It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

David Worth is Director of Forensics and a lecturer in Humanities at Rice University.

The election of Barack Obama has sparked a glow that rivals two kids one week into a new relationship. Suddenly life has purpose, meaning, and promise. The inadequacies I saw in myself yesterday are now themselves cast into doubt since "someone loves me, really loves me." News reports gleefully speculate on the New Kennedys' -- uh, I mean Obamas' -- possible choice of a puppy. Commentators and people polled exclaim that "we aren't as racist as we thought we were" (USA Today, Nov. 7) because we elected an African-American president. A guy at Subway yesterday told me (unsolicited) that a new era of trust had begun (yes, really). Sure, that's pretty amazing, but it also says that there's a new fad available for consumption: self-congratulation. If you've seen a TV or newspaper in the last few days, then you know: The Race Issue in America is apparently over.



Americans, as a Western culture, like things with clear beginnings and ends. We like to think that the race issue has ended because we elected a black president and because Oprah is a very rich woman.

This is a crisis.

By that I mean that there is amazing opportunity here and terrifying danger. We can use this occurrence to really be hopeful and kind to each other and then actually address our problems, or we can use it to convince ourselves that we "got 'er done," that we licked the Race Problem like the plucky Americans we are. If we assume that it's over, then the struggle is really lost. This event can be motivation or co-optation. We can say that we have overcome ourselves for the moment and we should be glad about it, but we cannot let his election be our absolution.

Racism didn't evaporate with the election. The same USA Today/Gallup poll cited above reports that 27% of respondents said they were "afraid" as a result of the election. This scares the hell out of me. These are only the people who are at least self-aware enough to know they are racists and embrace what they are. The kind of racism discussed by The Race Project, the racism inherent in our very self-substance, has not been banished by a $600 million campaign.















Today, right now, race is a factor -- in a damaging way -- in billions of interactions going on all over the country. I mean that literally. Yeah, we did a good thing Tuesday -- no doubt about that -- but if we slap ourselves on the back and move on to "the next thing," we are fools.

"Wholly" Hyperbole! A Satiristst's Response to Viral Lies and Misrepresentations

A.J. Caliendo is a satirist and freelance writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.




If people are going to believe all the negatives published on some political blogs and websites, then it is only fair that those same people believe the crap about ALL candidates, not just the one they hate for whatever irrational reason. So here, complete with ethnic slurs, are some “FACTS” that I came across on the Internet.


My Friends:

With the day of reckoning drawing ever nearer, it is more important than ever that you weigh all the FACTS before making the apocalyptic decision to vote for a man who will, according to reliable sources, hand this great country of ours over to the military and declare himself - a la historic figures such as Manuel Noriega and Idi Amin - president for life.

Below are FACTS that have been checked and double checked by our staff through really, really reliable fact-checking resources like yeahithinkiheardathat.com, The Globe and Wikipedia. IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL that you read these facts before making the biggest mistake of your lives by helping to elect a man who won’t be able to wake up when that life-or-death decision needs to be made because his sleep has already been interrupted four times to take a leak.

Take a look at what we mean.

FACT:
John McCain has voted with President George W. Bush 117% of the time. That shocking percentage was made possible when, on several occasions, the senator from Arizona snuck back into line during the count and voted three or more times for the same bill.

FACT:
Senator McCain is of Irish descent. It is a well documented fact that people of this ethnicity are all notorious drunkards whose judgment has been severely damaged by a daily average intake of one half bottle of Bushmill’s Whiskey and two six-packs of Guinness. Is this the man whose liver-spotted finger YOU want on “the button?”

FACT:
McCain promised Viet Nam-era General William Westmoreland on his death bed that, if he was ever elected president, he would give all veterans of that illegal war (even the homeless, crazy ones) tax-free status for life and appoint as many as possible to cabinet posts and seats on the Supreme Court.

FACT:
Despite her pro-life rantings, McCain’s running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has had four abortions over the past 20 years to terminate pregnancies to six different men. This is confirmed by Palin’s childhood friend Anita Life who says she accompanied the governor to each of the procedures and even filled out insurance forms for Palin on two of those occasions while the Vice-Presidential candidate applied make-up so she would look good for the “hot doc” performing the abortions.

FACT:
Of the five children Palin does claim, the youngest, a Downs Syndrome boy named Trig, is actually the child of her seven-year-old daughter Piper, the result of a whirlwind affair with 54-year-old French Canadian Fur Trapper Pierre Freshener (pronounce frosh-en-yay.)

FACT:
Palin’s remaining four “children” were provided by a well-know temporary help service only 10 months ago when talk of a possible vice-presidential nomination began to circulate in Republican party circles. Win or lose, the kids go back November 5.

FACT:
McCain has voted 6,472 times to provide exact replicas of Air Force One to each CEO of companies in the Fortune 500.

FACT:
Although he claims that injuries sustained in a North Viet Namese prisoner of war camp have severely limited range of motion in his arms, the Republican nominee was spotted high-fiving Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson after the passage of a bill to provide 71 billion (with a “B”) dollars to bail out close personal friends Fredrick R. (Freddy) Mack and Frances (Fannie) Mae.

All we are asking is that you consider these indisputable allegations before casting your vote for a man who some say (we are still checking this one out) is the reincarnation of Judas Iscariot.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,

The Committee To Convince People To Vote For the Guy We Like

Tap Dancing with Joe the Plumber: Breaking Down the Rhetoric of the Unintentional Star of the Final Presidential Debate

Kevan Yenerall is associate professor of political science at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. He is co-author (with Mark Sachleben) of Seeing the Bigger Picture: Understanding Politics Through Film & Television (2005, Peter Lang).


Hello folks,

Thanks to Dr. Caliendo and Dr. McIlwain for their public service, the Project on Race, and for their invitation to post my thoughts.

First, here are some useful links to Joseph Wurzelbacher (labeled by the McCain campaign as “Joe the Plumber”) and his exchanges with Barack Obama, Katie Couric, and Diane Sawyer:

• Barack Obama’s full exchange with Joe in Ohio
• Katie Couric interview with Joe after the debate
• “Socialist slippery slope” interview on Good Morning America, the next morning

When reviewing Joe the Plumber’s comments, I found a few things that stood out – most immediately and significantly, his dismissing of Barack Obama’s lengthy (five-minute) discussion of his tax plan (if and why he would change the top tax rate to 39%, up from the current 36%) as a “tap dance” – despite the fact that Obama’s exchange with Joe was, at least to my ears and eyes, quite direct and remarkably on topic for a conversation with a presidential candidate at a political event/photo op.

Moreover, in his interview with CBS’ Katie Couric after the debate, Joe claims to have “no idea” as to Obama's positions, even as Obama has been articulating them for 18 months on the campaign trail, and even after Obama’s five-minute response to Joe’s questions at the political event in Ohio.

Joe hits the golden racialized oldies notes played increasingly at the right wing sock hops the last several weeks:

“He can speak pretty…”; “we’re not sure where he stands yet, even after the debates…”; “he speaks eloquently, but I still don’t know where he stands…”; “Unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance…he was almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.”

These, to me, these phrases, and the citing of Sammy Davis, Jr. (as opposed to Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers or Shirley Temple, etc.) are a pretty clear way of expressing that Obama is shifty, elusive, deceptive, and slippery. Eloquent and pretty talk – but no substance.

On its face, such descriptions are not inherently racist, of course – but then coupling them with Sammy Davis raises some serious questions as to the speaker’s overall intent. It also, frankly, harkens back, in some ways, to the central character of a minstrel show.

Note as well, the fact that Joe’s description of Obama as a pretty talker and an eloquent speaker – Obama’s tools to avoid substance and clarity – is nearly the same language and approach that Sen. McCain took in the last debate with Sen. Obama.

On other matters:

I learned last week, from one of my classes, that not only is ACORN single-handedly responsible for the new Democratic registration edge in PA (now over 1.1 million vs. 600k in 2004) – apparently, the closed PA Democratic primary had nothing to do with the swelling Democratic registration – but that William Ayers ghost wrote Obama's Dreams from My Father.

According to the student, this allegation – and what he perceives as an accurate assertion – was broadcast on the 104.7 FM station in Pittsburgh, an ultra-conservative station with Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and local personality Jim Quinn.

Now how's that one for a whopper?

According to my student, the radio station featured experts who substantiated the allegation, and who claimed that Ayers’ and Obama’s style and content were all-to-similar.

Given the feverish fervor at the McCain-Palin rallies the last few weeks, the Republican ads linking Obama and Ayers, and Gov. Palin’s stump speech asserting that Obama “pals around with terrorists” – one wonders how such right wing radio whoppers are affecting an already toxic environment.

Until next time,

Kevan the professor, Pittsburgh, PA
(in the middle class)

Obama and Terrorists

Ann Fisher is a senior political science student at North Central College and a multi-year participant in the college's Model United Nations program. Her research interests center on race and politics, as well as international relations.

It’s time to face it; Barack Obama was not just a skinny kid with a funny name. He was a skinny, black kid with a funny, African and Muslim name. These adjectives completely change the perspective with which we look at him. So when Sarah Palin claims that he is “palling around with terrorists,” she is not hoping to make one think of Bill Ayers, a former elementary school teacher and leader of the militant group Weather Underground. Instead she is hoping for a different picture.

It is not my intention to deny that the Weather Underground is considered a terrorist organization. The attacks committed by this group were horrific. Nor is it my intention defend Senator Obama’s interaction with this man. There may be a defense for why he would be involved with such a person, but more importantly I think we should look at the way in which her statements were framed. As the McCain campaign has fallen behind in the polls, they have attempted to turn the conversation to Senator Obama’s character. This should be no surprise to the Obama campaign, which has been defending his character from the beginning.

Obama has to deal with Reverend Wright, while no one is talking about the endorsement of John McCain by John Hagee, who even conservatives have called a bigot. As I said, I am not attempting to defend or condone some of Obama’s associations, but it seems to me that there was intention on Sarah Palin’s part not to make Americans think of William Ayers who in the past committed these acts (and is a school reformer in Illinois). Instead she wants us to put him in the same light as Osama Bin Laden. She is perpetuating this idea of difference.

Senator Obama is different in every way. It is true; Barack Obama is black, he has a father from Africa and attended a Muslim school in Indonesia. Barack did have a pastor who said things not often said by white pastors, and some of his past associates have committed horrible acts of violence. But John McCain has skeletons in his closet too. According to Paul Begala on Meet the Press (Oct. 6, 2008),

This guilt by association path is going to be trouble ultimately for the McCain campaign…John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization. It was the U.S. Council for World Freedom. It was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. It was an ultraconservative right-wing group. The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981, when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League, the parent organization, which ADL said, “has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and Anti-Semites.”

The Obama campaign claims that they are going to stick to discussing the economy, a strategy that I believe will benefit them. But now that I know this about John McCain, I wonder if a discussion on “guilt by association” really would play against his favor. I don’t think it would. I believe that this has everything to do with the fact that he is white man named John McCain, and his opponent is a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. The images displayed by that name ultimately display fear in the American public.