Category: Barack Obama

Teachable moment QUESTION

I’m just not getting this notion that not talking about race will somehow fix the race issue, the position, it seems of George Will and Morgan Freeman. Just this month, I came across this Salon piece about a vendor sending the letter writer a racist cartoon. In Racialicious, The protagonist of Justine Larbalestier’s novel Liar is a young black woman with short, natural hair. So why is there a white girl with long, straight hair on the cover? A touching piece in Antiracist Parent notes it’s never too late for racial unity in your family, about a mixed race couple, now married 40 years, who were rejected by his (white) family until fairly recently. Great moments in political race-baiting, which I will contend SHOULD include Bill Clinton.

Yet these “teachable moments” such as the Skip Gates arrest/President Obama’s comment/the “beer summit” don’t seem to teach much. Lots of arguing across each other. Most of these “moments” from Don Imus’ comments to Michael Richards’, seem to generate a lot of fury, but then we move to the next thing. There seems to be little common ground forged.

Or is there? I think most conservatives and most black people seem to be on the same page with regards to Henry Louis Gates, though they get there different ways.
Michele Malkin and her ilk wondered why he wasn’t taught at one point to respecting the police, while black folk thought, “Is that man CRAZY? You don’t shoot off your mouth to a cop; you can end up dead.” in any case, Gates’ Arrest Was Nothing Compared to Evan Howard’s.

(Musical interlude: Pete Seeger – What Did You Learn In School?, with Words and Music by Tom Paxton
I learned that policemen are my friends.
I learned that justice never ends.
I learned that murderers die for their crimes.
Even if we make a mistake sometimes.)

So should we talk about race? HOW should we talk about race? I’m convinced there’s more to be said but unclear about the methodology.

ROG

ROG

Know Thine Opposition

I often read the views of people whose positions I have a track record of disagreeing with. (Whereas actually WATCHING them on TV sometimes makes me apoplexic and I’m forced to shut them off, lest I scream at the TV; Bill O’Reilly I won’t even try to view.)

So I’m reading the latest from Ann Coulter, Obama Birth Certificate Spotted In Bogus Moon Landing Footage, where she cleverly compares the birthers to a bunch of conspiracy theories from the left, both implausible -“Sarah Palin’s infant child, Trig, was actually the child of her daughter” and possible – “the 2000 election was stolen”. Just because I oppose her views most of the time doesn’t mean I don’t think she’s not clever in constructing straw men to knock down.

Meanwhile, Chuck Norris notes in What Obama and My Wife Have in Common that Obama and Chuck’s wife Gena have a birthday in the same week (Barack – August 4; Gena – August 9.) He then ties Obama’s birthday to the birther movement. (Hey, *I* did that; I think like Chuck Norris!) But of course he took a different tactic: “Refusing to post your original birth certificate is an unwise political and leadership decision that is enabling the “birther” controversy. The nation you are called to lead is experiencing a growing swell of conspirators who are convinced that you are covering up something. So why not just prove them wrong and shut them up?” The particular fun stuff is in the letters of comment.

I was reading somewhere that while their parents grouse that liberals (Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn, Al Franken SENATOR Al Franken) should keep out of politics, it’s OK for Chuck Norris or the late Charlton Heston (or, of course, Ronald Reagan). I never biought into that mindset, BTW. How does being an actor (or singer) somehow negate one’s right to participate in the democratic process?

Anyway, I didn’t get much sleep, so here’s former sportscaster Keith Olbermann’s recent rant on health care, which I agree with.
***
Peace Through Music Film Trailer
***
Friend Walter and his wife went to see the Lovin’ Spoonful recently. The group (sans John Sebastian) performed a song, not an orginal, he’d heard before and wanted to know what it was. It has the lyrics:
Ah-ha-ha-ha (ha-ha-ha-ha)
Hey-oh (hey-oh)
Koo-ba, koo-ba, koo-ba, koo-ba
(Koo-ba, koo-ba, koo-ba, koo-ba)
Ah-ha-ha-ha (ah-ha-ha-ha)
Ah-ah-ah-ha (ah-ha-ha-ha)
Hey-oh (hey-oh)
It was Don’t You Just Know It by Huey (Piano) Smith & The Clowns from 1958; went to #9 on the pop charts. (If link doesn’t work, try this.) Here’s a version by C.J. Chenier from 1996.

ROG

ROG

The "Obama Birthday Surprise"


It’s Barack Obama’s 48th birthday. While I do have some real policy issues with him (I fear a quagmire in Afghanistan, among other issues), those can wait. After all, it IS his natal day, wherever he was born.

OK, I jest, but that is my basic point. I think that too many people, including me, have gotten caught up with the various attacks on the President, from whether he’s a natural-born citizen of the United States to whether he’s a racist (Jeremiah Wright –I heard invoked by Glenn Beck just recently – to Skip Gates) to whether he’s a socialist (single payer health care). Or merely the Antichrist who wants to euthanize old people. What we’ve been missing, what I’ve been missing, with all those trees, is the forest.

I’ve become convinced that the proponents of these theories don’t need to PROVE the smears against Obama as unAmerican (by birth or by values). It’s merely necessarily to repeat them over and over. And over and over and over again.

Take the birthers, please. Jon Stewart pretty much eviscerated their points a couple weeks ago. The very next day, I get an e-mail that goes on and on and on about how the group (I won’t bother identifying them) will lead a campaign to “FAX All 50 State Attorneys General To Investigate Obama’s Birthday FRAUD”
According to published reports,[WHAT published reports?] Barack Obama’s legal team has been paid over one million dollars, so far, to STOP anyone from seeing ANY of his actual identification documents, or many other documents:
* Actual long-form birth certificate (NOT an easily-forged electronic copy of a short-form document that is not even officially accepted in Hawaii) except by legal authorities in Hawaii…
* Columbia University senior thesis, “Soviet Nuclear Disarmament” – writing about the USSR; maybe he’s also a Communist? …
* Obama’s client list from during his time in private practice with the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard Hey, yeah, and while you’re at it, reveal why the clients were there. But wait, wouldn’t that violate lawyer-client privilege?
* Baptism records
* Obama/Dunham marriage license
* Obama/Dunham divorce documents
* Soetoro/Dunham marriage license
* Soetero/Dunham Adoption records
But would even THAT be sufficient? Ask David Hernandez.
It’s a longer list, but it’s brilliant in its innuendo.

The point is that it does not matter what Obama does; he will be criticized. And not on legitimate grounds, such as the deficit, but over specious stuff.

Take the mundane example of the so-called “beer summit”. Obama was criticized for his choice of beer – Bud Light. But think about it: don’t you believe he’d be criticized for ANY pick he made? If he’d picked a German beer, he’d be criticized for not picking a domestic brew. (Is Anheuser-Busch still considered “domestic” now that InBev owns it?) Even a selection of Sam Adams would have been picked as blue state elitist, I’m willing to bet. There was never going to be a satisfactory choice.

So for the President’s birthday, we should vow to vow not to get confounded by the – dare I say it? – vast right-wing conspiracy – designed to make sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing. Let us hold this President accountable for the substantive issues, but ignore the politics of distraction. And distraction it is, though it has the capacity of being believed. The repetition gives some the belief that “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” except that it’s the same cabal blowing smoke.

ROG

In Our "Post-Racial" America

ITEM: I got this e-mail from one of my sisters about an incident at a Philadelphia-area swimming pool. Narrative courtesy of ColorOfChange.org:

[Three] weeks ago outside Philadelphia, 65 children from a summer camp tried to go swimming at a club that their camp had a contract to use. Apparently, the people at the club didn’t know that the group of kids was predominantly Black.

When the campers entered the pool, White parents allegedly took their kids out of the water, and the swimming club’s staff asked the campers to leave. The next day, the club told the summer camp that their membership would be canceled and that their payment would be refunded. When asked why, the club’s manager said that a lot of kids “would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club.”

A “Whites only” pool in 2009 should not be tolerated. The club’s actions appear to be a violation of section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act. Whether or not any laws were violated, a “Whites only” pool should be something every American condemns.

I get behind in my news reading, but I receive bulletins the local paper plus the New York Times. Yet I missed it. Was this merely a chain letter with the facts askew? Apparently not:
“60 Black Kids Booted from Philly Pool For Being Black — Speak Out,” Jill Tubman at Jack and Jill Politics, 07-08-09

VIDEO: “Please Don’t Change the Complexion of our Pool,” This Week in Blackness, 07-08-09

“Swim Club Accused of Discrimination,” FOX 29 Philadelphia, 07-08-09

“Valley Swim Club: Day Two,” Adam B at Daily Kos, 07-08-09

I did subsequently see a mention in SamauraiFrog’s blog, but I believe this story was underreported.

ITEM: A review of the new Michael Bay movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. From Clay Cane of BET.com

The hip-hop talking robots were borderline offensive. Is this the movie’s way of appealing to the African-American audience? I never knew that robots could shuck n’ jive.

This was not the only critic who made this point. The defense of the movie – and this box office hits has plenty of defenders despite critical panning (or perhaps because of critical panning: “Roger Ebert is a moron!”) – were 1) the robots weren’t specifically African-American and 2) it’s only a movie; lighten up.

Now, I didn’t see the movie. Heck, didn’t see its predecessor and wasn’t planning to. On point 1, a character can be offensive without being specifically black; some character named Jar Jar comes immediately to mind. As for point 2, that’s just rubbish. (I could expand about how movies reflect society and blah, blah, blah, but “rubbish” will do.)

ITEM: Sonia Sotomayor being grilled over, among other things, Ricci vs. DeStefano, the New Haven firefighters case, and her appellate court’s position holding in favor of the city. I believe her defense is in the Supreme Court dissent – uncharacteristically READ ALOUD from the bench – by Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Here’s just a section:

The Court’s recitation of the facts leaves out important parts of the story. Firefighting is a profession in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow. In extending Title VII to state and local government employers in 1972, Congress took note of a U. S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) report finding racial discrimination in municipal employment even “more pervasive than in the private sector.”…According to the report, overt racism was partly to blame, but so too was a failure on the part of municipal employers to apply merit-based employment principles. In making hiring and promotion decisions, public employers often “rel[ied] on criteria unrelated to job performance,” including nepotism or political patronage…Such flawed selection methods served to entrench preexisting racial hierarchies. The USCCR report singled out police and fire departments for having “[b]arriers to equal employment . . . greater . . .than in any other area of State or local government,” with African-Americans “hold[ing] almost no positions in the officer ranks.” Ibid. See also National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control, America Burning 5 (1973) (“Racial minorities are under-represented in the fire departments in nearly every community in which they
live.”).
The city of New Haven (City) was no exception.

And in each of these disparate items, one thing is in common; Barack Obama is evoked in the commentary. “How could the swimming pool situation take place now that we have a black President?” “We should be past worrying about silly stereotypes anymore; Barack’s President.” “The Obama Presidency proves that issues of racial inequality are a thing of the past.” Meh.

Arthur and Jason noted an article by Eugene Robinson re: identity politics and Sotomayor. Arthur read this paragraph on their 2political podcast: Republicans’ outrage, both real and feigned, at Sotomayor’s musings about how her identity as a “wise Latina” might affect her judicial decisions is based on a flawed assumption: that whiteness and maleness are not themselves facets of a distinct identity. Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any “identity” — black, brown, female, gay, whatever — has to be judged against this supposedly “objective” standard. Well stated.

Keep the champagne on ice. The post-racial America celebration will just have to wait a little bit longer.

ROG

ROG

Obama, the Gay President?

I’m working on a theory, not yet totally formulated, that goes like this:

John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic President of the United States, nibbled around the edges in dealing with the civil rights of black people. His heart I believe was always in the right place, but he needed to be pushed by the civil rights community, notably Martin Luther King Jr, culminating in the March on Washington, August 28, 1963, to really get on board.

Barack H. Obama, the first black President of the United States, has nibbled around the edges in dealing with the civil rights of gay people. His heart I believe was always in the right place, but he needs to be pushed by the civil rights community, notably ????, fulfilling the promise of his Democratic nomination acceptance speech on August 28, 2008, to really get on board.

Both as a civil rights supporter and as a data person, I was pleased that the Obama Administration is “determining the best way to ensure that gay and lesbian couples are accurately counted” in the 2010 census. “The Administration had directed the Census Bureau to explore ways to tabulate responses to the census relationship question, to produce data showing responses from married couples of the same sex.” One does not need to “believe in” same-sex marriage to want a reporting of what is actually taking place.

There have been other positives such as the extension of benefits to gay federal employees.

These do not make up for my disappointment with Obama’s foot dragging on the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and his Justice Department’s defense of the deplorable Defense of Marriage Act. But as he reiterated to some GLBT leaders Monday, the day after the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, he says he’s working on it.

As I pondered all of this, I came across a piece by Robert Reich called, What can I do to help Obama? The crux of the issue is in the subtitle: “The public has to force him to do the right thing.” Reiterating, we need to bug him AND Congress to, as the title of the best Spike Lee movie, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Do the Right Thing.
***
As I’ve mentioned, I only recently discovered that an old friend of mine moved to Canada because same-sex unions were untenable in the U.S. and her now spouse already lived there. This bugs me tremendously. Still, since yesterday was Canada Day, props to the U.S.’s neighbors to the north.
***
I came across an interesting survey: Spiritual Profile of Homosexual Adults Provides Surprising Insights. “People who portray gay adults as godless, hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts…The data indicate that millions of gay people are interested in faith but not in the local church and do not appear to be focused on the traditional tools and traditions that represent the comfort zone of most churched Christians…It is interesting to see that most homosexuals, who have some history within the Christian Church, have rejected orthodox biblical teachings and principles – but, in many cases, to nearly the same degree that the heterosexual Christian population has rejected those same teachings and principles.” As someone noted, some of their margins of error are ENORMOUS. And identifying sexuality on a phone survey, when some people are terrified of answering Census questions about when they go to work, raises an eyebrow. Still, it is is an interesting repudiation of a stereotype, which is always good.
***
Here’s a peculiar story briefly referenced in my local paper: Could gay marriage reduce HIV/AIDS? A study by two Emory University economists suggests the answer is yes. They “calculated that a rise in tolerance from the 1970s to the 1990s reduced HIV cases by one per 100,000 people, and that laws against same-sex marriage boosted cases by 4 per 100,000.” Not sure I buy the entire premise of their study, but I accept this sentence: “Intolerance is deadly.”

ROG

ROG
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial