Bi-Stupid

I still have not fully made up my mind who I am supporting or voting for in November, so I try to keep an open mind and a shut mouth concerning the two candidates. But - and there's always a but - I recently got an email forward concerning Senator Barack Hussein Obama, complaining that he is not suitable for President for two reasons:
A. He does not have an "American name" (WTF???)
B. He identifies himself as African-American, not Bi-Racial

On the first point… Of course Obama isn't an American name. Neither is Barack or Hussein. For that matter neither is John or McCain. The names of the former senator are African and Arabic in origin and the origins of the latter names are Hebrew and Irish in origin. Could this objection be any more short sided or racist? Really?

Now, if we had a Sacajawea or an O-kuh-ha-tuh or a Pocahontas or a Geronimo running for President, that would be different. Those are good American names. But, since some people tend to assume that "hard-working" and "American" are synonyms for white, there is a problem. More specifically, the problem is nobody in the media or in politics has stood up and told the plain and simple truth, that there are still small-minded, racist idiots in our midst. Yes, that's right, some people are stupid. Sorry, the truth sometimes hurts.

And the other point, that Senator Obama is bi-racial not African-American… Does it matter? We are trying to decide if he should lead the free-world for four or more years, not where he sits on the bus. Seriously, fifty years ago, where would he have sat? Would he get to sit in front because his mother was white? Doubtful. Would he have to sit in back because his father was black? Probably. Would he get to sit in the middle because he is bi-racial? Are you kidding me? No, he would have been called a choice word or two, probably beginning with the letter N, and forced to sit in the back with all everyone else that didn't have an American name or a proper American heritage.

My experience is that most people who I know that raise these objections are old enough to remember segregation, frankly, most of them were well into being an adult when the civil rights movement started. I am inclined to think they opposed it. Now, here's a question. When someone who, as an adult, helped (through their action or failure to act) perpetrate segregation, who likely stood up against equal rights for anyone with a single drop of African blood (Homer Plessy, Plaintiff in Plessy v. Fergusson, was one-eighth black and he was legally discriminated against), and who probably stopped voting Democrat when the Democrats started supporting the Civil Rights movement, how can that person say, with any semblance of honesty, that identifying a half-black/half-white man as African-American is wrong? The term isn't bi-racial, it is mulatto. Guess what? Mulattos were forced to be slaves and were discriminated against under the Jim Crow laws. But now, less than fifty years later, we get all upset when a mulatto calls himself African-American instead of the white-friendly (read: oppressor-friendly) Bi-Racial. I believe the proper term is bull shit. Again, just callin' it how I see it.

If you want to know how good a leader is, look at the people he or she leads. Look at Senator Obama's strongest supporters, young people and college-educated people. The people who don't generally like him are less educated, older, and can't program a VCR. Why? Who knows… Could be that young people and those obviously immature professional types buy into all the media hype. Could be that they are a bunch of latte-drinking hippies who hate America and want the terrorists to win. Or it could be that maybe, just maybe, they see that his message of pure, unadulterated hope is the first that has been heard from a presidential candidate since Kennedy (of the John F. or Robert F. variety) and the most passionate since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Does this mean that I'm voting for Obama? Not necessarily. But it does mean that I am going to need a real reason if I am going to vote against him.



Note: In order to illuminate the reader about my own ethnic heritage, I feel it is incumbent upon me to mention that I am about as white as a person can get - English last name, Protestant upbringing, raised in a military family (mostly on Army bases in decidedly red states), 100% USDA approved white Euro-mutt. The only way I could be more white is by preceding my name with an initial, following it with a numerical suffix (i.e. III, IV, LXIX), and joining a country club.