“American,” “white,” and “male” are terms that make a mighty claim on me. Something has pinned them on me and has driven those pins way down into my bones. In my youth, I was slapped about by evangelists with the insistence that I was to lay everything on the altar, no matter how precious to me, that I was to let it all go to God. I still walk with a limp because of those preachers, but they were right. So, from this day forward, when someone severely criticizes America, I will not be offended; when somebody severely criticizes white people, I will not be offended; when somebody severely criticizes men, I will not be offended. Indeed, insofar as it is possible so to go against such historic conditioning, to pry those pins out of my bones and to live without them, I will practice being something other than an American white male.