Editing Walt Whitman (section)

===Nationalism===
[[File:§Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) - 1887 - ritr. da Eakins, Thomas - da Internet.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Whitman, portrait by [[Thomas Eakins]] in 1887]]

Whitman is often described as America's national poet, creating an image of the United States for itself. "Although he is often considered a champion of democracy and equality, Whitman constructs a hierarchy with himself at the head, America below, and the rest of the world in a subordinate position."<ref name="ijas.iaas.ie">{{cite journal |last1=O'Reilly |first1=Nathanael |title=Imagined America: Walt Whitman's Nationalism in the First Edition of Leaves of Grass |journal=Irish Journal of American Studies |date=2009 |volume=1 |pages=1–9 |url=http://ijas.iaas.ie/imagined-america-walt-whitmans-nationalism-in-the-first-edition-of-leaves-of-grass/ |access-date=October 11, 2020 |archive-date=October 24, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201024140311/http://ijas.iaas.ie/imagined-america-walt-whitmans-nationalism-in-the-first-edition-of-leaves-of-grass/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In his study "The Pragmatic Whitman: Reimagining American Democracy", Stephen John Mack suggests that critics, who tend to ignore it, should look again at Whitman's nationalism: "Whitman's seemingly mawkish celebrations of the United States{{nbsp}}[...] [are] one of those problematic features of his works that teachers and critics read past or explain away" (xv–xvi). Nathanael O'Reilly in an essay on "Walt Whitman's Nationalism in the First Edition of ''Leaves of Grass''" claims that "Whitman's imagined America is arrogant, expansionist, hierarchical, racist and exclusive; such an America is unacceptable to Native Americans, African-Americans, immigrants, the disabled, the infertile, and all those who value equal rights."<ref name="ijas.iaas.ie"/> Whitman's nationalism avoided mentioning the ongoing [[Native American genocide in the United States]]. As George Hutchinson and David Drews further suggest in an essay "Racial attitudes": "Clearly, Whitman could not consistently reconcile the ingrained, even foundational, racist character of the United States with its egalitarian ideals. He could not even reconcile such contradictions in his own psyche." The authors concluded their essay with:<ref name="Racial Attitudes"/>

{{Blockquote|Because of the radically democratic and [[egalitarian]] aspects of his poetry, readers generally expect, and desire for, Whitman to be among the literary heroes that transcended the racist pressures that abounded in all spheres of public discourse during the nineteenth century. He did not, at least not consistently; nonetheless his poetry has been a model for democratic poets of all nations and races, right up to our own day. How Whitman could have been so prejudiced, and yet so effective in conveying an egalitarian and antiracist sensibility in his poetry, is a puzzle yet to be adequately addressed.}}

In reference to the [[Mexican–American War]], Whitman wrote in 1864 that Mexico was "the only [country] to whom we have ever really done wrong."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kummings |first1=Donald D. |last2=LeMaster |first2=J. R. |title=Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia |date=1998 |publisher=Garland |page=427}}</ref> In 1883, celebrating the 333rd anniversary of Santa Fe, Whitman argued that the indigenous and Spanish-Indian elements would supply leading traits in the "composite American identity of the future."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Levin |first1=Joanna |title=Walt Whitman in Context |date=2018 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=314}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|As to our aboriginal or Indian population—the Aztec in the South, and many a tribe in the North and West—I know it seems to be agreed that they must gradually dwindle as time rolls on, and in a few generations more leave only a reminiscence, a blank. But I am not at all clear about that. As America, from its many far-back sources and current supplies, develops, adapts, entwines, faithfully identifies its own—are we to see it cheerfully accepting and using all the contributions of foreign lands from the whole outside globe—and then rejecting the only ones distinctively its own—the autochthonic ones? As to the Spanish stock of our Southwest, it is certain to me that we do not begin to appreciate the splendor and sterling value of its race element. Who knows but that element, like the course of some subterranean river, dipping invisibly for a hundred or two years, is now to emerge in broadest flow and permanent action?<ref>{{cite book |last1=Folsom |first1=Ed |title=Walt Whitman's Native Representations |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=95–96}}</ref>}}