I like chris matthews, don't get me wrong

I just heard Chris Matthews say that the reason working class whites get so angry with people like Barack Obama's pastor Wright, who made anti-American comments in those widely debated sermons, is that "all they have is their country". Matthews explained that working class whites don't have fancy cars or fancy houses or beautiful wives, or kids going off to college. All they have to be proud of is their country, so when someone criticizes it, they get testy.

Maybe he is right. But it's also true that Americans have learned to be proud of their country to an extent that Swedes, for instance, are not. Someone told me once that it has to do with the idea of the new kid (America) coming back to beat the older kids (Europe).

The anger with America that some blacks feel, and that pastor Wright expressed, stems from the fact that they have even less. Poor blacks don't have the fancy cars or fancy houses either. But in their case those absences can't be balanced by a pride in their country. Because for the most part their country has treated them badly. And they are angry because they didn't deserve that.