It happens in the best of families…
Posted by: Tiffany
Last night, I missed the second half of the debate to have a birthday dinner with two of my sisters-in-law and my ex-step-mom-in-law (complicated family relationships. Let’s call them by their names. Jen, Gina, Penny, respectively). Gina is a democrat and an Obama supporter. Jen and Penny are both republican McCain supporters. In the restaurant (the Irish Democrat) we went to, the debate was playing on the TV, although the sound was off. I suppose it was inevitable that politics would come up a time or two. It was not a fun conversation.
The first sign of the yuckiness to follow was Jen referring to Obama as “Osama”. My response was “you can choose to not like him all you want, but do NOT call him a terrorist. He isn’t one.” Both repugs at the table were unable (or unwilling) to come up with a single thing they liked about McCain, but both said they liked him. Even when I asked how they felt about the fact that his campaign (and the man himself) keeps saying things that had been proven false again and again, their response “they all do that”. I suppose that makes lying ok?
The most offensive statement actually came during a non-political conversation. We saw a picture of the Virginia City Camel Races. It was odd to see this in Iowa. I mentioned my connection – my father raises camels in Nevada and the camels in the races are his. He puts together the races every September. I’ve been getting “towel head” and “camel jockey” cracks since I was a teenager, my father has more recently even gotten “terrorist” comments, even though all of my family are blonde-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavians. Simply raising camels makes people assume that in some way we are Arab, and in some way, that is bad. In surprise of seeing this touch of home in Iowa, I tell the ladies “Oh my gosh! My dad runs the Virginia City Camel Races!” Penny responds “I bet HE supports Obama.”
My jaw dropped. I was shocked. In that moment, it became crystal clear to me. It is not that they love McCain; it’s that they hate Obama. And why do they hate him? Apparently, they are drawing some kind of connection between a dark-skinned man with a funny name to terrorism. It is horrifying. How on earth can we combat this kind of racism and discrimination? When we’d said goodnight and parted ways, I watched the highlights to find that McCain had referred to Obama as “that one” as if he is not a man, but an object. I feel like I spent last night in another century. What year is this anyway? On an academic level, I know that this type of irrational thinking exists. But I have no idea how to approach it when I find it in my own family.
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It’s like you have to keep reminding yourself that it’s 2008. I mean, how can there still be all this tribalism and ignorance? We have cell phones now!! Then you realize there are some parts of the world where people still act like it’s the 9th century.
Okay, what is really scary about this post is the “Google Ads” that came up at the bottom when I clicked open the comments. One about exposing “the Real Barack Obama” and the other to “help Jeff Flake put pork-barrel spending on parade.”
OMG! That is exactly how i feel. We have such archaic views on ethnicity in this country and I agree that McCain supporters are largely those who have disdain for Obama. They’re not necessarily supportive of McCain but are voting for him largely as a vote against Obama. I’ve been appalled by the racism shown by people I know and actually like. They can’t seem to enter the 21st century and hold to such weird prejudices. I really thought we were moving beyond this in 2008. We have so much work to do.
I think many of us who don’t get our news from certain quarters don’t realize how concerted a campaign there is to demonize Islam and the affect this is having on segments of the population susceptible to this type of Islamaphobia. Because it is so irrational it stretches into area that have zero to do with it but it becomes all consuming – somewhat like illegal immigration is with certain nativists.
This just came out and I think it ably chronicles the efforts in this area:
http://www.smearcasting.com
Great blog, sad story. It isn’t that surprising though.
I am actually worried about the Bradley Effect. Basically people who say they are leaning Obama or are ‘undecided’ when they have no intention of voting for him but don’t want to have to defend it b/c they only have racist reasons. I speak to it more on a post on my blog:
http://anotherdamnblog.com/index.php/worried-about-the-bradley-effect/
Keep up the good work, always good to AZ blogs doing well.
-ep