obama: the recap

If I was President...
black presidents (part one)
black presidents (part two)
if al gore was president aka black presidents (part three)
black presidents (part four)
black presidents (part five)
black presidents (part six)
jimmy smits and the west wing



Obama and the Church
thoughts on obama's resignation from trinity united church of christ
the compassion forum
jeremiah wright and the black church
rev. 'icarus', the obama campaign, & the left
hiv/aids and the us government
rev. jeremiah wright: a change is going to come / national press club
there is nothing wrong with rev. wright
bill moyers and rev. jeremiah wright



Obama and Islam
more from zaid shakir
barak obama on the middle east
obama's islamic past
two calls for pan-africanism from the muslim world
this is what a non-muslim us presidential candidate looks like



Obama and Latinos
latinos and obama
obama and black latinos
president obama and afro-latinos



The Horserace
obama roasts mccain at the alfred e. smith dinner
some brother must have really done her wrong...
another bit
political bits
hispanic governor, bill richardson, endorses obama over clinton
morrison endorses obama for president
obama wins maine and a grammy
racism and the mcain-palin campaign



Obama and other religions
obama redraws map of religious voters
obama and different religious communities



Misc.
here's another thing i don't get...
an open letter to certain white women who are threatening to withhold support from obama in november
the dark knight: the rise of "the real" obama
obama and father's day
heru: barack obama is septimius severus
obama: the death of white supremacy?
barack's black dilemma
"well, i'm not gonna take the white house in 2008 on just my sparkling wit and funding from hostile governments."
mumbo jumbo with ishmael reed

reggaeton for obama

From Amigos de Obama:



Oye mi gente este es un hombre preparado.
La esperanza ha llegado.
Como Se Dice…Como Se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA!
Dicen que no contamos…
Invisibles porque no votamos…
Pero aqui estamos y todo esto va cambiar…
We did the marchas y ahora vamos a votar.
Listen to me gente, es tiempo para algo diferente..
What we need is un nuevo presidente…
Como Se Dice…Como Se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA! (Repeat)
Mexicanos como se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA!
Puerto Rique_os, como se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA!
Peruanos, como se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA!

En esta gran nacion ya no existe una buena educacion,
Dicen que todo el dinero va a la imigracion
Es facil culpar el que no vota
El gigante Latino esta que brota
Despierta!
Vamos a eligir alguien que de veras entienda…
Colombianos, como se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA!
Dominicanos, como se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA!
Los Cubanos, como se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA!
Los Brasilieros, como se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA!
Salvadore_os, como se llama?
Latinos!!!
Es un Hombre preparado…
La esperanza ha llegado…
Obama! Obama!*

obama and different religious communities

On religion factor, it's Obama for president by Douglas Todd

Let's cut to the almost-inevitable chase: How will Barack Obama do against John McCain in this fall's rumble for the U.S. presidency? With signs showing Hilary Clinton will have to drop out of the race, we're going to be left to determine whether the 46-year-old black Democrat or 71-year-old white Republican will climb into the powerful office. And that requires looking at the religion factor.

In American politics, which hugely affects Canada and the globe, religious loyalties deeply shape voters' preferences. But November will see a volatile election as things are changing dramatically on the U.S. religious front. The main reason is the country's large white evangelical bloc, worth more than one out of every four votes, won't be the all-important factor it was in bringing George W. Bush to power in 2000 and 2004.

If you harbour any doubts about how big a role religion plays in American politics, look at the blanket media coverage early this month of Obama's relationship to his boisterous former Chicago preacher, Jeremiah Wright.

For his part, McCain also has links with radical Christian leaders, even though they've not received the same level of attention. Still, McCain's opponents repeatedly question how the Arizona senator could embrace preacher John Hagee, who has denounced Catholicism as the "Great Whore" and believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment on "sinful" New Orleans. The latest polls show, overall, Obama holding onto about 47 per cent of Americans' support, compared to McCain's 43 per cent. Given that, let's break down how religious groups in the U.S. might lean come the fall ballot.

JEWS
American Jews generally lean to Democrats over Republicans. A Gallup poll showed Jews would vote for Obama over McCain by a margin of 61 per cent to 32 per cent. The trouble for Obama is Jews count for only one out of every 58 American voters.

MUSLIMS
The Muslim vote also goes strongly to Obama. Muslim leaders are actively questioning McCain's ties with Muslim-bashing Protestant preachers. However, Muslims make up only one out of every 166 Americans.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN PROTESTANTS
These black Chrisians account for a significant seven per cent of Americans. They're a slam dunk for Obama. Polls show nine out of 10 will vote for their Harvard-educated Christian brother, a member of the United Church of Christ denomination.

THE NON-RELIGIOUS
Most Americans who say they're non-religious (16 per cent) strongly favour Obama over McCain.

WHITE EVANGELICALS
Eight years of Bush in the White House have changed the political shape of American evangelicalism. Many evangelicals are no longer making opposition to abortion and gay marriage their prime issues. Some Christian leaders are calling for evangelicals to stop being "useful fools" who blindly follow the Republican party no matter what. George Barna, a respected evangelical pollster, says white evangelical support for the Republican party is down to 29 per cent, a calamitous decline.

McCain, an Episcopalian who attends his wife's Baptist church, also has to deal with not being the first choice of the Religious Right, which had wanted Mike Huckabee. Aware of his lack of credibility among these hawks, McCain had argued the U.S. military needs to stay in Iraq for a century (a position he softened Thursday, May 15, 2008) and he's been singing the praises of some hard-line televangelists.

Meanwhile, even though Obama is pro-choice on abortion and homosexual rights and says the U.S. must get out of Iraq, many born-again Christians like him anyway, for talking passionately about the redemptive power Christ has had in his life. An informal poll by the leading evangelical youth magazine, Relevant, found evangelicals in their 20s would overwhelmingly vote for the black senator.

ROMAN CATHOLICS
Catholics are key because they make up the swing vote in U.S. elections. Comprising 24 per cent of Americans, Catholics have for the past nine elections consistently backed the winning horse for president. Though public polls have not yet directly compared how McCain and Obama would do among Catholics, McCain will likely be in trouble among them for embracing the combative Protestant Hagee, who took until May 13 to apologize for branding Catholicism a "cult."

There is little doubt events beyond religion will stir up voters before the November election, particularly if a conflict arises with Iran. But barring an earth-shattering political event, I'd place my bets, given religion-rooted trends, on Obama for president.

latinos and obama

To be honest, although I thought will.i.am's "Yes We Can" was incredibly inspiring, I initially thought that the "Si se puede" line seemed like a mere tacked-on token gesture towards the Latinos which Obama needs in order to win the Democratic nomination. In that light, it is gratifying to see the Obama camp seriously court Latino voters, but more importantly it is good to see pro-Obama efforts which are more organically connected to the Latino community.

In These Times: Why Have Latinos Started Voting For Obama?
Khalil Al-Puerto Rikani: Will Puerto Rico Have the Final Say in Obama Vs. Clinton?

reggaeton for obama
para votar pa' obama (la bamba)
latinos for obama: "si se puede cambiar" by andres useche
grenada-esque politics
obama and black latinos
obama: yes we can
will.i.am: we are the ones

top ten reasons why van jones should give up on obama and the democratic party and come home to the greens

I'm not a card-carrying Green (or a card-carrying Democrat for that matter) but I still thought the following list was interesting in the wake of Van Jones' (forced?) resignation from the Obama administration.

Green Party of the United States Website: Top Ten reasons why Van Jones should give up on Obama and the Democratic Party, come home to the Green Party

1. The Obama Administration's failure to defend Mr. Jones recalls similar retreats by the Clinton Administration, when Bill Clinton allowed Republicans and some Democrats to bully him into removing Assistant Attorney General nominee Lani Guinier and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. The targets tend to be Black -- consistent with Republican fury over the election of Barack Obama to the White House.


2. The extremists who sought Mr. Jones' removal see their action as part of a wider plan to derail measures against global warming and block greens jobs programs: see "How Van Jones Happened and What We Need to Do Next," by Phil Kerpen, Fox Forum (Fox News), September 5. They smell blood, and the Obama Administration and Democratic leaders are cowering.


3. Van Jones is a national leader for human rights, public health, and the environment. As 2004 Green presidential nominee David Cobb said, "The Democratic Party is the graveyard of progressive ideas." These ideas -- including green jobs, the 'Green For All' agenda, and other ideas expressed by Mr. Jones -- are thriving in the Green Party.


4. Among Greens, Mr. Jones need not play down his activism on behalf of the lives and well-being of Black Americans. He will not get called "reverse racist" of "anti-white" by Greens for addressing persistent racial disparities in economics, employment, health, treatment by the justice system, the response to Katrina and post-hurricane rebuilding, etc. The Green Party shares Mr. Jones' goals of racial justice.


5. Among Greens, Mr. Jones will not get scolded for calling former President George W. Bush a 'crackhead' in the context of Mr. Bush's obsessive devotion to industries that are feeding America's addiction to fossil fuel energy.


6. Among Greens, Mr. Jones need not apologize for questioning the behavior of the Bush Administration in connection with the 9/11 attacks.


7. Mr. Jones has called for an end to coal energy, while President Obama continues to repeat the myth of 'clean coal.' Mr. Jones' analysis of the global warming threat and the need for conservation and a green economy are reflected in the Green Party's platform and principles.


8. If the epithet that Mr. Jones used to describe Republicans was offensive, imagine the words people will use later this century, when the effects of global warming have grown more severe, to describe Republican (and Democratic) officeholders from 2009 who refused to take necessary action to curb global warming's advance.


9. The media have given Glenn Beck and the 'Tea Party' crowd generous coverage. (Compare the minimal and dismissive reporting on the hundreds of thousands of Americans who protested the Iraq War in 2003.) Republicans have benefited from the current political paradigm, which places extreme Republicans like Mr. Beck at the right end and 'moderate' Democrats like President Obama at the left end of the spectrum of allowable debate. Van Jones is a target for the same reason that former US Representative (D-Ga.) and 2008 Green presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and others have been dismissed and ridiculed -- because they offer ideas unacceptable to media dominated by corporate interests. The emergence of the Green Party is key to overturning this paradigm, changing the political landscape, and expanding the public debate.


10. The Green Party sees no reason to appease Republicans, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Democratic leaders, or others who've used their power to serve corporate elites, to the detriment of working people and America's future. Greens call Van Jones too important for America to disappear from the public forum.

barack's black dilemma

In These Times: Barack's Black Dilemma by Salim Muwakkil is yet another overview of Barack Hussein Obama's candidacy. The passage which stands out the most for me is the following explanation of Obama's popularity among whites:

...his unusual ancestral narrative may also fuel the fervor of Obama’s white support, in that his lack of slave history elicits no feelings of historical guilt among whites. They love Obama because he doesn’t hate them, as they suspect blacks should. Another theory making the rounds on black talk radio proffers that some whites see Obama as a way to redeem America in the eyes of a world angered by the Bush administration—the multicultural Obama’s calming presence serving as a necessary balm.

I've often thought that a similar factor might help explain why as a group CAribbean Indians in the US seem to be better off than African-Americans with a longer lineage in this country. Of course, there was still a history of slavery on the islands but perhaps the white American can say "At least they were never OUR slaves". Just a thought.

For a more critical view of Obama which focuses more on how he is perceived by non-whites, check out: Obama's charm lost on America's black activists by Tony Allen-Mills from the TimesOnline.

morrison endorses obama for president

Associated Press: Morrison Endorses Obama for President (actually, I found out through La Chola who got it from Diary of an Anxious Black Woman)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The woman who famously labeled Bill Clinton as the "first black president" is backing Barack Obama to be the second.

Author Toni Morrison said her endorsement of the Democratic presidential candidate has little to do with Obama's race — he is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas — but rather his personal gifts.

Writing with the touch of a poet in a letter to the Illinois senator, Morrison explained why she chose Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for her first public presidential endorsement.

Morrison, whose acclaimed novels usually concentrate of the lives of black women, said she has admired Clinton for years because of her knowledge and mastery of politics, but then dismissed that experience in favor of Obama's vision.

"In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates," Morrison wrote. "That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it.

"Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace — that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom," Morrison wrote.

In 1998, Morrison wrote a column for the New Yorker magazine in which she wrote of Bill Clinton: "White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

Obama responded to Morrison's endorsement with a written statement: "Toni Morrison has touched a nation with the grace and beauty of her words, and I was deeply moved and honored by the letter she wrote and the support she is giving our campaign."

See also: black presidents (part six)

black presidents (part four)

More on black presidents... to be honest I've been a little too busy to get all eloquent about the subject so this might seem more like a link dump. But ver since I started this series I was actually surprised by how many different models of leadership were out there... the Badass, the Bootlick, the Civil Rights activist, the Idealist, the Independent and the Insider. In the future I might pick this subject again (for example I've recently been catching up on old seasons of 24 and have been thinking a lot about how race and religion are portrayed on the series, including David Palmer's presidency) but for now this last post is something of a survey and a wrap-up

First some general comments:
GBN: The First Black President? by Ron Mwangaguhunga
NPR: Black Presidents Elected Regularly on TV, in Movies

One of the most extreme presidential candidates I want to consider is Eldridge Cleaver. He was an admitted rapist, former Black Panther, car thief who ran for president on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in spite of the fact that he was too young to qualify at the time. When he ran for President it was more about giving a symbolic defiant middle finger to the Man than anything else. Eventually Cleaver would become a Reagan Republican, Mormon and crack-head. He is definitely someone who has gone through some changes in his life.

See also ChickenBones: An Eldridge Cleaver Bio-Chronology

At the other extreme you have someone like Alan Keyes; a Regan Republican who seems to have run for president as a symbolic "Yassah, Mr. Boss." to the Man than anything else.

Then you have a number of past candidates who have been associated with the mainstream civil rights establishment like Al Sharpton , Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson.

But of course nowadays, much of the media's attention is being placed on Barack Hussein Obama. A lot of the excitement about Obama's possible candidacy dates back to The Audacity of Hope Barack Obama's Address at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

other reflections and thoughts on Obama's candidacy:
The Times Online:Obama's charm lost on America's black activists looks at some of the wrinkles between Obama in the civil right's establishment.
NPR: Obama, or a History of Black Presidents of the U.S.

One of the more interesting characters in this subject area is Dr. Lenora Fulani. Fulani ran for President in 1988 as the candidate of the New Alliance Party. She received 0.2% of the vote, or almost a quarter of a million votes, and was the first African American independent on the ballot in all 50 states. She's been one of the strongest voices in favor of Black political independence (from the two-party system) and has been willing to work with everyone from Al Sharpton to Pat Buchanan.

If you want to get a taste of her perspective on the last presidential race check out
Black Electorate: "The Real Al Sharpton" by Dr. Lenora Fulani.

And you can get more of an overview of her organizing activities at:
www.independentvoting.org

Finally, in the musical world we have:
South African singer Brenda Fassie's rather prophetic song "Black President" about Nelson Mandela (several years before Mandela became South Africa's first President elected in free and open elections. (I wish I could find the actual song in a downloadable form. I have the single on tape and it is actually really good song).

And of course in hip-hop we have:
Dead Prez's Website
Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive: Dead Prez
Wikipedia: Dead Prez

Grenada's past:
if al gore was president aka black presidents (part three)
black presidents (part two)
black presidents (part one)

why they want obama to be a foreign-born muslim

An excerpt from FogCityJournal.com: Why Republicans Need Obama to be a Foreign-Born Muslim By Rachel Kiernan

What needs to be addressed is why so many in this country want to believe that Obama is a Muslim, even when they criticized Obama for following a “radical” black Christian leader. This is true in spite of the fact that Obama was raised by his Christian mother and grandparents, having barely known his father. It speaks of the very essence by those who fear an America which no longer looks like they. This manufactured phobia of all things Muslim and of all things non-white (think “white slavery” and the anti-Hispanic establishment) is a response by those who feel that they have lost control over their own lives and power to those who traditionally have been the most disenfranchised and powerless.

This goes beyond those who wish that Obama was a Muslim and a foreigner. This is a manufactured crisis by those who wish to divide the country into two camps by whipping up hysteria against Muslims, blacks, Hispanics and anyone who does not look and pray as they.

cornel west and prophetic christianity

Here is a new interview with Cornel West from the newly reorganized Jesus Radicals site. In the hour-long interview with Eliacin Rosario-Cruz and Mark Van Steenwyk, West discusses a wide-range of topics including his recent disinvitation from this years Christian Community Development Association conference in Chicago due to an interview he gave to Playboy magazine, the ways in which Latin America challenges the Washington consensus, Puerto Rican independence leaders, how to chant down Babylon, how so many Caribbean activists joined the Black freedom struggle in the U.S., the Tea Party, some fierce but loving criticisms of Obama's presidency, but mostly he talks about how prophetic Christianity (and as an afterthought Judaism and Islam etc.) can constitute a counter-hegemonic force, voice and vision to challenge the American Imperial moment.


Some excerpts from the Playboy interview:

On President Obama’s shortcomings: "While he’s made some good, positive changes, I don’t think he’s a messiah or even a very progressive politician...It’s already getting late for him, when you have a chance to speak to jobs, homes, infrastructure and you end up bailing out investment bankers. They’re too big to fail? They’re too big to be managed! And what do you do? You allow them to get bigger! So you’ve got the same conditions in place that will reproduce the same catastrophe from which we’re still cleaning up from the Bush years. And you don’t speak to jobs, you don’t speak to homes, and again the poor remain invisible."

On President Obama’s inability to push a strong black agenda: "I wish [President Obama] could be more Martin Luther King-like. Set an agenda that at root is a black agenda, and it would also be the best agenda for the nation and the world. King did that. His concern for civil rights was also the best agenda for the country...By necessity, Obama has had to downplay his blackness to appease the white moderates and independents and speak to their anxieties. He knows black folk will support him anyway, so he doesn’t need to spend too much time on the chocolate side of town."

On Michelle Obama: "Somebody of her brilliance, somebody of her vision, somebody of her courage confined to keeping gardens at the White House, reaching out to military families, highlighting childhood obesity. I think she could be a great force for change if she could only set herself free. She can’t though. Black sister exercising her power, willing to take a stand, would be too much of a threat."

On corporate greed and "gangsterism": "Humans have always had the propensity to be gangsters...but for much of the past century you had sanctions in place. You had regulation. You had a stronger trade union movement. You had some balance between the rich and the poor. More of the wealth was distributed to working people. But what is it now? CEOs in the 1950s made around $25 to every $1 for an average worker. Now it’s about $275 to every $1, and the CEOs say, ‘No, we deserve it. We’re working harder.’ That’s a lie. They’re getting away with more by holding on to a larger percentage of the profits...When you read the business pages in the past three years, it’s just gangster activity, people getting away with anything they can—looting the Treasury, billions of dollars made on speculation. Those people knew it was wrong, but it was short-term gain, scandal, preoccupation with the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not get caught. The result is, we’re feeling the aftershocks of moral bankruptcy, and it’s going to hurt us for a long time."

On the Tea Party movement: "The Tea Party might look a mile wide on Fox News, but it’s only a few inches deep...Tea Party folk are not crazy people. They’re just misguided. They’re deeply conservative people who see the corruption of government. They’re right about that. But they react by being antigovernment. They’re wrong about that. They see the need for individual initiative and entrepreneurial possibility. They’re right about that. But then they affirm a corporate agenda and don’t realize corporations are a big part of the problem...They’re much weaker than people like Glenn Beck think they are. But I’ll fight for the right of Glenn Beck to express his opinion. Even he has a right to be wrong, which he is most of the time."

On Glenn Beck’s preoccupation with black people: "Glenn Beck appears to have a certain preoccupation with black folk. Why is he so obsessed with black people? I notice he doesn’t give the Amish that much attention. [laughs]"

On eliminating poverty: "Given our wealth, we could create a society with no poverty. We could do it...Brother, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to eliminate poverty. Make it a priority. You allocate assets for everyone’s basic needs—housing, food."

On acknowledging race: "Some would like to believe we live in a postracial society, but that’s completely false. You’ve got to acknowledge race. Little kids notice it from the time they’re six or seven. ‘Dang, Jamal is darker than Johnny over here. What does that mean?’ Some people will try to say, ‘It doesn’t mean anything. We’re all the same.’ That’s wrong. That’s denial. We are different because of race, and we need to learn to embrace the differences, embrace the whole person...Then again, we have to make sure our awareness of our differences doesn’t translate into a hierarchy of how you treat people."

On the dismissal of his academic career: "My academic career is dismissed by means of invisibility. And I’m not the only one. If a martian came down to America and read The New York Review of Books, it would hardly know there were any black writers. There is a de facto segregation in the life of the mind in America, and black scholars, brown scholars, black intellectuals feel it every day."

On the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church: "Anytime you have people making claims of being virtuous, you have massive hypocrisy...Don’t project purity or an image of being pristine because you end up falling on your face. Or worse, you end up projecting a face of hypocrisy, as we see with the Vatican—a gay sex scandal among the people who preach against gay marriage and other deeply important issues. Not right."

On the things our culture is yearning for: "All across this culture I see a yearning for quality relationships, a yearning for integrity, a yearning for spirituality. But people—young people in particular—are manipulated by many forces to believe that what matters in life is something else: money, materialism, short-term gain, power and the kind of show that goes along with it."

On sexuality: "Sexuality is such a precious gift, but it does take on a life of its own. I see people who fall down the path of lust, seduction and temptation, and increasingly I sense this conquest mentality in which sex becomes almost another thing to acquire. How many women can I satisfy myself with? It’s a form of pathology, and it’s a sign of our deep spiritual malnutrition."

On white fear of black sexuality: "Historically, white fear of black sexuality was always a basic component of white racism. Black bodies, white bodies bumping against one another—it’s been one of the major forms of mobilizing white citizens...Ancient associations still linger about the sheer touch of black body against white body, of being disgusting, dirty, repulsive."

you can't please all the people all the time...

So Nader thinks Obama is an Uncle Tom and Al-Zawahiri thinks Obama is a House Negro (see obama, malcolm x, al-zawahiri and house negroes). Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin, of course think that Obama is a Black-Liberation-theology-believing, socialist Muslim (as if that were a bad thing).

If you want to see what some progressive African-American Muslims have to say about Obama you should definitely check out Imam Zaid Shakir's response to a well-meaning brother along with the blog entry/story African-American Muslim leaders denounce al Qaeda's slur toward Obama

sarah palin on obama's winning the democratic nomination for president : "sambo beat the bitch!" (what ?!?!?!)

From Chickenbones Journal: Palin Is "Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean" by Charley James

"So Sambo beat the bitch!"

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama's win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat's primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

"It was kind of disgusting," Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the "lower 48" about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, "But that's just Alaska."

Racial and ethnic slurs may be "just Alaska" and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N'-Fetch-It, "darkie musical" swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska's Aboriginal people as "Arctic Arabs"—how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description—as well as the more colourful "mukluks" along with the totally unimaginative "f**king Eskimo's," according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

Wow. I thought things were already pretty bad back in April when I did my post: mccain, racism and religious bigotry. But the right wing has been able to sink to new depths.

See also:
The Progressive Curmudgeon: Sarah’s Own Words: “I Don’t Do Black Guys.”
Z-Net: This is Your Nation on White Privilege by Tim Wise
Huffington Post: Gergen: McCain Using Code Words To Attack Obama As "Uppity"
La Times: Southern GOP Congressman Lynn Westmoreland literally calls Obama "uppity" but pleads ignorance to its racial connotations.

So why doesn't the multi-faceted, multi-actor McCain-Palin race/racism story get the same kind of sensationalistic coverage that the Rev. Wright story got?

political bits

1. I really like this image but was a bit surprised by how the mainstream networks were covering it. They were like "what is this mysterious gesture?". It is just another reminder of how "white" the mainstream press is in its perspective. It also an example of how Obama's candidacy (and hopefully his presidency) has the opportunity of being a sort of national teach-in on race relations; first by offering a peek into the Black church, and now introducing white people to African-American greeting practices.


Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, share a victory "dap" during an election night rally in St. Paul, MN

2. I'm not sure who Obama should pick as his running mate but I've been interested in Senator Jim Webb of Virginia ever since I'd caught part of an interview with him on NPR. He's a Vietnam veteran and an ex-Republican who today is highly critical of George W. Bush and the current Iraq War.

NPR: Senator Jim Webb, Choosing His Battles

3. I never cease to be amazed by the number of third-party candidates who run for president in each election in relative anonymity. Of course you have the Greens and the Libertarians, but there are also at least three different kinds of "socialist" parties (four if you count the Nazi party), you have the Fascist party, the Prohibition Party, the Constitution Party and even the Vampire, Witches and Pagan Party which are all putting up candidates. Some of these candidates seem to be running more as a joke or as a publicity stunt and others are "serious" but are obviously long-shots while many seem to lie somewhere in between.

4. A couple of the third-party presidential candidates are former elected officials who "defected" from the major parties. One is former Republican Congressman, Bob Barr who is running as the Libertarian Party candidate this year. One can only hope that he can serve as a spoiler for McCain in this election.

5. On the scary side, I recently found out that former Democratic member of Congress Rep. Cynthia McKinney is running for president on the Green Party ticket. I say scary because I think McKinney is likely to be a "spoiler". Some of the angry/ disappointed/ disgruntled Clinton supporters have already expressed their willingness to vote for McCain. But now McKinney offers yet another (arguably more attractive) option for liberals who don't want to vote for Obama. Given the tensions which currently exist in the Democratic party between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters, I think that there is a non-trivial mass of people who might be willing to make such a protest vote.

6. Now that I think about it, if Hillary had won her argument to the superdelegates, and they overruled the will of the non-superdelegates who went for Obama, I would have given serious thought to voting for McKinney myself.

7. By the way, times like these are why I wish we had proportional representation in the US so that genuine multi-party system could arise.

obama, farrakhan, hillary and islam

This is mostly a clip from the recent debate between Hillary and Obama and shows Obama giving a rather thorough response on his non-relationship to Farrakhan and antisemitism. (There is also a bit about Congressman John Lewis, one of Hillary's early supporters, switching sides to Obama).




Associated Press: Obama Fights False Links to Islam

As I watched the clip, and saw the sequence of the questions and answers, I really started to see how Jewish hypersensitivity about Farrakhan and antisemitism is really about Israel/Zionism more than about ethnic/religious prejudice. The accusations of antisemitism then become a convenient tool to delegitimize the person who is not sufficiently pro-Israel. For a vivid example of how this dynamic works, check out the case of Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu. (A , B , C)

Grenada's Past:
why don't they talk about bennett the way they talk about farrakhan?
farrakhan steps back
millions more marching
john mccain: "i hated the gooks. i will hate them as long as i live."
spilling the beans

see also:
Garvey's Ghost: Black Folks: America's Charlie Brown

obama and hip-hop

NPR: Obama Hip-Hop: From Mixtapes To Mainstream
CNN: Barack Obama gets name-dropped in hip-hop
Washington Post: Rappers' Shout-Outs Make Obama Skip a Beat

XXL: Yes there is anti-Obama hip-hop

racism and the mcain-palin campaign

For a while I've been meaning to do a post about how the McCain-Palin rallies have been starting to reveal an uglier, more bigoted side to the far-right's resistance to Obama. Of course, that was before Obama was lynched-in-effigy on a Christian College campus and before a McCain volunteer mutilated her own face and made up a story about how she was attacked by a big black Obama supporter. The McCain camp may try to distance itself from the behavior of its supporters but in reality, such extreme behavior is really just a natural reflection of the top of the ticket. It just seems like their real face is coming out now that their campaign seems to be in its death throws.

Capitol Hill Blue: McCain: racist, bigot & homophobe

Grenada's past;
mccain camp silences muslim organizer or "with friends like these..."
sarah palin on obama's winning the democratic nomination for president : "sambo beat the bitch!" (what ?!?!?!)
more on mccain's racially problematic politics
mccain, racism and religious bigotry
mccain - romney ?
mccain's spiritual advisor hates muslims and islam
should john mccain reject and denounce minister john hagee?
john mccain: "i hated the gooks. i will hate them as long as i live."

more from zaid shakir

Imam Zaid Shakir, the orthodox Muslim leader who is often called the "new" Malcolm X has some rather timely articles which came out recently on the New Islamic Directions website.

In Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and the Fate of America Zaid Shakir reflects on a theme which has frequently appeared here on Planet Grenada; the idea that especially towards the end of his life Martin Luther King Jr. was a much more radical critic of American society and government then is suggested by his sanitized publically-approved image. Imam Zaid goes on to suggest that even today, America is not yet ready to tolerate the "real" King's message, and certainly would not elect him president were he alive today.

Herein lays Dr. King’s legacy, an uncompromising struggle against the “giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism.” That aspect of his work and teachings is unmentioned in the mainstream media. Instead his baritone refraining of “I have a dream” fills the airwaves. After his death, the struggle against those evil “triplets” was not allowed to exist as his enduring legacy. Instead, that legacy has been whitewashed, sanitized and rendered “acceptable” for white middle class sensitivities.

What does all of this have to do with Obama? Obama is a viable African American candidate because he has steadfastly refused to deal with the issues Dr. King was dealing with at the end of his life, even though they are just as relevant today as they were forty years ago. That refusal has seen him distance himself from his activist pastor, Minister Jeremiah Wright. It has seen him avoid any public identification with Rev. Jesse Jackson, a fellow Chicagoan, or similar leaders who are identified with African American civil rights advocacy, and it has seen him ignore issues of relevance to African Americans and the urban and rural poor today.

That he has taken such positions is not an indictment against Obama. It is an indictment against American society which has deemed that an open advocate for such issues is unfit to lead this nation.

In his second article Reflections on Black History Month Zaid Shakir looks at the current situation of Muslims in the United States and suggests that American Muslims (especially African-American Muslims) rather than looking towards violent Third World liberation struggles should look back to the example of enslaved African Muslims in the Americas as role models in the struggles.

The question for us is, “How can we best address the oppressive mechanisms facing us, and those facing our co-religionists in so many redoubts scattered around the globe?” In answering this question, we can gain valuable insight from the lives and struggles of our African Muslim forebears. Superior erudition was the key to the liberation of Job Ben Solomon. Herein is a sign for us. As American Muslims we have been blessed to reside in the most intellectually dynamic society in history. Also, the primal command in our religion is to read. We should enthusiastically pursue the mandate created by these twin facts and push ourselves to become the most educated community on Earth –in religious and worldly knowledge. In so doing, the miracles which were so clearly manifested in the life of Job Ben Solomon will surely bless our lives.

obama and father's day

This past Sunday, Obama gave a sermon on fatherhood at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. And can I say how deep it is to see a candidate actually give a sermon as opposed to merely pandering to Evangelicals? I'm also sure that Obama is absolutely relieved to be able to speak for himself in a church instead of having others speak on his behalf (and have the media assume he approves the message). In this sermon, Obama manages to strike a tone somewhere between government-responsibility and community-responsibility which I think works really well. I'm curious about how it will play among the "religious right" and the white "values voters"?

obama, religion and the daily show

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It is intriguing to see some of the positive overtures that Obama is making towards the Muslim world. At the same time, it is also not surprising to hear that President Obama hasn't been to church in 11 Sundays. Given the amount of controversy which surrounded Obama's earlier choice of a church home it is understandable he would keep his own devotions private and under the radar.

um... so is newt gingrich trying to defend white imperialism?

How Obama Thinks by Dinesh D'Souza is the original piece which started this mess. In it, D'Souza, rather presumptuously tries to psychoanalyze Obama and explain his foreign and domestic policy decision in terms of the "anticolonial" (read "foreign", "unAmerican", "socialist") dreams of his father. The piece also strikes me as unnecessarily insulting in parts.

Here is the National Review piece with Newt Gingrich's comments on the issue: Gingrich: Obama’s ‘Kenyan, anti-colonial’ worldview

And here is a report from the Huffington Post: Newt Gingrich Slammed For Saying Obama May Hold 'Kenyan, Anti-Colonial' Worldview