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Author: Chukwudi Nwokoye
Posted to the web: 10/21/2008 10:57:24 AM

Anyone that still thinks that America is the bastion of democracy is naive. Anyone that thinks that racism in American politics has been done away with based on the phenomenal rise and campaign of Barack Obama is not paying much attention to the many developments leading up to the November 4th election. Everything a black person or a minority in America achieves, he or she did so based on extra-ordinary hard work he has put it unlike when a white person is involved. That has been the problem. If McCain happened to be a product of Harvard Law School and a President of Harvard Law Review; and went ahead to be a Professor of Constitutional Law in a University, he would be idolized. Conversely, if Barack Obama had been a bum, graduating nearly at the bottom of his class, a rascal, a party freak, he dare not even apply to be a City Council member. Kelvin Lafond in the Letters to the Editors at Fort Worth-Telegram titled “How Racism Works” put it succinctly:“What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class? What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said 'I do' to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards? What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not  only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization? What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard? What if Obama were a member of the 'Keating 5'? What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker? If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are? This is what racism does:  When there is a color difference, it covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another.” Since Senator John McCain's poll numbers pulmeted heading to the November election, lots of innuendos that appeal to certain racial stereotypes. There has been lots of subtle comments by John McCain and his “attack puppy-in-chief”, Sarah Palin, that questions Obama’s “Americanness” or his patriotism. Speaking in one of her capaign stops the other day, she stated: “Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country”. The McCain Campaign has been using buzzwords like “Country First” “Terrorists” “Who is the real Barack Obama” “welfare state” “socialist” etc to make voters fear Obama and to make them to believe that Obama is less of an American than McCain. They also try to make people believe that Obama may have some terrorist tendencies, hence the use of his middle name 'Hussein'. As of now, many people still believe that Obama is a muslim or that at some point in his life, he was a muslim and only converted to christianity.

Also they are quick to seize on Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s anti-America rantings and forget that even McCain patronizes Evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who said more damaging things about America and its government. After condemning Jerry Falwell in 2000 after he was vanquished by then Governor George W. Bush in South Carolina Republican Primary as an “agent of intolerance”, McCain made peace with him as he started to re-run for president back in 2006. In 2001, Falwell had to apologize after his comments in which he described the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as judgment on America for “throwing God out of the public square” He went further to say: “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make an alternate lifestyle,, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say ‘You helped this happen’”. Pat Roberson on his own side has blamed gays for divorce, abortion, and September 11 and said that a gay-oriented event would bring about “terrorist bombs…earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor” He also stated that liberal judges are a bigger threat to society than Al Qaeda. All those so-called men of God say wild things about America but John McCain pals around with them and even patronized them. But because they are white, their activities were not highlighted as that of Jeremiah Wright, a black pastor in the Southside of Chicago.

All the conservative talking heads keep drumming the issue of Pastor Wright, but none of them mentions Pastor Thomas Muthee. It is on record that Pastor Muthee, a Kenyan national, visited Wasilla Assembly of God Church a number of times when Governor Sarah Palin was there. Pastor Muthee was also reported to have been a “terrorist” in his hometown in Kenya. How about the association with “a terrorist who target his own country”. The pastor was shown on a video tape laying hands on the governor in October, 2005 and was reportedly casting out witchcraft from her. He was reported to have said:

“make a way for Sarah, even in political arena. Make a way my God. Bring finances her way, even if for the campaign in the name of Jesus”.

Talking about terrorists and people that do not believe in America and its ideals and people that associate or had dealings with them, the McCain Campaign always mentions William Ayers, the leader of an activist group known as “Weather Underground” who targeted the U. S. Capitol, the Pentagon and the New York City Police headquartersback in the 1960s in protest of the Vietnam war, at the time that Barack Obama was a little boy. McCain Campaign pushes this “guilty by association” argument that since Obama had been on the board of a Chicago foundation called The Woods Fund from 1999 to 2002 in Chicago, that somehow Obama is tainted by his association with Professor Ayers, no matter how slight. However, McCain would not point out that some notable republicans in Chicago were also in the same board with Professor Ayers. If the argument about guilty by association is a disqualifying piece of event, how about Todd Palin, the spouse of the Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin? Was he not a registered member of Alaskan Independent Party until 2002. Alaskan Independent Party believes that Alaska should not be part of America and wanted to secede from America. In fact, the founder of the party, a man named Joe Vogler once said: “The fire of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won’t be buried under their damned flag…I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.” Even with the history of the founder, Todd Palin went ahead and joined the secessionist Party. Just last March, Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska, sent a recorded speech for the Party’s Convention. The founder of the Party, Mr. Vogler, after being murdered in 1995 in connection with an informal transaction involving plastic explosives was buried in Canada according to his wish. Doesn’t Vogler fit into a profile of “terrorists who would target their own country?” John McCain on his part sat on the advisory board of U.S. Council for World Freedom. The council formed by General John Singlaub as the American outpost of the World Anti-Communist League, which is some sort of clearing house for former Nazi collaborators, Central American death-squad leaders and international thugs. Gen. Singlaub said McCain became associated with the organization in the early eighties as McCain was launching his political career in Arizona. Secret arms shipments to rebels called “Contras” – a CIA organized guerilla force in Central America were financed in part by covert sales to Iran which became known as the Iran-Contra Affair. In 1987, the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) withdrew the tax-exempt status of Singlaub’s group because of its activities on behalf of the Contras. When McCain was elected to the House in 1982, he was still on the board and was among the republicans expressing support for the Contras. In a nutshell, when the Congress withdrew funding for the Contras, Singlaub’s group became a cover for the Reagan’s White House operations. Secretly, this group helped to raise millions of dollars from foreign government. So if McCain has to push the guilty by association argument, and then let us ventilate everyone he has ever spoken to or had association with in his political career.

All these double-standards are as a result of being a person of color in America. There are lots of racial undertones that were highlighted during the course of this presidential campaign and within the past seven week. It is funny but it is true. If Governor Palin were to be a black female with five kids and some of them very young, the buzz word would be that she was “making babies” like a rabbit. If she was to be a black mother of four who waited for 22 hours after her water breaks before seeking for medical attention, she would have been tagged “irresponsible” and an “unfit mother” endangering the life of an unborn child or at worse an “abortionist”. But because Sarah is white, she is idolized as very courageous when she did that.

Furthermore, her 17 year old daughter, Bristol, got pregnant, and her pregnancy belongs to another 17 year old, Levi Johnston, who described himself in his face-book as a “redneck”-a term that connotes a racist reactionary, but the Republican Party, a party that prides itself as moralists and family value adherent do not see anything wrong with that picture. The excuse given by their parents was that the two are planning to get married! In fact, the two love-birds were seen holding hands in reserved seats at the Republican Convention in Minnesota. Meanwhile, the boyfriend has dropped out from school and is looking for a job to be able to take care of the baby.It was reported in the New York Daily News that Johnston was bursted by the police for fishing king salmon from Alaska's Moose Lake out of season. He was alleged to have paid $370 in bail. Yon can only imagine what the conservative bigots like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly would be saying if the teenage daughter happened to be Obama's daughter! Michelle Obama, his wife, would be accused of being an irresponsible mother, 'how can she value her career over her family, this is outrageoues, she is using her family for politiacal gains'. But Sarah with young kids are parading them everywhere and exposing them at every campaign event, even at midnight to 'energize' the Republican base and to show the world how tough she is to manage her home and engage in a very rigorous campaign and that her family would be ok. No one pays attention to the fact that her new baby, Trig, with a Down Syndrome is a special needs child and should be spared of all these spotlights. But since she is white, her political career trumps her family needs and this is the Republican Party? She could use all kinds of street languages as 'you betcha' 'shout out' or 'doggonit' and the bigots applaud her. But when the Obamas gave each other a 'fist bump' after one of Obama's rallies, it made big news in Fox News which played it over and over again to portray the fact that they are blacks and only blacks do 'fist bump'

Sarah killed endangered specie animal and posed for a picture with it with her foot on its neck, she was idolized in the conservative blogs as “hunter” “Rambo woman”. They even use he posters where she was aiming a moose as a Campaing Fund Raising 'eye-catcher'. However, a drawing of Michelle Obama with an AK-47 slung across her shoulder were tagged “terrorist” and “angry black woman” and “imagine how she would turn the Whitehouse upside down”.

A black woman, former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a democrat from Georgia is currently campaigning for president, but you will never hear her name mentioned by the mainstream media.

Barack Obama spent 3 years as a Community Organizer growing his organization from one staff to thirteen and improving his budget from $70,000 to $400,000 (over 400%). He rose to become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and created a voter registration drive which registered more than 150,000 new African American and minority voters, spent 12 years as a Constitutional Law Professor and then another eight years as a State Senator in Illinois representing a district of over 750,000 people moving up to become the Chairman of the State Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee and then spent nearly four years as a US Senator representing his state of Illinois of over 12 millions people and sponsored 131 bills in the Senate and is serving on the Foreign Relations, Environmental and Public Works and Veterans Affairs Committees, he was still accused on fatally inexperienced.

He ran a well disciplined campaign, raised and managed an unprecedented amount of money, yet the nay-sayers and the racists and their enablers would not give him some credits. If he had been a white person, he must be “sensational”. Obama has been described in the conservative media outlets as “upity” “presumptuous” “cocky”. The republicans, especially their wacky and racist flank tried to diminish Obama’s achievements by saying that he was a mere “community organizer”. This is a term they used in order to remind their party faithfuls that Obama is in fact a black person.

Sarah Palin who spent four years on the City Council, six years as a Mayor of a small town with the population of less than 7,000 people and less than two years as a governor of Alaska, a state with the population of less than 650,000 people, smaller than some counties is the United States. She is praised to the high heaven as the woman of the most executive experience of either presidential ticket as the Commander-in-Chief of Alaska National Guard and then her foreign policy experience was gained by her gazing at Russia from her bedroom as her State is neighboring the former Soviet overlord; and because whenever Vladmir Putin is coming to the States, he must pass through Alaskan Airspace. Ridiculous, but that is how she gained her qualification as the President-in-Waiting of the United States! She was called 'sensational' 'a maverick' and the 'real deal'.

Condi Rice, a former National Security Advisor and currently the Secretary of State in President George W. Bush administration and a republican was overlooked because she is a black and does not share “family value” because she is single. She was not even given a mention in the republican circle.

Let me get back to John McCain. When he came back from captivity in Vietnam, he cheated on his first wife who was disfigured by a fatal accident, abandoned her, and off he went with a rich heiress. He was having an affair with the heiress, Cindi Lou Hensley, while being separated from his first wife. It has to be pointed out that at the time this was happening, John McCain was still in the military. The last time I checked, adultery is a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There was no charge brought against him and no mention of that even though he confessed to the offense, but because he is white and his father and grand father were Admirals in the Navy and bore the same name, John McCain. But Barack Obama has been married for 16 years now with his only wife, whom he described as his “rock” but he gets no credit. His Christian faith was questioned. Even when some grudgingly admit that Obama is a Christian, they still say that his own brand of Christianity is “exteremist”.

Two days ago, Retired General Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain, but the conservative talking heads try to minimize the well-reasoned and well- articulated endorsement citing primordial sentiment. This is Colin Powell, an American Hero and who military doctrine which says that US should go to war as the last resort and then only with over-whelming force, is still very relevant, and who had served under four presidents three of which are republican presidents. Rush Limbaugh stated that it was because of race that General Powell endorsed Obama. For his part, General Powell would have been the first black president, but he did not have enough support from the republican Party which he has served all his military career. Some cited the fact that Powell was pro-choice, pro-gay and in support of Affirmative Action. But the main reason was that the conservatives does not believe that America is accommodative enough for a black president.

This is the kind of politics of race in America. I am almost sure that Obama would survive it and become the first black president of America.

 

 

*Chukwudi Nwokoye at nwokoyeac@hotmail.com