk about our generation, that we're slackers and young fogies, that I knew wasn't true of the people I know. "
Eric Liu
People
Negative
Generation
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" We tend to think of politics as bad, full of dirty tricks, negative ads, big campaigns, but I am here to explore the original meaning of politics, which is positive and has to do with balancing competing interests and looking for solutions. "
Eric Liu
I Am
Politics
Think
" What we should celebrate more than diversity is what we do with it. How do we bring everyone in the tent and create something together? In a twenty-first century way that activates our true potential, we all need to become sworn-again. "
Eric Liu
Celebrate
Together
Create
" After watching my first World Series in 1977, I wanted to be Reggie Jackson. I bought a big Reggie poster. I ate Reggie candy bars. I entered a phase during which I insisted on having the same style of glasses Reggie had: gold wire frames with the double bar across. "
Eric Liu
World
Style
Glasses
" Sometimes when I listen to fellow progressives, I wonder if the only lesson we took away from the '04 elections is that politics is a word game. "
Eric Liu
Game
Politics
Wonder
" The Boomers will eventually have to accept that it is not possible to stay forever young or to stop aging. But it is possible, by committing to show up for others in community after community, to earn a measure of immortality. "
Eric Liu
Community
Stop
Accept
" Much of our national debate proceeds as if China and America were locked in a zero-sum game in which one's loss is precisely the other's gain. "
Eric Liu
China
America
Debate
" Six decades ago, as Mao's Communists seized power, the question in Washington was, 'Who lost China?' Now, as his capitalist descendants stand astride the world stage and Washington worries about decline, it seems to be, 'Who lost America?' "
Eric Liu
Lost
Power
Now
" Americans need to call on Boomers, in their next act onstage, to behave like grown-ups. And there is no better way for them to do this than to guide young people to lives of greater meaning, effectiveness, and purpose. "
Eric Liu
Need
Better
Purpose
" It turns out umpires and judges are not robots or traffic cameras, inertly monitoring deviations from a fixed zone of the permissible. They are humans. "
Eric Liu
Traffic
Zone
Robots
" The Boomers have modeled a set of bad habits, and one grand gesture is not going to unwind all those bad habits. "
Eric Liu
Unwind
Habits
Bad
" Great numbers of Asian Americans do not fit the model minority or 'tiger family' stereotypes, living instead in multigenerational poverty far from the mainstream. "
Eric Liu
Poverty
Tiger
Family
" Imagine filling a college with the first 1,000 students to get perfect SATs. Whatever the racial composition of that class would be, the notion seems absurd because we know that college in America is supposed to be about creating citizens and leaders in a diverse nation. "
Eric Liu
College
Perfect
America
" Here's a proposal, offered only partly in jest: no resident of the United States, whether born here or abroad, should get to be a citizen until age 18, at which time each such resident has to take a test. "
Eric Liu
Citizen
Here
Age
" Identity in America is complicated but it's also simple: it's about whom you identify with and who identifies with you. "
Eric Liu
Who
Simple
Identity
" As it stands now, those of us who are lucky enough to be citizens by birth don't have to do much. Very little is asked of us. "
Eric Liu
Little
Birth
Enough
" My grandfather was a general in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force during World War II, and I grew up hearing the pilot stories and seeing pictures of him in uniform. "
Eric Liu
World
Air
Air Force
" The next time someone uses denial of citizenship as a weapon or brandishes the special status conferred upon him by the accident of birth, ask him this: What have you done lately to earn it? "
Eric Liu
You
Time
Special
" Why should citizenship be a matter of birth? The premise held by those who want to end birthright citizenship is that some people deserve it and some do not - that the status shouldn't be handed out automatically. Frankly, that's a premise worth considering. "
Eric Liu
Citizenship
End
People
" Today, public understanding of our past and our system of government is pitifully low. "
Eric Liu
Government
Past
Today
" Conservatives forget that citizenship is more than a thing to withhold from immigrants. Progressives forget it's more than a set of rights. "
Eric Liu
Rights
Forget
Citizenship
" Talk of citizenship today is often thin and tinny. The word has a faintly old-fashioned feel to it when used in everyday conversation. When evoked in national politics, it's usually accompanied by the shrill whine of a descending culture-war mortar. "
Eric Liu
Conversation
Feel
Today
" Why does an iPhone cost only a couple hundred dollars? Because, as the stage performer Mike Daisey depicted in an arresting one-man show called 'The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,' Apple's shiniest products are made by a shadowy company in China called Foxconn. "
Eric Liu
Apple
Why
Stage
" In the end, a new Americanization movement can't just be about listing our privileges and immunities, which we catalog in our laws. It also has to be about reinforcing our duties, which we convey in our habits. "
Eric Liu
Just
Laws
Movement
" Jeremy Lin is the only Asian American in the NBA today and one of the few in any professional U.S. sport. His arrival is surely leading other talented Asian American athletes this week to contemplate a pro career. "
Eric Liu
American
Week
Today
" If whiteness were of no particular advantage, then having a fuller color wheel of skin tones would be purely a matter of celebration. But whiteness - just a drop of it - does still carry privilege. You learn that very young in America. "
Eric Liu
You
America
Color
" The nativism behind the push to repeal or amend the Fourteenth is ugly and obvious. "
Eric Liu
Behind
Obvious
Push
" Throughout this country's history there have of course been systematic efforts to create an official underclass. "
Eric Liu
Been
History
Country
" Many smart folks seem to think that if you just get your metaphors and messages right, you'll win. That if you start describing what you favor as a 'moral value' - 'affordable health care is a moral value' etc., - then you'll appeal to red-state voters. "
Eric Liu
Win
Health
Smart
" There have been, in recent years, many Asian American pioneers in the public eye who've defied the condescendingly complimentary 'model minority' stereotype: actors like Lucy Liu, artists like Maya Lin, moguls like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. They are known, often admired. "
Eric Liu
Stereotype
Like
Years
" You want to defend citizenship? Don't persecute or isolate those without papers. Just live like a citizen. That'd be a first-class way to be American. "
Eric Liu
American
Live
Want