Politics and race

There is a controversy brewing over on Hayley's blog. She's drawn a new regular commenter who likes McCain because he's anti-choice. This woman's latest gem is a new argument for McCain: there exists a photo of Obama taken during the singing of the national anthem, and he (gasp!) doesn't have his hand over his heart. Never mind that the Snopes page this woman offers as evidence to support this incident also goes on to explain that this custom is outdated, and then shows two photos of him with his hand over his heart during the anthem, as well as two videos of him reciting the Pledge of Allegiance on the Senate floor. This is the only thing that matters to this woman in choosing a president. Not education, not health care, not tax cuts for us instead of big corporations, not national security, not honor, honesty and ethics. It's all about putting your hand on your heart during the national anthem, and making sure women are taken back a half-century in terms of the rights they have to make their own health decisions.

But the part of this woman's post that really chaps my hide is this: she says that people who support Obama are racists, and that we're supporting him only because he's black. How dare she! If she wants to make a logical, intelligent argument about why McCain's tax policy or education plan are better than Obama's, I'll listen, and I'll respect her opinion (although I'll disagree with it). But to base her vote on one issue (abortion) and ignore the things that really matter, then throw in this facile hand-over-the-heart argument, then call white support for a black candidate nothing more than "reverse racism," well, that's stupid, and it's just plain racist. Not to mention insulting.

I don't support Obama because he's black, but hell yeah, it matters. I think it's incredibly important that America might elect a black president. Know why? Because it will mean that FINALLY, racists like this woman are a minority in our country. It would be better if they weren't here at all (or at the very least weren't allowed to vote), but the fact that their ignorance can now be drowned out by a non-racist majority will be something to celebrate indeed.

BTW, does that mean this guy is a racist too? Because I hear he's an Obama supporter:


(Thanks Hayley -- I borrowed the picture from you!)

Can you tell I'm started to get mad? Really, really mad? Presidential elections always do this to me, but this year, my blood pressure is through the roof. I wish Election Day were tomorrow, because I'm not sure I can take two more weeks of this crap.

The Muslim argument

The whole argument that you shouldn't trust or vote for Obama "because he's a Muslim" embarrasses me. It makes me ashamed of the ignorance and hatred of my countrymen. When I hear Democrats make the counter-argument "No he's not! He's a Christian!" it makes me cringe. The appropriate response to the statement "I won't vote for Obama because he's a Muslim" is "So what if he's a Muslim?"

Know what people? This kind of ignorance is the very thing that makes the radical, hateful nutjobs like Osama bin Laden and his followers hate us. Many of the people in Al Qaeda are poor, uneducated, unworldly men. Most never travel outside their hometown, much less outside their country or to Europe or the U.S. before they join Al Qaeda. All they know about America is what they're told by people like bin Laden, and what they may see on their satellite TV. And when they see people like the woman described below, well, no wonder they hate us.

I saw this clip on CNN this morning and it made me feel physically ill. At a McCain rally last week, an older woman told McCain she didn't trust Obama because "I have read about him and he's an Arab." Uh, hello? First of all, "Arab" does not equal "Muslim." "Arab" is an ethnicity. It refers to people who are from the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and just off the coast, Bahrain) and speak Arabic. Barack Obama is an American (if you must talk about ethnicity, he's half-Caucasian and half-African American, but again, who cares?), and he speaks English. Someone please find this woman and take away her voter registration card!

A lot of talking heads are calling McCain's response honorable. I beg to differ. Here's what he said "No ma'am, no ma'am. He's a decent family man ... that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues." OK, it was honorable to defend Obama instead of using it as an opportunity to stoke the fires of anger and hate (ask yourself: what would Palin have done in this situation? hmmmm...). But his response implies that "Arab" and "decent family man" are mutually exclusive. What a horrible thing to say.

This exchange is playing all over the world now. I saw it on BBC this afternoon. I am SO EMBARRASSED. First, it makes Americans look like ignorant fools, not to mention racists. But even more importantly, it makes one of the two men who want to be president look like an ignorant racist.

Now let's talk about what makes someone a Muslim. I am not a Muslim, nor do I claim to be an expert on Islam. However, I like to read about the Middle East, I enjoy learning about religions, and I have picked up a bit here and there about Islam that contradicts the common knowledge as held by many Americans. Contrary to what some idiots in this country seem to think, Islam has nothing to do with turbans, beards or machine guns. There are five pillars to Islam:
1. Declaration of faith -- you have to say you believe in God
2. Prayer -- five times a day
3. Charity -- people have a responsibility to care for the less fortunate
4. Fasting during Ramadan (a month meant for practicing patience, sacrifice and humility, and for extending forgiveness)
5. Pilgrimage to Mecca

Some of these sound a little familiar, don't they? Take this into consideration too: family is central to the Muslim faith. Education and travel are encouraged and highly valued. Muslims believe in Jesus. What?! Yep. They consider him one of the prophets of Muhammed, they believe he is in heaven, and they believe there will be a second coming.

In short, Islam bears many similarities to Christianity and Judaism. It is a peaceful, family-centric religion that values education and charity. Human life is sacred, and violence is abhorred. The people who attacked our country on September 11 were not Muslims. They claimed to be, but they did not practice the tenets of that faith. Many Muslims around the world have spoken out against the September 11 attacks, and against violence in general. There are ignorant morons in the Muslim world too though, and unfortunately they are the people who too often end up on U.S. TV, burning flags and shouting "death to America." They are not the majority. Osama bin Laden is a Muslim in the same way that Timothy McVeigh was a Christian. Both believe perverted versions of their religion, views that are not shared by the majority.

So, for the record, here's what I think about this stupid argument: Obama is not a Muslim. But if he were, why would it matter?

Will the real racist please stand up?

We were out to dinner with eight other people last Saturday night to celebrate a friend's birthday. These are good friends (the birthday girl & her husband, not all the rest, as you'll see), the kind you consider family. M has been friends with the husband for many years. They moved here together from the east coast when they were in college. He was the best man in our wedding (can you call it that when you elope? Whatever. They were two of the four people there.).

It's kind of turned into a thing -- every year for her birthday, we go out with them and all these other people. The other people are our friends' neighbors. When they first moved to this neighborhood four or five years ago, we were a little jealous. It was a new neighborhood, with big shiny new houses and lots of families with young kids. They have a fabulous neighborhood pool, and a burning hot family social scene. We do stuff with this whole group about two or three times a year. It's things like our friends' kids' birthday parties. It's usually pretty fun -- they seemed like basically nice people, and B likes all the kids.

As time has gone by, we've gotten a little less jealous. For one thing, we like our little old house (not that we couldn't love a slightly bigger new house too, but that's another blog posting). We like living perched on the foothills, where we can walk five minutes and take a hike or a run in a big open space park, or drive five minutes and be in the mountains. Their house is so far east they're practically in Kansas. But the main reason we got over the jealousy thing was because we realized their friends were actually a little crazy. Dysfunctional marriages, raging alcoholism, spectacular consumerism, and now, it turns out, latent racism. (I'm still jealous about the neighborhood pool though.)

So the woman who's always drunk got rather drunk Saturday night. Toward the end of the evening, she asks if she should tell a joke. Everyone groaned and said "It's not the Leroy joke, is it?" She said it was. Someone called her a racist in a mostly joking way, to which she said, "I am not! I love black men!" Then she launched into her joke. It started like this: "Three black women are hanging out..." I was mortified. How can a joke that starts with "Three BLACK women" not be racist? Why can't it just be "Three women?" Obviously the fact that they are black is integral to the joke, which makes it, by definition, a racist joke.

So what did I do? Did I call her out? Did I tell her I didn't want to hear it? No. I excused myself and left the room. I told myself that I didn't want to make a scene at my friend's birthday party. It wouldn't make this woman less racist if I did, it would just ruin my friend's party.

Had my son been there, or even worse my son and my daughter-to-be (who will not be white), hell yes I would've said something. I would've smacked that joke down before she finished the first sentence, and called her out on her racism. But the kid(s) weren't there, and I didn't.

Was I a coward? Should I have called her out anyway? What would YOU have done in this situation?

Afterthoughts:

After thinking about this all day (obviously, I'm having a very introspective day today), I've come up with a couple of things I should have said earlier:

1. Though it really goes without saying, we will avoid hanging out with these friends-of-friends in the future.

2. I am lucky to have friends who I don't think would even dream of telling a racist joke. Honestly, it's been years since I've heard one (except for a few from some idiotic yahoos in my distant family). I'm glad I'm surrounded by kind, thoughtful people.

3. It was probably unfair of me to paint that whole group of people with the "latent racism" brush. I know our friends aren't racists, and maybe it was just the one woman who told a stupid joke. Nobody spoke up to say "Hey, you're being racist," including me. So if I'm going to label them as racists based on their silence, I'd have to include myself. I don't believe that would be an accurate representation of who I am. At least I hope not.