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TechnoratiObama Must Confront Muslim Issue
It is not difficult to understand why Barack Obama has a fear of scarves.
In the 17 months he's been pursuing the presidency, the senator has faced a crude and shameless campaign from conservative pundits, GOP functionaries and assorted ignoramuses in the peanut gallery to prove him a secret Muslim -- a ''Manchurian candidate,'' as one put it -- trained from birth to subvert America from within and, I don't know, make us all eat falafels or something.
On about a half-second of intelligent reflection, the flaw in that theory is apparent: If unfriendly forces had indeed inserted a secret Muslim among us, said Muslim would have blonde hair, blue eyes, flag pins out the wazoo and a name like Joe Smith. Too bad intelligent reflection is a stranger to the people in question. With a grim fanaticism, they seize upon every perceived crumb of Obama's ''Muslim-ness'' to press their case, using everything from his middle name to his disdain for the cheap patriotism of the American flag lapel pin to a photo of him wearing native dress on a trip to Somalia.
So it's easy to see why workers for his campaign barred two women wearing hijabs, Muslim head scarves, from sitting behind him, within range of TV cameras, at a June 16 rally in Detroit. When someone is throwing at you, you don't hand him rocks.
But that doesn't make what the workers did right.
Yes, Obama apologized profusely. Good for him. It would be easier to take the apology seriously, though, if: a) somewhere in the last year of manifold denials that he is a Muslim, Obama had found the time, space or guts to point out that there's nothing wrong with being a Muslim, particularly in a nation that enshrined religious freedom in its founding documents; b) he hadn't spent so much time treating the American Muslim community as one does the carrier of a contagious disease.
Indeed, as The New York Times reported last week, members of that community are feeling well and truly snubbed by Obama, who has visited a number of churches and synagogues, but has yet to find his way to a single mosque.
Again, the politics of this are no mystery. Obama has spent the last year and a half being pilloried as the Other, representative of something so alien and strange to American values that even greeting his wife with a simple fist bump is fodder for a week of commentary.
He is required to walk an unprecedented political tightrope, to be one part John F. Kennedy, one part Jackie Robinson. More, he is required to prove his American-ness like no other candidate before him. Pictures of him speaking in a mosque would not, putting it mildly, be helpful.
But see, the thing that has made Obama a phenomenon is this sense that he Gets It, that he won't play the same old games by the same old rules. He comes across as a man brave enough to reason and to expect that voters will do the same, a man brave enough to treat intelligent adults like intelligent adults.
His campaign, more than most, is an implicit promise to never put that which is politic above that which is right.
This standoffishness toward American Muslims is a denial of all those things.
Until Sept. 11, 2001, that community was poised for assimilation, poised to submerge itself in the American mainstream like the Jews, Irish and Italians before them. The actions of a handful of their co-religionists on that fateful day wrecked that trajectory beyond recognition and unleashed something base and ugly in the American character.
Muslims were snatched from the threshold of acceptance, painted once again as the alien and vaguely threatening Other. Can you imagine how that must feel? It is galling and painful to see yourself reduced to a caricature based on someone else's fears.
And Barack Obama should know that better than most.
--Leonard Pitts Jr.
Copyright 2008 Miami Herald Media Co.
12 Comments so far
Show AllYeah... Brave isn't a word I'd use to describe the Obama campaign... he's been playing it as safe as possible, too much so even.
"The thing that has made Obama a phenomenon is this sense that he Gets It, that he won't play the same old games by the same old rules. He comes across as a man brave enough to reason and to expect that voters will do the same, a man brave enough to treat intelligent adults like intelligent adults."
This kind of delusional codswallop is every bit as vapid and poisonous as the stuff Fox News pumps out in support of those on IT'S side of the aisle.
If anyone has been trained from birth to subvert American ideals, It's non other then George W. Bush. Helping is family and friends profit from an illegal war and the subversion of the American workers economy.
Spartanladkenny writes above:
"But alas he won't do that because BO is not a leader but a politician.
He does not do things he believes in, but rather the things that will please others, because in the end its the votes that count not principles!"
~ You echo my own line of thinking SLK! As I read the article I was thinking of former leaders who REALLY had both courage, - as well as intelligence, plus a level of moral rectitude and integrity which puts the present poltroon 'almost leaders' well into the shade.
Apart from those who (in the distant past) made it to seats of power, -complete with these exemplary attributes, there were also those who set a standard, but didn't (maybe) seek to be politicians...
I think the foremost of these was possibly 'Mr Uncompromising' - aka: Henry Thoreau.
Given the situation BO recently faced, Thoreau would have met it head-on, with his head held high, and a perfectly rounded phrase or two to explain the fundamentals of the situation without any cowardly, mealy-mouthed squirming.
~ And with a good measure of humanity, and respect for 'the ordinary people' thrown in.
Oh... (I pray) for one such as Henry Thoreau to be back on the world stage!
I guess the nearest we have to him today, in the public eye and within the besmudged, besmirched world of politics, is Dennis Kucinich. He too has that mark of REAL courage and integrity about him.
Shame that these 'prophets' are so often 'without honor in their own countries' ... This says a lot more about the state of those beleaguered countries than the 'prophets' themselves.
xx
If Americans are so racist then they deserve McCain as president (which doesn't make a big difference anyway)
Rich wrote: But… there IS something "wrong" with being a muslim - same as "being" any brand of "religion" - it's delusional, not inherent, and dangerous. It murders not only bodies but spirits.
Good gads, Rich. Please sharpen your brand of Occam's razor, would ya? Are you confusing militant fundamentalism of any ilk with all religions? You do a huge disservice to the decent, kind, hard-working and peaceful people of whatever religious stripe with this kind of comment.
And you make it easier for people to pillory Obama with it. ON the other hand, for all Obama's rhetoric, you would think that he would stand up to discrimination like this.
I actually know people who actually believe BO is, in fact, a "secret Muslim" who has plans to - I swear - hand over the USA to bin Laden right after inauguration.
Gotta love ditto-moron wrong-wing talk radio...
Wonder how many of the more than 640 black mayors in America are also "secret Muslims?" Maybe they're all part of a giant "sleeper cell" of radical Islamic extremists just biding their time until BO gives the word to kill all the white children...
But... there IS something "wrong" with being a muslim - same as "being" any brand of "religion" - it's delusional, not inherent, and dangerous. It murders not only bodies but spirits.
I don't care one bit how anybody dresses. I do care that Obama's team "banned" these women; discrimination is discrimination even if I don't agree with what the women do with their lives.
It must be fair to assume that inside Obama-camp, they are trying to figure out how to deal with Muslim-phobia. People who want to prevent Obama from becoming president are going to use the Muslim-phobia to spread fear and to manipulate people into voting for McCain based on the manufactured fear. Unfortunately, as we have seen with the rise of Rovian political spin, these tactics work.
So what does a decent guy like Obama do?
I don't know what the answer is and neither does Mr. Pitts.
There is much more at stake in this presidential election than an acceptance of Muslims into the American cultural stew.
I agree with Pitts that 9-11 might have 'snatched' Muslims from the 'threshold' of American acceptance . . . . but it doesn't seem fair to expect Obama to repair this problem simply because he is also the victim of bigotry . . . . Obama is victimized by Muslim-phobia, too. . . and if this Muslim-fear-phobia-crapola causes Obama to lose the election, then we are all victimized by it. . . . is it fair to expect Obama to take some kind of lead? Maybe. . . . I am thinking aloud here. . . after all, he is asking us to trust him to be the leader of the so-called free world. . . maybe part of being president is to take it on the chin for, like, everyone?
I don't know.
I do know that Obama and his staff must be doing everything they can think of to approach this situation, doing their best. I hope and pray their best is good enough.
Can't you just hear the Swiftboats motoring up the river, waiting to blast Obama with more anti-muslim fearmongering?!
BO needs to fight fire with fire. If people label him a muslim he needs to turn around and call them what they are on national TV - racist! This "developed" and "most powerful" nation in the world regards being called a muslim a "smear". Every time I think racism is dying in this country it raises its ugly head against a new set of people all in the name of patriotism.
Why doesn't BO go on FOX and talk to O'Reilly, Hannity and rest of those idiots and call them racist on their faces! But alas he won't do that because BO is not a leader but a politician. He does not do things he believes in but rather the things that will please others because in the end its the votes that count not principles!
I guess he feels that he does not want to meet those whose countries he's vowed to obliterate - he's afraid of the obvious questions about his cowardly rollover in his uncritical and fervent support of Israel.
Just a guess - and I could be wrong.
Maybe he's planning to round them all up and put them in the KBR concentration camps in an attempt to prove his 'un-muslimity'.
"In the 17 months he's been pursuing the presidency, the senator has faced a crude and shameless campaign from conservative pundits, GOP functionaries and assorted ignoramuses in the peanut gallery to prove him a secret Muslim — a "Manchurian candidate," as one put it — trained from birth to subvert America from within . . ."
That describes George Wanker Bush, not Obama.