I Will Dare

Today we celebrate the birth of Virginia Dare, the first child of English parents born in North America, and later the first child to appear on milk cartons, along with the rest of the good, missing people of Roanoke Colony. If you're even part Native American, you are free to ignore this celebration, but try not to be a wet blanket--smallpox optional--on the festivites for us white folk who are glad we're here even if more than embarrassed about the decades of broken promises, lies, death, devastation, uprooting, and eventual sad-sack casinos. We are sorry our forefathers and foremothers didn't know any better. (OK, they did know better, but didn't care. They're our stupid ass relatives so we have to love them anyway.)

Of course, Dare, while the most famous--probably because she disappeared and got to be on all the cable news network shows--isn't even the first European child to be born in North America. Martin de Arguelles had her beat by 21 years, but he had the misfortune of not being English and surviving. And then there's Viking Snorri Þorfinnsson, but his story put even his parents to sleep (read that name again)(oh, c'mon, you giggled a little bit).

Of course 20th century wackos went and borrowed her name, forming VDARE, a center for racist nativists to rant about how our country is being taken over by immigrants by naming themselves after the first North American immigrant. They're so busy ranting, they don't even get the joke.