Not so Subtle

No, Barack Obama did not visit my church personally. *Insert thoughtless right wing pun about no bigot pastors being around here.* Obama visited my church in the discussion that is being held about race. That’s right. We had a discussion about race relations in this country in the middle of a church service.

This is one of the things I love about my church. (New Community Covenant Church) The forum on race generated so many questions that the segment ran longer. Our pastor decided to forgo communion this week in order to allow time for more discussion on the issue, even though we will be continuing the series for the next few weeks. How many churches do you know that will push communion back in order to have a lengthy discussion on racism in society that has been brought to the forefront by Barack Obama’s candidacy?

There were no politics discussed, only a frank and honest forum where people of different ethnicities sat down and told their history with racial relations. This is what this country needs. Badly. As recently as last week I wrote about the need for an open dialogue on race in politics. When more of us are willing to admit to our own shortcomings and prejudices, we will start the long, hard work of healing these divisions.

The forum consisted of a a Korean, an African-American, a Latino, an Indian who grew up in the Emirates, and a Caucasian. These people represented the core of our church, which is the most diverse that I have ever seen. I don’t have any numbers, but I’m going to guess that the congregation is about half Asian, a third white, and the rest equally divided up between African Americans and Hispanics.

One of the best points made was that the idea that we are living in a post-racial society is both untrue and unhealthy. We are NOT living in a post-racial utopia where race is not a factor. You can say that you don’t see Obama as black or Mccain as white until you’re bluish-pink in the face: the fact is that we do see them in the context of skin color, and it DOES effect the way that we think about them.

Like it or not, Barack Obama is now the focal point, the very epicenter of race relations in the United States, and he will be at least until this November. Now you know that I’m no big fan of Obama, but of course this weight isn’t fair to him: he is only a man and to shoulder the history of hundreds of years of racism is an incredible burden.

America, this issue is not going to go away even if Obama is elected. In fact it may get even more heated. It’s time that we start a real conversation about this. So, I’ll start with a question.

If Barack Obama is elected, will it change the way you think about racial tensions and relations in this country?

Now that Barack Obama is the (not just presumptive) nominee, we move into the home stretch of election 2008.

Today all the buzz is about history being made, about how incredible it is how far we’ve come to have a man of color as a presidential nominee. If you thought race was a major issue in the primaries, you have no idea what’s coming. We now have, for the first time, the choice to pick a black man to be President of the United States of America. Not to make light of Obama’s accomplishment, but I don’t see it as anything all that amazing. This is long, long, long, long overdue, and if you’re really all that surprised then you’ve had your head in the sand for the last 40 years.

It would not shock me to see a black President. I grew up after the civil rights movement, in a very integrated urban environment, and some of my closest friends are African Americans.

But.

But. But. But.

As much as I hate to admit it, I have felt a sliver of racism creeping into my subconscious as Obama has drawn closer to the presidency, and I’ve been trying to figure out why.

I’m currently reading the book Emotionomics- a marketing guide that puts forth the idea that customer emotions are by far the most important factor in effective advertising. One of the key principles in the book is that people have two reasons for any single decision: the rational reason, and the REAL reason.

My rational reasons for not voting for Obama are plentiful: he’s part of a stagnant, corrupt 2 party system. He only has a few years of experience in the Senate, he supports free trade, which hurts the middle class as much as anything, and he makes no promise to scale back our imperial forces.

But what are the real reasons? I have claimed that I have gone negative on Obama because the media is so enamored that the only voices of dissent you hear are from the far right wing. But is that just an excuse? Why am I really opposed to voting for Obama?

Is it because somewhere deep down I am afraid of the prospect of a black President? I would be lying if I told you that race never has entered my mind when considering who and who not to vote for.

America has some soul searching to do from now until November, and I am no exception. I sincerely hope that my reasons for not supporting Barack Obama aren’t rooted in some ass-backwards, cleverly hidden, cross-burning prejudices, but I have to consider the possibility that I’m full of shit and I really just won’t support an African American, and if it’s true I’ll have to rise above it.

I am going to take an intense look inward. We all need to. If you’re white, are you voting for Mccain because of Obama’s race? Are you voting for Obama because you feel guilty? If you’re black, are you voting for him primarily because he’s black? We need to ask ourselves these questions, and if we do, no matter what happens in the Election, our country will be making steps forward in racial relations.

We are far more primitive than we pretend to be. But I promise that I’m going to try my best to rise above our country’s shameful legacy of racism and make a decision based on the content of my candidate’s character, and nothing else.

The Obamas may have doomed their chances of living in the White House a long time ago.

Today comes a report that Republican strategists have scoured through decades of sermons by Jeremiah Wright, all tape-recorded, and have found something big. The video will likely not be made available until the fall, but apparently it contains footage of Michelle Obama making racist remarks. The only term that they use in quotations is “whitey.”

I don’t want to speculate too much because I haven’t seen the video- though I guarantee it will be leaked before, or soon after the Democratic Convention- I think this has the potential to be more damaging for Obama than any of his other previous problems.

1. Tony Rezko, the Chicago slumlord was the first bump in the road for Obama, which has gone largely ignored by the national media.

2. Jeremiah Wright has been, thus far, the biggest obstacle to Obama’s campaign, and he will continue to be so, even if this video never came up.

3. Cling-gate: the speech in which Obama claimed people in small towns in Pennsylvannia were clinging to religion and guns has heavily damaged his credibility with working class voters, who already weren’t too fond of him.

4. A racist rant by his by-and-large respected wife could be a death knell for the Obama campaign. All of his ability to “transcend race” will go out the window, and we could be in for a very dirty, race-driven general election.

If the video causes a major stir (which it almost certainly will) then a large number of people who have supported Hillary Clinton may side with John Mccain, and earn him a landslide victory in November.

It’s very sad that the Democratic party can’t come up with a candidate to win in 2008, which will be the best opportunity they will EVER have of regaining the White House.

 Yes we Can, but No I Won’t.

First of all, I am a racist fundamentalist who clings to guns and religion and could never vote for a black man and besides, I think he might be a secret Muslim communist sympathizer, who should have left that evil, evil church a long time ago.

Now that that’s out of the way, here are the real reasons why I will not vote for Obama:

1. Bad Fruit from a Bad Tree

The tree I refer to here is not his mixed heritage or unconventional upbringing. The bad tree that has borne Barack Obama is the Democratic Party. For one, the notion that we have to choose the Democrats over the Republicans because they’re the lesser of two evils is flawed and ignorant. If you got your political coverage from somewhere other than the idiot box or major newspapers, you might discover that there are a whole number of political parties, and if, God forbid, you do some research, I’m certain that you’ll find one that reflects your values more than the Democrats and Republicans, no matter what your values are.

The Democrats have failed at every turn to stop the funding for Bush’s war, they have failed to impeach a President and Vice President that have broken the law and the Geneva conventions, and they have failed to convince me that they will truly change the way business is done in Washington. The donkey party has had it’s fair share of scandals, and I’m not talking about oral sex in the Oval office, here. Once they are back in power, we will quickly be reminded that they can be just as corrupt, inept, and smug as the Republican machine. The party is a bad tree, and anyone who comes out of it can only be bad fruit.

2. Realism

The realism here is not what most people complain about in regards to Obama’s ideas. Many of his critics say that he’s naive for promising to end the war in Iraq, to bring more Americans healthcare, and to heal the divisions in Washington. I say that we would be naive to believe him. If you listen carefully to his speeches and read his policy statements, you will find nothing radical in his rhetoric. His promises of bipartisanship are nothing that a hundred slick political anglers haven’t peddled to the American public a thousand times already. Critics will say that he has a radical voting record, that he is by far the most liberal member of the senate. Other than his extremely creepy voting record on abortion, I see nothing radical at all in his proposals. He’s progressive on abortion, gun control, and immigration. But I don’t see Obama being progressive on the issues that really matter.

When you hear him wax on foreign policy, he’s so eloquent compared to Bush that you can easily believe that he will end our destructive imperialist policies. But he promises to do no such thing. Barack Obama has no intentions of ending the permanent state of militarization in this country; Obama has made no promises to address the military industrial complex, which is the single greatest impediment to our own democracy, and to the lives and freedom of people around the world. Obama speaks of managing America’s image and empire in a more responsible fashion, but he never has shown a desire to “end the mentality that got us into war in the first place,” as he has promised so many times.

The realism needs to come from the American people here. Are we going to believe that one charismatic man can solve every foreign policy issue we have, just because his name is Barack Obama? Talking to terrorists and rogue states is not a radical idea, we have been doing so for decades without any serious intention of engaging their interests. Talk is hollow when it is done from a point of unprecedented military leverage. Obama has no grandiose notions like nuclear disarmament or withdrawing the hundreds of thousands of troops that we have stationed all over the globe. No, there is nothing radical about his ideas at all.

3. Arrogance

The issue of character will rear its ugly head again and again during this election. I am not going to claim that Obama has any less character than the lying Clintons or pandering Mccains, but one thing I do take issue with is the fact that his entire candidacy is based on a platform of arrogance.

Talk to any supporter of Barack Obama and try to see if they can find any flaws in him. I’ve tried, and I’ve come up short every time. Obama has done a superb job of convincing us that he is the coolest fucking thing that has ever walked the Earth. The groundswell of his support comes not from people who desire a real change in American ideas and actions, but from people who believe with all their hearts, minds, and souls, that Barack Obama can fix anything. It’s a point that he has hammered home again and again by claiming he feels the most qualified in the realm of foreign policy, when the man has absolutely no experience in the arena. There is no doubt that Obama is a confident man, and people line up behind confidence like sheep line up to get skinned. My problem is that Mr. Obama’s arrogance has become the driving point of this campaign season, and almost everyone down the line has fallen for it, except for the radical conservatives who will despise him no matter what he does or says.

The media loves Barack Obama. The people love Barack Obama. But don’t forget that the person who is most enamored with the Barack Obama phenomenon, is one Barack Obama.

Ralph Nader will not be our next President. But I’d rather back a humble civil servant over an egomaniacal, slick snake-oil salesman any day of the week.