Tuesday, June 24, 2008

I'm Getting Pissed

After last week's discovery that low-level staffers moved two Muslim women out of the television shot during an Obama speech, the New York Times ran a story about how Obama has visited numerous churches and synagogues, but not a single mosque. I'm getting pissed, for two reasons and at two groups:

1. To my true love, Barack Obama: grow a set, buddy. I know it sucks that the internet is buzzing with Muslim rumors and I know that you're Christian and that being a Muslim national candidate is political suicide. But to distance yourself from a constituency like this? Come on. You've taken on racism, homophobia in the black community, deadbeat dads... Don't remain silent on this one.

2. To the media, whose reputation as liberal is clearly unfounded: being a Muslim isn't bad. To perpetuate the idea that being labeled Muslim is a "smear" (and, yes, I know this is Obama's web site, but it doesn't refer specifically to the Muslim question) is offensive. And to those few reporters who make a footnoted disclaimer (think: "He's not a Muslim, but it would be okay if he were")--and I don't even think that I've heard anyone take this baby step, but I'm being optimistic--rethink your righteousness.

We're dangerously close to entering the "I'm not racist. Some of my best friends are black" stage of religious discrimination. Nice. Really nice.

4 comments:

harrogate said...

Dear megs,

What a wonderful title for the post, first of all. The only thing Harrogate would have loved more would have been if you had added, "Megs is pissed" as a label.

To your complaint, as someone who struggles against capitulating, in his own soul, against media constructed Islamophobia, Harrogate too is very bothered by all of these developments.

At the risk of being too simplistic, it seems that Obama has got two basic choices here:

1)Hit hard, and hit often, at the Islamophobes. Don't depend on surrogates for this. Say, on camera, that the entire meme reflects the worst our nation has to offer. Say that anyone who would run from the support of Muslim Americans courts bigotry with a rose between the teeth, regardless of his private levels of "tolerance." Say that, he understands there is sensitivity about this topic but that we must work hard to overcome it, to grasp as a people the indisputable fact that the term "Muslim" is not a smear. Etc.

or

2)Keep doing what he's doing. Lots of dodging, lots of surrogate-enlisting, lots of simply wishing it would all go away.

This latter approach is not just wht he's doing, of course. It's what politicians do. He has grounded his campaign, of course, in the idea that he is NOT just another politician. But in order to be different takes courage. It takes, as you eloquently stated, "growing a pair."

Verily, Obama, Harrogate tosses his voice into the call: Do not cultivate the worst in us. Challenge it. It's the right thing to do.

M said...

I wholeheartedly agree with both of you!

solon said...

This is may be as bad as it gets for Obama as he is in quite the Catch-22. If he appears before a Muslim audience, the GOP will attack him. The GOP does not care for what reason he speaks in front of a Muslim group- the party will attack him as being a Muslim. Do you expect intellectual honesty from them? They will rely on any guilt by association argument that will help their cause.

If he does not speak in front of a Muslim group or allows his workers to arrange the scene behind him to exclude Muslims, he loses support for his lack of honesty on the issue.

I do not think it is important as to whether or not he speaks in front of Muslim groups. Just think- if he visits one now then he will lack principle and will fold under the pressure. Further, has he every spoke in front of a Muslim group before that would make this necessary?

As for the media, it just wants the story and may not care about the politics behind it.

I think the worse offense when the campaign workers moved the Muslim women and, the worst offense, was not letting Rep. Keith Ellison (D- Minn.) help out on the campaign.

But at least he owned up to this...

M said...

I don't think that 4 women constitutes a Muslim audience. It does show, however, that Muslim Americans are interested in Obama, and frankly, I don't see why that is a bad thing. The issue for me is this: Obama has campaigned under the rhetoric of change. And as vague as that is, the idea of change is what I would argue got him the Democratic nomination. For him (or for his handlers because realistically this isn't something he was likely aware of until after the fact) to move these women contradicts the primary premise under which he received the Democratic nomination: that he would not follow the status quo in Washington and create an environment of change. As megsg-h so eloquently put it, Obama needs to "grow a pair" and address the Muslim rumors head on once and for all. He also, I argue, needs to tell the Islamophobes that he is not going to prevent Muslim Americans from attending his campaign speeches or avoid being photographed with them because doing so would be saying that they don't have a right to be there, and frankly, they do. What his inability to do this demonstrates is that he and his campaign are willing to play the political game, and frankly, if he is going to play at politics, he (and those who support him) better be prepared to be criticized for it.