Gook

August 7th, 2008 · No Comments

I haven’t yet read Irwin Tang’s new book, Gook: John McCain’s Racism and Why It Matters, but based on the interview embedded below, it seems that he provides a much-needed reminder of the links between racism, violence, and imperialism in America’s military culture.

None of this has garnered much attention. McCain’s comments were briefly a story during the 2000 primary and the news media seems to have decided that it’s old news, or perhaps that McCain’s remorse-under-pressure 8 years ago somehow renders the point moot.

I disagree.

In recent memory, McCain has made jokes about bombing Iran and about killing Iranians with cigarette exports. He quickly caught himself and tried to point out that these were just jokes, but such jokes are not funny, particularly not from someone who wants to actually make decisions about such policies and actions. War and murder aren’t things to laugh about, particularly when you have the power to carry them out.

I know that there are those who excuse certain kinds of racism as the lingering result of PTSD, and who excuse McCain’s baffling apparent ignorance of various issues to “senior moments,” but while age and trauma might be reasons to forgive a favorite uncle or grandfather, they are also reasons to be very, very nervous about a potential presidency. What some perceive as “straight talk” and “folksiness” would read to the rest of the world as psychosis. What would McCain represent, as America’s face to the world? A transition from a president everyone thinks is stupid to a president everyone thinks is out of his mind.