an open letter to certain white women who are threatening to withhold support from obama in november

This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.

Your Whiteness is Showing by Tim Wise

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.

thoughts on obama's resignation from trinity united church of christ

So Obama finally resigned his membership at Trinity United Church of Christ. The whole situation is weird and sad on all kinds of levels.

One of the weird aspects is that the straw that broke the camel's back on this issue was a recent sermon last Sunday by the Catholic priest, Rev. Dr. Michael Pfleger but obviously Obama isn't even Catholic.



Also weird is the way that Pfleger's comments are being characterized. As "hateful"? As a rant? As "racist"? Admittedly, he was a bit harsh on Hillary but I would say that occasionally that being harsh on politicians in certainly part of the role of being a "prophetic" preacher. Pfleger's sermon also wasn't a "rant". It was definitely a rhetorically effective performance intended to satirize Hillary Clinton. But it certainly wasn't wild and irrational. By implication, Pfleger was simply making the point that some of the actions and reactions of Hillary Clinton and some of her supporters are motivated by a sense of racial entitlement. That's a perfectly reasonable and coherent claim and it is worth being discussed. It is either true or not true. Especially bizarre is the claim that the sermon was racist?!?!

The sad part of all this is the extent to which liberation theology is being demonized by the media and is being excluded from the political discourse. More generally, it is sad that the media and the political process can have as much influence as they on a person's religious declarations.

juan crow in georgia

The Black Commentator: Juan Crow in Georgia by Roberto Lovato

Latinos’ subordinate status in Georgia and in the Deep South bears more than a passing resemblance to that of African-Americans who were living under Jim Crow. Call it Juan Crow: the matrix of laws, social customs, economic institutions and symbolic systems enabling the physical and psychic isolation needed to control and exploit undocumented immigrants. Listening to the effects of Juan Crow on immigrants and citizens like Mancha (”I can’t sleep sometimes because of nightmares,” she says. “My arms still twitch. I see ICE agents and men in uniform, and it still scares me”) reminds me of the trauma I heard among the men, women and children controlled and exploited by state violence in wartime El Salvador. Juan Crow has roots in the US South, but it stirs traumas bred in the hemispheric South.

assorted bits

I feel like quickly sharing a couple of quick items which have been on my mind rather than doing extended blogging on any one of them.

1. I don't think any reasonable person believes for a second that Obama believes that the U.S. government invented HIV/AIDS in a laboratory so why would it even matter if his ex-pastor believes it?

2. Similarly, Obama clearly doesn't believe that bombing government buildings is an acceptable way to change government policy and the Weatherman were from over 40 years ago so why is Ayers an issue today?

3. Maybe its just me, but on my planet Hillary Clinton's comment that "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again" is orders of magnitude more offensive than the "bitter" comment and may even be the biggest gaffe made by a candidate in the election so far.

4. I recently bought the Pitch Black trilogy on DVD (see islamo-futurism?) Other than the Dune books, it is the only non-trivial portrayal of Muslims in the future of which I'm aware. Also Vin Diesel is kind of badass. InshaAllah, I'll start watching the first one this Sunday afternoon.

5. Finally, check out Third Resurrection. I updated it yesterday. Recently I've only been able to add entries in spurts. It was gratifying to see that Blackamerican Muslim bloggers are talking about issues related to "Third Resurrection" (in the loose sense of the blog). But I do kind of wish that members would add posts on their own (hint, hint) Still, I'm glad that the bloggers out there are dealing with serious , meaningful topics.

hiv/aids and the us government

So let me be clear... Do I believe that the U.S. government invented HIV/AIDS in a laboratory in order to commit genocide against Black people? Nope. I haven't seen the evidence to support it. But I also don't think the theory is so implausible that anyone advocating it should considered a pariah in terms of the political conversation in the US. Here are a couple of items to consider:

1. The Tuskegee Experiment (aka Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male). For a period of 40 years, a group of 600 Black sharecroppers were systematically lied to by the government as a part of an unethical study . 201 were lucky enough to be in the control group. The other 399 had syphilis, but received no medical treatment for the disease. Instead, the subjects were told they had something called "bad blood" and that for participating in the study they could get free medical care, occasional meals, and money for a burial if they died during the course of the study.

As far as I know, the subjects weren't directly infected with syphilis, but in the course of the study 40 spouses became infected and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis. I'd read about the Tuskegee experiment many years ago, but after reviewing the event (in the wake of the whole Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy) I was struck by the length of the study and the extent to which the doctors (people who presumably had to take the Hippocratic oath) chose to actively deceive the sharecroppers throughout to keep it going. I was also surprised to learn that even during the last few years of the study when some of the ethical criticisms were becoming more vocal, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) wanted to keep the experiment going until the bitter end (i.e. the death of all of the subjects.)

So the fact that government-funded doctors would be willing to engage in such a sustained exercise in unethical, immoral and dishonest behavior certainly lends a certain amount of credibility to the HIV/AIDS conspiracy theory.

2. But what would the motivation be? Hat-tip to Sondjata at Garvey's Ghost for pointing me to this.

In Henry Kissinger's report "Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security & Overseas Interests," written for The White House National Security Council in December 10, 1974, Kissinger writes:

"Depopulation should be the highest priority of US foreign policy towards the Third World. Reduction of the rate of population in these states is a matter of vital US national security. The US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less-developed countries. That fact gives the US enhanced interests in the political, economic and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resources, supplies and the economic interest of the United States."

In fact, even if we reject the claim that HIV is man-made, if Kissinger's words are taken to heart we could ask what role this "highest priority of US foreign policy towards the Third World" plays in shaping the US response to HIV in Africa. More generally we could also start to examine US actions in other global hot spots and view them in the light of Kissinger's concern.

3. Another little known fact is that a small segment of the human population possess genetic attributes which provide a certain amount of resistance to HIV. Some individuals seem to have the ability to be exposed to the virus over and over again without getting infected.

The interesting bit is that the most powerful forms of genetic resistance are almost exclusively found in European populations.

An estimated 1 percent of people descended from Northern Europeans are virtually immune to AIDS infection, with Swedes the most likely to be protected. One theory suggests that the mutation developed in Scandinavia and moved southward with Viking raiders.

In other words, people of European descent will tend to have some genetic resistance to HIV while those of African descent will tend to have none. (A feature one would expect if HIV were designed to kill Black folks).

4. Chris Rock on AIDS




5, 6, ... So I'm going to stop here but I'll just quickly throw out that the US government still conducts biological weapons research and has been known to carry out an experiment or two on citizens without our consent. Furthermore, there have also been a number of recent ethical lapses in how drug companies conduct drug tests in Africa (a la The Constant Gardner) which definitely calls into question the extent to which it is possible for the medical establishment to show disregard for Black lives, especially when profits are at stake.

That's it for now... make up your own mind...draw your own conclusions...

NPR: Remembering the Tuskegee Experiment
Dallasnews.com: Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright's incendiary quotes illuminate chasm between races
Wired: Genetic HIV Resistance Deciphered
Garvey's Ghost: Did the Government Create HIV?
PLoS Biology: The Geographic Spread of the CCR5 Δ32 HIV-Resistance Allele
The Straight Dope: Is AIDS a man made disease?
The Nation: 'The Constant Gardener': What the Movie Missed

more on mccain's racially problematic politics

So in addition to the laundry list I included in my last McCain post (see mccain, racism and religious bigotry) I should have also mentioned McCain's support for George Wallace's son (who has links to the hate group, The Council of Conservative Citizens) and McCain's persistent opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1990. Election Day will be soooo much scarier than Halloween this year.

McCain's Southern Strategy
Stop John McCain 2008: Racism
Is John McCain a Racist?

mccain, racism and religious bigotry

I don't want to casually throw around the accusation that McCain is a racist, but between his "gook" comment and initial non-apology, his "tar baby" comment, the "bomb Iran" song, his ambivalence on the Confederate flag, his vote against a federal Martin Luther King holiday, his attempt to rescind the King holiday at the state level, and given some of the questionable people he is choosing to associate with (e.g. McCain's Florida campaign chair Bob Allen, who was caught offering a Black undercover cop $20 for a blowjob and cynically blamed his behavior on the scariness of Black people, paleoconservative, as in pro-Confederacy, political consultant Richard Quinn, George "Macaca" Allen, who McCain campained for heavily in 2006, and several others) McCain has accumulated a pretty f---ed-up pattern of behavior around racial issues. Let's see if it will make any kind of difference with the voters.

The Real McCain on Race and Immigration
Democrats Repudiate McCain Surrogate's 'Tiger Woods' Comment
John McCain Has a Racist on His Campaign Payroll
Jon Stewart Slams McCain’s Racist, Hypocritical, Disgraceful FL Campaign Chair
John McCain's MLK Day: "Pandering" to the Racist Right
DNC: John McCain's Real Record on MLK Holiday
McCain on MLK Holiday
McCain's problematic race record
McCain uses term ‘tar baby’

Grenada and McCain
john mccain: "i hated the gooks. i will hate them as long as i live."
mccain: no you can't
mccain's spiritual advisor hates muslims and islam
should john mccain reject and denounce minister john hagee?

franchisee sues islamic investment bank for racial discrimination

BlackEnterprise.com: Franchisee Sues Islamic Investment Bank for Racial Discrimination

mccain - romney ?

A lot of people in the media seem to be speculating on the possibility of Mitt Romney as John McCain's running mate in '08. Personally, I think that would make the presidential race more entertaining in terms of "Grenada-esque" type of issues. Firstly, both McCain and Romney have been caught in gaffes involving the term "tar-baby". Secondly, in the wake of the way people have been talking about Jeremiah Wright, it would be interesting to have a national discussion about Mitt Romney's role as a missionary and a bishop in the Mormon Church during the period when the Church's policies were still clearly racially discriminatory. On the other hand, if a McCain - Romney ticket managed to capture the White House, then this whole situation would be significantly less entertaining.

On Sharpton and Mormonism:
when is a bigot not a bigot?

the cross and the lynching tree

In the wake of the last post on Jeremiah Wright and in anticipation of Good Friday, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of James Cone's ideas apart from their role as ammunition in the current political "horse race".

First is A Conversation with James Cone facilitated by the Trinity Institute's Bob Scott:


and secondly there is a conversation between James Cone and Bill Moyers entitled The Cross and the Lynching Tree. In both talks Cone connects the sufferings of Jesus with the sufferings of Black people in America.

James Cone obviously identifies himself as a Christian theologian but I think it is possible to connect some of his ideas to Islam in at least two ways.

Firstly, he is willing to cite Malcolm X as one of the basic sources and inspirations of his theology (suggesting that Islam, at least as articulated by Malcolm, provides some important elements lacking in conventional Christianity).

Secondly, although Islam has a different understanding of what happened at the cross (see Good Friday) I wonder if there is a similar value in connecting Black suffering with examples of martyrdom and persecution out of the Islamic tradition. The two examples which stand out for me are the "lynching" of Hussein (ra) and the multiple Quranic allusions to the prophets being murdered unjustly (although by my recollection, only the murder of Abel is mentioned specifically).

But finally, we can also ask the broader question of whether there is another figure or moment in Islam which provides a more suitable lens with which to view the Black experience in America? Yusef who was a slave and then freed? Bilal, one of several black companions of the Prophet (saaws) ? Luqman, who is sometimes identified with the Ethiopian Aesop?

mumbo jumbo with ishmael reed

Shamelessly taken from Tariq Nelson's blog:

An amazing and involved interview of Ishmael Reed by Pakistani-American writer Wajhat Ali. Topics include race and the Clinton dynasty, Obama, Paul Mooney and the Black/Latino pseudo-divide, the economics of misery, Nazi science, Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Blacks in NASA, Amiri Baraka, Malcolm X, the racist uses of feminism and the scapegoating of Black males, Gloria Steinem, Geraldine Ferraro, medical experimentation on Black people, Dinesh D'Souza, Crash, The Wire, American Gangster and the canons of Western Civilization.

Mumbo Jumbo: Naming Names | "Faking the Hood" | Jabs, Low Blows and Knockout Punches

mami el negro esta rabioso (el africano)

This post has been rattling around in my brain for a couple days now (or longer depending on how you count) but Kismet "made me" finish it a little bit more quickly due to her comment on negro bembon. If anyone wants to look at how race shows up in Latin music, "El Africano" by Wilfrido Vargas (actually written by Calixto Ochoa, but Vargas went further with it) is a necessary "text". In one version, the song lyrics are:

Mami el negro esta rabioso, quiere bailar/pelear conmigo, decicelo a mi papa. Mami el negro me echa miedo, me tapo la cabeza y el negro me destapa. (or alternatively) Mami, yo me acuesto tranquila me arropo de pie a cabeza y el negro me destapa. CORO : Mami que sera lo que quiere el negro? (repeat)

Wlfrido Vargas: El Africano  

 The classic merengue tune is about a "rabioso" (angry, literally "rabid") black man uncovering the innocent girl who has little experience with "lo que quiere el negro" (what the black man wants). On one level it is a festive party anthem, but on another it pretty clearly perpetuates certain alarmist attitudes towards Black sexuality. (e.g. see race and sex) DJ Laz made heavy use of a Vargas sample and updated the song musically, if not lyrically. While more recently, Cuban-American rapper Pitbull came out with "The Anthem" featuring Lil' John as an homage to the original. Miraculously, he manages to make the lyrics more lascivious (the girl is certainly not calling her daddy for protection) and racist (adding typical Latin stereotypes of Black female/"morena" sexuality to stereotypes of Black male sexuality). 

 DJ Laz: Mami El Negro

   

 Pitbull: The Anthem 

 So far, my favorite piece in this lineage is "Mami El Negro" by the 'conscious' Spanish (as in from Spain) rapper El Chojin. To be honest, I never heard of El Chojin until working on this post but he is growing on me. I also like the Grenada-esque anti-bling anthem Si Mi Chica Se Llamara Shakira /If Shakira was my girlfriend. But in "Mami El Negro" he is the most explicit in terms of breaking down the racist content of the original song, along with the ignorance and prejudice he faces in his everyday life. El Chojin: Mami El Negro  

  Lyrics to "Mami El Negro" by El Chojin

Alguien me pregunto de donde soy! hombre no es la misma cancion

pero si es un poco mas de lo mismo racismo,

he crecido como muchos han crecido

escuchando la cancion de los conguitos, la del negro negrito

y payasadas por el estilo

y me las he comido siendo un niño

pero amigo he crecido y tanta estupidez me ha convertido

en un hombre orgulloso y decidido

a no aguantar ni una broma mas,

me cago en el payaso de George Dan,

los del colacao, los de la Warner y todos los demas,

retrasados, que yo nunca me he reido de un blanco por ser blanco,

tanto tonto tan simpatico, tan asno rebuznando

\"ah tu no tienes que tomar el sol en verano\"

me daban pena pero ya estoy arto,

me dais asco, tontos que sois tontos

y lo curioso es que se creen graciosos

pues mami ahora el negro esta rabioso

otro tonto y monto el pollo gordo,

bobo te cojo y te pongo rojo,

avergüenzate si alguna vez creiste que de veras un blanco

con taparrabos gritando en lo alto de un arbol podria ser el rey de algo, no

a Tarzán se lo comio el miedo al hombre negro,

un desconocimiento inmenso te ha hecho ciego, terco, memo y no tengo porque entenderlo,

ser bueno paciente y toda esa mierda,

al proximo que me venga con la ingeniosa idea

de decir que me parezco a Jordan, Eddie Murphy o al que sea se la lleva,

ea o sea que esta es vuestra manera de hacer que me sienta en vuestra tierra integrado,

pues lo siento pues la habeis cagado,

yo no me quiero sentir integrado

tengo mi peña, mi micro, mi dj y los platos

y bastante interesado que paso,

que ni somos iguales ni tenemos que aparentarlo,

mami ahora el negro esta rabioso

pero es porque tu le has cabreado

¿Mami sabes tu que es lo que quiere? Que el negro esta rabioso de oir a tanto lerdo

¿Mami sabes tu que es lo que quiere? Que el negro esta rabioso es hora de exigir respeto

¿Mami sabes tu que es lo que quiere el negro? No hay ningun problema mientra veas donde termina el juego

¿Mami sabes tu que es lo que quiere el negro? Pues que le dejes simplemente ni mas ni menos

Es cierto, las cosas son mucho mas sencillas de lo que parecen

no tenemos porque andarnos con estupideces,

ya somos mayores, mira, no somos iguales,

no te escandalizes el racismo existe

es real y esto no es una llamada a la reconciliacion

es simplemente informacion

porque sabes que?

lo cierto es que no me importa una mierda lo que tengas en la cabeza,

simplemente callatelo, no hagas comentarios,

no intentes ser gracioso y ya veras como asi a todos nos va a ir mucho mejor,

que yo no tengo porque ser mejor persona que tu,

que no te he pedido de ningun favor, simplemente digo las cosas como son,

soy realista y tener esta actitud la que me han hecho tener a lo largo de mi vida,

ha hecho que incluso haya gente que me llama racisma,

es la risa, o sea que me vigilan, hacen chistes, cancioncitas,

no me quieren en sus familias y encima yo soy el racista

pues nada hombre cuidado que te tengo discriminado,

a ver si voy a hacer que te sientas marginado o algo,

mira cuando alguien dice lo que todos piensan pero no lo dice,

se le decalifica pero bueno asi es como funciona esto,

pero bueno yo soy el que tiene el micro, tengo un disco y consigo

que lo que digo se te meta en el cerebro

ahora piensa por ti mismo firmado el Chojin 1999 a diez meses del 2000.

also: shakira and wycleff at the grammys

negro bembon

Mataron al negro bembón
Mataron al negro bembón
Hoy se llora noche y día
Porque el negrito bembón
Todo el mundo lo queria
Porque el negrito bembón
Todo el mundo lo queria

Y llegó la policia
Y arrestaron al maton
Y uno de las policias
Que tambíen era bembón
Le toco la mala suerte
De hacer la investigación
Le toco la mala suerte
De hacer la investigación

Y saben la pregunta
que le hizo al maton
Porque lo mato
Diga usted la razon
Y saben la respuesta
que le dio el maton :
yo lo mate
por ser tan bembón
El guardia escondio
la bemba y le dijo :
Eso no es razon



I was recently thinking about the ways in which race shows up in Latin music when the song "Negro Bembon" by Ismael Rivera popped into my head. The song makes me think of how Afro-Latinos in Latin America didn't really undergo US-style civil rights / Black power movement. So instead of making a loud and angry statement like NWA's "F*** tha Police" or a righteous and defiant statement like Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff", "Negro Bembon" gives us the muted and insufficient "Eso no es razon" from a Black cop who, even with a gun and badge, is still not strong or brave enough to truly challenge a racist system. Occasionally I wonder if the song's refrain is deliberately understated as way of making a powerful social critique, but most of the time I tend to think that the voice of protest is so muted because certain white supremacist assumptions are pervasive and taken for granted in Latin culture, even in the music of Afro-Latino artists like Ismael Rivera.

tego calderon: latin america needs its own civil rights movement
a rising voice: afro-latin americans

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

john mccain: "i hated the gooks. i will hate them as long as i live."

This is an old article but still rather timely given that McCain is running again. I also can't help but wonder what kind of impact his experiences in Vietnam will have on his dealings with North Korea or China. More recently, in March of 2007 McCain also got into a bit of "trouble" for using the term "tar baby". (Around the same time, Romney was also caught using the term in a similar fashion.) Apparently in neither case was "tar-baby" meant in a racial sense, but the fact the term came so naturally to them does reveal something about the kind of circles these Republican candidates travel in. To be honest, what really boggles my mind when it comes to this story is the kind of double-standard it reveals. I'm old enough to remember how Jesse Jackson's presidential aspirations were severely damaged on account of some racially insensitive comments so I'm surprised that McCain's political career is basically unaffected by the incident(s). I think I'm forced to come to the rather cynical conclusion that the impact of making racially offensive comments will depend a great deal on the political power of the group being addressed and the personal power of the person making the comment.


Thursday, March 2, 2000

By KATIE HONG
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

On his campaign bus recently, Sen. John McCain told reporters, "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." Although McCain said he was referring only to his prison guards, there are many reasons why his use of the word "gook" is offensive and alarming.

It is offensive because by using a racial epithet that has historically been used to demean all Asians to describe his captors, McCain failed to make a distinction between his torturers and an entire racial group.

It is alarming because a major candidate for president publicly used a racial epithet, refused to apologize for doing so and remains a legitimate contender.

Contrary to McCain's attempt to narrowly define "gook" to mean only his "sadistic" captors, this term has historically been used to describe all Asians. McCain said that "gook" was the most "polite" term he could find to describe his captors, but because it is simply a pejorative term for Asians, he insulted his captors simply by calling them "Asians" -- a clearly disturbing message. To the Asian American community, the term is akin to the racist word "nigger." A friend of mine, a white male Vietnam veteran, pointed out that veterans, especially Vietnam veterans, know how spiteful the term "gook" is. It has everything to do with labeling someone as "other," the enemy and yellow. McCain sent the message that all Asians are foreigners and remain forever the "other" and the enemy.

The perception of Asians as "foreigners" or "the other" isn't new. This sentiment is what led to passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Japanese American internment during World War II. The internment of Japanese Americans is now recognized as one of the worst civil rights violations in our country's history and a powerful lesson in what can happen when race alone is used as a test for loyalty or who is defined as an American.

We've made tremendous progress as a nation in overcoming racism. That is why it is so disturbing that a major candidate for the U.S. president can perpetuate the stereotype of Asians as permanent foreigners, hurtling us backward to a time and a place where such racial epithets were an acceptable part of mainstream discourse.

What makes this incident even more disturbing is how neither the media nor the other presidential candidates have highlighted that his use of a racist term is unacceptable.

Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority populations in the United States. And the media's choice to ignore or excuse McCain's behavior is a painful reminder that Asians remain outsiders on the back steps of national American politics.

McCain's main campaign message is inclusion. What his actions have told me, however, is that his inclusion does not include people who look like me.

I love this country just as much as McCain does, and I am committed to serving my community and my country. That is the reason I have entered a career in public service and why I am committed to making America a great country where equal opportunity and justice for everyone is a reality and not just a vision.

This is also why I am so hurt by McCain's comment: He has reminded me that despite my commitment to serving my country, there are still some people in this country who would first perceive me as the enemy.

Katie Hong is a Korean American woman who lives in Seattle and works for Washington state government.

cuba: one race, two countries

From AfroCuba Web:
Tonyaa Weathersbee is a columnist for the Florida Times Union out of Jacksonville. A member of the prestigious Trotter Group of African American columnists in the US, she has maintained an interest in Cuba and issues of race & identity there. In September of last year Tonyaa Weathersbee wrote an article about a recent trip she took to Cuba, One Race, Two Countries. A group of 4 Cuban Americans attacked her for this article in a letter to the editor, Cuba is no paradise for blacks, 11/07. AfroCubaWeb columnist Alberto Jones comments on this attack in A Failed Revisionist attempt To Mask Cuba’s Tragic History, 11/07.

(Here is the original article and the various responses)

catching up

I've had the seeds of a lot of different posts rattling around in my head but I'm short on time so I think I'm "forced" to just do a link dump instead of a more thoughtful consideration

Over at Umar Lee's blog, “Ugly Black Women”, Perfect Arab Wives, and Matters of Race starts to discuss some of the less idealized aspects of race relations in the Arab world. This piece was originally inspired by Not Sure What To Make of this “Discussion” over at Soliloquies of a Stranger (The life of an African American, Muslim, Muhaajirah (Expat), from the hood, in an Inter-Racial Marriage. It Doesn’t get any stranger than that!).

Abdur Rahman Muhammad finally concluded his series with Why Blackamerican Muslims Don’t Stand For Justice Pt. 5

Ever since my post i and i and thou I've been meaning to find and share information about Baye Fall, an African-based, dreadlock-wearing Sufi order who are sometimes called "Muslim Rastas". Recently I saw a pretty 'Grenada-esque' entry over at Pa' Africa Muchacho tu ta loco?, written by Dominican blogger Francisco Perez who is currently travelling in Senegal. He has a brief entry on Cheikh Lo an African musician who is a member of the Baye Fall. I wish I had a more detailed understanding of the group, but I suspect that they could be a very strong example in my favor with respect to the ongoing discussions with Sondjata (see islam and afrocentrism, afrocentricity and islam ii) on whether Islam is consistent with being African.

Francisco also has another entry on the upcoming Eid al-Adha entitled What Would Jesus Buy? I'm not sure what else to say about the holiday. This year I feel like the holiday has surprised me. I'm not totally certain which city I'll be in for Eid. I have a couple of old posts about Eid al-Adha but I don't have any genuinely new comments for now.

is spain realy racist?

Last month, fellow Latino Muslim Blogger, Khalil Al-Puerto Rikani put up a post called: Is Spain really racist? I think the article is thought-provoking, even though it paints a rosier picture of Spain than I would have based on my own visit to Spain many years ago. I was really struck by the anti-immigrant articles I would read in the newspaper and the racial caricatures which seemed commonplace (e.g. Conguitos, a brand of chocolate covered peanuts which used a sambo-like figure as a mascot). That visit to Spain was also the first time I ever felt like a police officer looked at me as a suspect. (Apparently, the cop was wondering if I was a terrorist... and I wasn't even Muslim then... but that's a whole other story). So I definitely felt racism was more blatant in Spain than other places I've been to, but perhaps I would have a different experience if I went back and could spend time in some of the locations mentioned on Khalil's blog.

from anti-muslim to anti-black

Here is a link to Tariq Nelson's piece Anti-Muslim bigots are also (often) racist which recently appeared at Muslimmatters.org. It shouldn't be surprising but it is worth being said.