MY WORDS - Politics: Friends and Strange Bedfellows Part 2

When I sent the previous blog as an email to a VERY dear friend of mine, she sent me the following reply:

Tell you what. I will make you a deal.

If you won't send me any more of this racist bullshit, I won't tell you in detail why I think this is so beneath you.

I love you anyway.

J.

My reply to her is below -- and VERY lengthy.
J.,

I am sorry that sharing some things that have engendered my concern offended you, and I will respect your request and refrain from sending you anything else political. I would, however, like to clarify a few of your misconceptions. I’m pleased that you are aware of the presence of racism and bullshit, but I’m disturbed that you are laying their presence at my feet rather than where they really belong.

Just like Barbara Mandrel was “country when country wasn’t cool”, I have been politically correct since long before the phrase even came into common usage. Political correctness has outlived its usefulness as an equalizer and graduated to levels well beyond insanity; it now dictates that white people must submit to being condemned for being white and wear a shroud of guilt for it, and those who are tired of being bashed for being white and have the unmitigated gall to speak out against it must surely be racist.

Shelby Steele, the author of “White Guilt” and a man who shares Obama’s racial heritages, claims that large numbers of people belonging to some non-white minority groups are using that “white guilt” as “a ticket to write their futures, exerting no efforts on their own behalf” – not just blacks, but Mexicans and people from other countries coming here and demanding that we accommodate them and submit to their demands of what they think America should be about. I know this is not part of the original dialogue (if it can be called that), but I figured so long as I am being branded as a purveyor of racist bullshit, I might as well be in for a pound as in for a penny, so I’m throwing it all out on the table.

Americans, particularly baby-boomers, are being challenged to “prove” the validity of the civil rights support we began espousing in the sixties by voting for a black man – or put our money where our mouths are, so to speak. I have never allowed myself to be governed by group think and I never will. You’ve known me long enough to know that rather than being a bandwagon jumper, I have always been more of a bandwagon driver, and I will not be bullied by anyone – either individual or a faceless group called “them” – to prove that I’m not a storefront liberal by voting for a man just because he is black. Voting FOR a man because he is black is just as senseless as voting AGAINST a man for the same reason. I wouldn’t do that, either. Likewise, voting FOR a woman because she is female is just as senseless as voting AGAINST her for the same reason. I have absolutely no problem with the idea of electing a black man to the presidency – just not this one. (Although I must admit that I consider Jesse Jackson’s recent showing of anti-Obama sentiment to be a compelling endorsement in Obama’s favor, but not enough to change my mind about him as a candidate for President.) Likewise, I had no problem with the idea of electing a female to serve in the white house -- just not the one who was running. However, the politically correct zealots would have us believe that we must elect Obama as President or risk being branded racists, either as individuals or as a racist nation. I’m willing to risk it.

My opinions about different people or peoples are based on my observations and personal experiences, not based on how someone else told me I should feel toward anyone or anything. While my opinions of particular groups may not always be positive, I am not willing to condemn – or accept – anyone out of hand because he or she might belong to a certain group. I’m not opposed to anyone’s right to having his or her own views or religion, and I’m not against any peoples. However, I don’t in any way support what I perceive to be just groupthink that is based on a sense of entitlements, and anyone who supports it. I have observed or been made aware of numerous incidents of outrageous behaviors of radical Muslims and even have a little band of them in my own family. In light of the violent behavior of some Muslim groups in the past several decades, Obama’s Muslim heritage makes me uncomfortable, but then, I looked askance at Mike Huckabee’s deep southern Baptist roots and connections as well, based (once again) on my own personal experiences with and observations of that particular group. Any religion or ethnicity that incites fanatical and/or militant behavior has that effect on me, but I am willing to keep a benefit-of-the-doubt mentality and look past that to see if there is anything there of value that could overcome my doubts. So far, with Obama, I haven’t found anything yet.

If I met Obama in person, I would probably like him immensely, even welcome him into my circle of friends if I knew him on that level, but upon closer inspection, I don’t like what he seems to stand for as a politician. (That’s okay, there are a lot of people I have welcomed into my circle of friends whom I would not elevate to elected office of any kind, just because I might not think them to be qualified, either.)

For whatever it’s worth, when I first became aware of Obama, I was eager to tap into his message to find out what he was about, in hopes that he might be a person who could help realize a wish I had held as a naïve teenager – that with interracial unions on the increase, someday there would be enough biracial people in this country who would have allegiance to both races (or perhaps neither one), and therefore hasten the end of bigotry as we know it. The idea of having a President who is biracial actually appeals to me enormously – imagine if he used his dual heritage to unite us rather than divide us.

I personally consider Obama’s willingness to attend a church not once, but as a part of his regular lifestyle for 17 years, where the minister blatantly proselytizes anti-white rhetoric and promotes racial separatism to be a very scary thing. Back in 1993, when I first started attending the church where your friend's brother was the minister, soon after I became a card-carrying member of the church (not a commitment taken lightly, as it is the only church I have ever officially “joined” since I was eight years old), an anti-gay issue that was raging like wildfire through Cobb County was brought before the churches of the area in a manner that required churches to step up in either their support for or their opposition to the anti-gay laws that had just been passed. I didn’t check them out on the subject before joining the church, but when the time came for churches to take a stand on the issue, I was more than willing to walk out without a backward glance, should they have come down in favor of the resolution, even though I personally do not have a dog in that fight (somewhere I’m sure I’m on record as also being a card-carrying member of the heterosexual community). The idea of remaining a part of any group supporting that type of blind persecution was absolutely unthinkable, and I would have left without hesitation. I was very pleased to discover that they were completely unwilling to support this rabid vilification and discrimination, and proud to remain a part of that church body for several years before leaving for unrelated reasons.

I can’t imagine that it would have taken Obama 17 years to realize that the ethics of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago were anti-white. If he is all too willing to reject half of his own heritage, that doesn’t speak well of his willingness to maintain any of the values that went into the creation of the basis of this country, and it speaks, even shouts, to his potential to denounce any- and everything American in favor of some menace to which we have not yet been made privy. I don’t like surprises. That he denounced his church and repudiated his affiliation with it only after it became an obvious liability and threat to his political aspirations is at best a token gesture and at worst overtly insincere, opportunistic and obviously for publicity only. Will he betray America in the same way if it should suit his ambitions? His actions certainly hint strongly that it is a dangerous possibility.

Obama blatantly practices discrimination, but he is so filled with charm and charisma that he has bedazzled an alarming number of learned people into overlooking his obvious racism. He is capable of inspiring blind and even hostile devotion in people, convincing them that any criticism of him should be perceived as an attack on the whole of black American. There have been others down through history who have been able to inspire and command such mindless dedication, and history shows us that in most cases, rather than harnessing this fervor and using it for the greater good or advancement of mankind, their only intention was to use it for the advancement and aggrandizement of themselves. Even though modern politics have been reduced to “American Idol” meets “Survivor”, in my opinion, this level of charisma would be more befitting a game show host or talk show host than an American President.

A large part of the American population believes that discrimination is inherent and present only in white people, in particular those white people who are anti-Black, anti-Mexican or anti-anyone else non-white. I personally do not believe in the term “reverse discrimination”. Discrimination is discrimination, and white people are not the only people who are guilty of it. I am tired of looking the other way when discrimination is tolerated or, worse, encouraged, solely because its target is white people. I have long embraced diversity and been extremely outspoken in banging the drum for civil rights for everybody and fought against unjustifiable intolerance of any sort based on religion, race, gender or sexual preference, going nose-to-nose and toes-to-toes against anyone who supports it, and I will continue to do so. Since before you and I met, and we know how long that’s been, this has been a part of my lifestyle and not just something to which I’ve given hollow lip service. People who haven’t shared my zeal for equality have long thought that because I have an open mind, I think with an empty head, but this is not correct. I have seen both sides of the discrimination coin, and I don’t like either side of it. It seems to me that nowadays white people are the only people who are condemned for discrimination, and I find that most people who are levying such labels at me are the same people for whom I’ve been very vocal in my support. These are not the civil rights for which I was fighting.

A few years ago, I was in a chat room and struck up a conversation with a young black woman who was attending my college alma mater and, coincidentally, living in the dorm where I had lived when I was at that university. The conversation moved to her job at a restaurant, and she informed me in no uncertain terms that if there was a conflict at her job between a white person and a black person, she would automatically support the black person without question and without regard to the issue, because she is “proud of her race and supports her race, no matter what”. I told her that when white people believe and behave in such a manner, it’s called discrimination, and asked her what it’s called when black people take it. She immediately logged off and we never chatted again.

The militant faction of the black community has learned through post-Rodney King behavior (and pre-, some of which took place while I was still in high school) that the mere threat of mob violence by people with this mindset is enough to cow white America into submission to whatever the demand might be – e.g., a prominent black athlete being acquitted of a double-murder which he undoubtedly committed. Quite honestly, I fully expect major incidents of rioting of the post-Rodney King magnitude to occur all across America if the voting public has the colossal audacity not to elect Obama. Can you say anarchy?

I strongly agree with most of your anti-Bush litany, and frankly think he is an idiot. He is someone else who was more determined to use his power for advancing his own personal agenda than for the good of the nation, and look where that got us. Whether he was trying to avenge his father by going after Saddam Hussein or prove that he was a “better man than Daddy” by doing what his father did not – deposing Hussein – matters not. The results are the same. But that doesn’t move me to vote for any of the leading candidates of the opposite party. I am not married to any political party, and I vote my conscience rather than the party line, regardless of the party in which I am registered. I have long been of the opinion that Jimmy Carter did not defeat Gerald Ford in the 1976 Presidential election – Richard Nixon did, because the American people as a whole were so sick of the Nixon administration that no Republican candidate, however qualified, could have been elected in the immediate aftermath of the Watergate era. The same could be said for Al Gore’s 2000 Presidential defeat and the general American weariness (not to mention wariness) of the never-ending Clinton fiascos and the “anybody on the other side (whatever the other side might be) would be better than this” train of thought. He wasn’t defeated by George W. and hanging chads so much as he was by being his party’s representative in the next election.

I think that dismissing or trivializing Obama’s disdain and disregard for the traditions of the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and the national anthem is not only a dangerous mistake, but it is the same as asking Catholics the world over to disregard a papal candidate’s refusal to participate in the Lord’s Prayer or willingness to burn the cross, for whatever lame excuse he might have. Both are, at best, acts of disrespect to the very positions to which they aspire. At worst, they insult the integrity of the very nation Obama wants to lead. Lead into what, I ask? If we are asked to look the other way on these issues, what’s next? A candidate’s burning of the American flag because he views it as a white man’s flag of oppression of the black man? As Americans, we certainly have the right to spurn, disagree with or refuse to participate in either of these traditions, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I adamantly oppose putting in the white house someone who is so readily willing to do so. I view this as not only disrespectful to Americans at large – not to mention, all of the soldiers who have fought to preserve what those icons represent (our American way of life) – but as a very strong and dangerous message to the world at large that this person chosen to lead the nation is a storefront American who has less regard for the nation as it is and what it stands for and more interest in promoting his own agenda and the special interest groups which he so clearly represents. He has very well-hidden agendas and seems to be all too willing to sacrifice America to advance them.

If after reading this you are still willing to brand my concerns as racism, so be it. Obviously you know that you are one of my closest friends in the world, and because I love you dearly and value our friendship far too much to put it at risk in the name of ideology, I will not continue a dialogue on the subject. However, I welcome your response if you care to make one, and I will read it with respect, without dismissing it as bullshit if I disagree with it. So as not to prolong the issue, I won’t make any reply, so you may have the last word on the subject. Afterward, I think we should move on to less incendiary topics.

Love,

"Anne"