The invaluable Naomi Klein posted an
important column in The Nation yesterday, pointing out that Obama’s responses to insinuations and assertions that he is a Muslim have been woefully inadequate.
So far, Obama’s campaign has responded with aggressive corrections that tout his Christian faith, attack the attackers and channel a cooperative witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee. “Barack has never been a Muslim or practiced any other faith besides Christianity,” states one fact sheet. “I’m not and never have been of the Muslim faith,” Obama told a Christian News reporter.
Of course Obama must correct the record, but he doesn’t have to stop there. What is disturbing about the campaign’s response is that it leaves unchallenged the disgraceful and racist premise behind the entire “Muslim smear”: that being Muslim is de facto a source of shame. Obama’s supporters often say they are being “Swiftboated,” casually accepting the idea that being accused of Muslimhood is tantamount to being accused of treason.
Substitute another faith or ethnicity, and you’d expect a very different response. Consider a report from the archives of this magazine. Thirteen years ago, Daniel Singer, The Nation’s late, much-missed Europe correspondent, went to Poland to cover a hotly contested presidential election. He reported that the race had descended into an ugly debate over whether one of the candidates, Aleksander Kwasniewski, was a closet Jew. The press claimed his mother had been buried in a Jewish cemetery (she was still alive), and a popular TV show aired a skit featuring the Christian candidate dressed as a Hasidic Jew. “What perturbed me,” Singer wryly observed, “was that Kwasniewski’s lawyers threatened to sue for slander rather than press for an indictment under the law condemning racist propaganda.”
While I have been and continue to be a vocal Obama supporter, I am troubled that he has strongly rejected the tactics of ethnic and religious bias but not the bias itself.
It is not enough to say “No, I’m not!” By far the more important response is, “So what? It shouldn’t matter.”
The Obama campaign’s strategy has been to attack the attackers and show that they are relying on falsehood and bias, and of course that is the first step in responding to Swiftboat-style attacks when they are married with a distorted identity politics.
It is time for all of us to stop responding to demographically-based attacks with the kind of defensiveness that inadvertently reinforces the prejudice such attacks seek to exploit. If someone calls you a Muslim, respond with a sincere “Salaam-Alaikum.” If someone calls you a faggot, roll your eyes and tenderly take the hand of a nearby same-sex friend.
While Obama’s campaign has pointed out that some of his surrogates have explicitly rejected the idea that “Muslim” is a smear at all, Obama himself has stuck to the point that he is a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ (btw: expect a lot more questions about the politics and theology of pastor Jeremiah Wright in the coming campaign.)
Instead, Obama should aggressively question the idea that “Muslim” is a word to be feared. He should say that if he were a Muslim he would still be the best choice for President.
Let the surrogates correct the facts. Obama’s job is to aggressively articulate the big ideas of his campaign, and to vociferously reject the ideology behind these attacks.
my review of Biyi Bandele’s Oroonoko at Theatre for a New Audience.
photo courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience
Unfortunately, while seeking both to humanize Oroonoko and to lend some authenticity to the tale’s African-ness, Bandele and director Kate Whoriskey have instead crafted a production that doesn’t quite know what it is or what it wants to say. The humor isn’t all that funny, the eroticism not all that sexy, the tragedy not all that moving, the ideas not all that provocative, the poetry not all that elevated, and the danger not all that thrilling. This new Oroonoko, I’m sad to say, makes for a better press release than it does a play.
My recent birthday and related festivities have kept me from posting, but I should be back on schedule within a day or two.
For the moment, I wanted to mention that the same day I posted about Obama’s “legislative accomplishments,”
Grassroots Mom over at Daily Kos posted a much more thorough and compelling analysis.
She spent a few hours on the Library of Congress website, reading the bills authored or co-sponsored by Clinton and those authored or co-sponsored by Obama. She found that both Senators had solid records of achievement but concluded that Obama’s bills are more ambitious in scope while Clinton’s are targeted and apparently savvy.
One example:
[Hillary] introduced one bill that offered tax credits for building owners who clean up lead paint. Which is a very good thing. And Obama is a co-sponsor. “S.1793 : A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a tax credit for property owners who remove lead-based paint hazards.”
Obama’s anti-lead bill (S. 1306) directed the Consumer Product Safety Commission to classify certain children’s products containing lead as banned hazardous substances. He had another bill prohibitting the interstate transport of children’s products containing lead. (S.2132) And Hillary co-sponsored each of these.
In other words, they both care about protecting children from lead.
The difference is in the scope and the approach.
Obama’s bill shows how he thinks big: do everything we can to make sure that lead-painted Thomas the Tank Engine toys don’t get into the hands and mouths of millions of toddlers in this country.
Or Hillary: encourage people by offering tax credits to clean up lead paint in old buildings. People have been talking about lead paint in old buildings hurting kids in living in inner cities, since, well when I was a kid — for decades. If it is still a big problem, is offering tax credits for clean up, i.e. scrape down the walls and repaint, the best way to protect kids from lead?
How many of you parents have lead paint problems? How many have (or had) toxic Thomas the Tank Engine Toys? They are everywhere. The local bookstore and kid’s shoe store and the doctor’s office and the preschool and the toystore all have train tables. There is nowhere you can go anymore with toddlers that doesn’t have a Thomas the Tank Engine train table covered with toxic toys. But that’s just my feeling.
Obama’s bills risk pissing off the toy industry and the Chinese. Hillary’s risks nothing.
Intriguingly, though, she finds that “Obama appears to have a better record last year in the Senate on getting his bills and amendments passed than does Clinton.” She says she was “blown away” by Obama’s record, and by the scope and variety of his proposals, including bills and ammendments concerning “[H]ealth care[,] energy, [...] Iran, voting, veterans, global warming, campaign finance and lobbyists, Blackwater, global poverty, nuclear proliferation, and education” and lists examples from each category.
Her conclusion, ultimately, is “Obama is the superior choice in every way.”
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