Today is my Mom's birthday, and she and I have been going back and forth about Obama for months. I love my mother. In spite of everything. I've spent the last hour writing this, and felt that it was worth posting. Hope some people agree. Yes, it's personal.
All politics is local, and all activism is personal.
First her email:
I just read in its entirety the speech which Obama gave regarding race in America. I have to admit I am immensely impressed.
Two paragraphs are of special note:
More after the jump. Warning, it gets ugly.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's efforts to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change — problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
I repeat for important emphasis - Even Obama believes that the conflicts in the Middle East emanate from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. That's saying it all. With his IQ of 130, and despite the Muslim background he possesses, he dared to speak the truth. Despite the "adolation" of Louis Farrakan and his Black Islamic wackoes, Obama still told it like it is. Good for him!
And when you make threats to me, as you did on today's email about you and Debi planning to walk out if I say anything like the bullshit of calling Obama an Arab, I get flumoxed. Obama is half white, half Kenyan (which is made up mostly of Arab/Muslim extractions, and only 1/8 black. I thus was not trying to disparage Obama when I said that if the truth of our economic disparity comes out loud and clear, that Obama will probably win the election, and America will have its first Arab president! So get off your high-horse, Chad, and stop getting pissy and assume that I'm again ripping off on race! I'm just writing the truth!
Here is my reply:
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Mom,
When I read the word "Arab", I heard in my mind all of the years that I spent growing up. I heard hate, racism and negative thoughts. Whenever we get on the phone, and you start yelling about the blacks, or the Muslims or whatever, it reinforces that impression. I have a choice, to follow the same negative thoughts and let them rule and ruin my life, or to reject them and walk away hoping to find something positive.
I remember one time when I was around 10 years old, and you came home from your job at the King County Administration building telling the story of how one of your co-workers had threatened to push you out the window. You were barely able to keep your fury in check. But what I remember most vividly was my own reaction. I wondered what you had done to make HER that angry. But I never blamed you, any more than I blamed her. I've always felt it was deeper than just an argument at work. My belief was that you were expressing racism against her as a black woman, and that she had been expressing racism against you as a white woman. Flawed perception? Probably.
Here's another paragraph from his speech that I thought important:
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family contributed to the erosion of black families — a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods — parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pickup, building code enforcement — all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continues to haunt us.
This reinforces my view that Obama has the same view as I do for the role of government. And that is to establish and maintain the foundations of our civilization. That foundation consists of four major parts; physical, economic, legal and social. The social foundation does not mean that Congress or the President dictate the terms of what we see on TV or read in our magazines. What it does mean is that our government at all levels has a responsibility to ensure that no segment of our society should be held back, discouraged or ignored. Dr. King's vision of a world where people are judged by the content of their character should be the goal. In the 232 year history of the United States, we have been slowly moving in that direction. The arc of history bends towards justice. Not retribution, but justice. And that can't be the result of having people on either side of arguments that devolve into name calling or pointing blame.
My experiences in the Navy helped solidify my views on this. The guys that I worked with from Chicago or the Bronx were just as capable mentally as anyone else in boot camp. But they held attitudes that twisted their path away from their potential, due to the latent racism in our culture. They were constantly trying to prove themselves to the "rich white kids" like me. Or perhaps that was just how I saw it, since at that point I had not been able to completely set aside what I learned from you growing up. That race meant something, and that people were fundamentally different because of the color of our skins. That may not have been what you tried to teach, but it was the lesson that I learned. And had to unlearn.
Another paragraph of note from his speech:
Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience — as far as they're concerned, no one handed them anything. They built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pensions dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and they feel their dreams slipping away. And in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
You constantly send me copies of blog posts and articles from people who are intentionally pushing the boundaries between discomfort and anger. Who want to take advantage of our purely human desire to be around "people like us" and sheltered from "those people over there". That's what I read in their words, and that's what I've been reading into your intent. Why else would you send them to me? I'm not immune to their arguments, and I have to constantly and consciously reject them each and every time.
Barack Obama is African and American, Black and White. He is not Muslim, nor is he Black Christain Evangelical. His core beliefs don't come from Rev. Wright, they come from his grandparents. So do mine. People who were raised by survivors of the Depression have a different view than the rest of the world. I was for a long time raised by my grandparents, just as Barack Obama was. The set of values I have comes from them, and the biggest message that I heard was that we are all in this struggle together, and that people are people everywhere just wanting that struggle to go their way. Nobody wants to be stopped by economic divisions or racism on their way to the promised land. We can listen to the frustration of Rev. Wright and not be swayed to try and follow the negative path of retribution. We can hear the real words from the Bible and seek "justice for all" instead of "advantage for some".
We were not planning to "walk out" at the drop of a hat on your birthday. I was expressing that I didn't want to hear negativity on your birthday. I read Arab in your email, and heard it as name calling, not simply an attempt at identifying his genetic makeup, perhaps unjustified. You frequently express what I perceive as pure hatred and irrational fear against people who follow Islam, even though it is only a small minority of people who follow the violent, radical and fundamentalist sects of that religion, and I can't perceive any justification for it. So I recoil from it.
If I understood that by "Arab" you meant people like those Debi met in the deserts of Egypt, I wouldn't fret about the word. Their way of life was fundamentally different than ours, but they enjoyed life and survived as Nomads, and have for thousands of years. But that's not what I get from you, because of our past history and my perceptions of your views. I'll freely admit that perception may be flawed. But it's really tough to change them when discussions with you devolve into fear and yelling matches. Race matters, Mom. We're all part of the human race. That's my foundation, and that's my "high horse".
Chad