Ginny’s Thoughts & Things

Assalamu alaikum, I was reading a post on the What Tami Said blog, and it got me to thinking!

Yesterday, as I was walking out the door to go to work I caught snippets of the talking heads on MSNBC talking about why “working-class white people” won’t vote for Obama. They said stuff like “they’re upset about his comment about being bitter”. Or, “they think he’s too elitist”, etc., etc. I said to myself, out loud, as I was walking out the door, “why don’t they just come out and say that they won’t vote for Obama ’cause they won’t vote for a black candidate”.

Perhaps that’s not entirely it, perhaps some people think that Hillary is more qualified. But I also think that there’s a fairly substantial segment of the white community that just simply won’t vote for a black candidate! They just won’t do it! And although I have my moments where I question this belief, every primary we’ve had recently, tells me other wise! Now of course my theory doesn’t play out in states with a majority white population where he’s actually won, but for some reason, he can win in states with hardly any black population, and he can win in states with a substantial black population, but he can’t win in the “in-between” states, and why this is, I don’t know.

Perhaps it’s the “he’s a black candidate” perception that you have going on, in states where only a minority of the white voters are voting for him. Perhaps in states like Wyoming, etc., they don’t see him as the “black candidate”, because they don’t see the support he enjoys within the black community as much? Hey, it’s just a guess.

However, this perception of mine, that many white people won’t vote for a black candidate, lies bare my perception of and bitterness toward my fellow white people! Because let me tell you, white people in soem cases can be some of the most bitter, hateful, hypocritical people you’ve ever seen! I’ve seen it in my own family! “oh we don’t care who you date as long as he treats you well”, then proceed to say to you, in the event that you actually meet say, a black man/woman, for example, “if you marry a black guy I don’t think I can come to your wedding”.

Or, “we don’t care what religion you choose, we just want you to do what’s best for you”, and then to proceed to make anti-Muslim comments when you’re not in the room and they didn’t realize that you heard them. Yep, good old Christian white Protestant people for ya!

I wonder if these are the same kind of people that would come to an Obama rally, chant “yes we can”, and then walk away saying “I’m not voting for that *****”. “he might be a “mos-lem, and he’s got that radical preacher too, oh no! and who’s he to tell us we’re bitter!”

I’m not sure if this is something Obama can get past! And as open-minded and “liberal” as Democrats claim to be, I’d not put it past Hillary to steal the nomination by super-delegate, if she can speak “racial code” and convince them that Obama is unelectable. Hey, we’re not only dealing with Hillary Clinton, which is devious and cunning and plotting enough, but my bitter side wants to say “and she’s a white woman too”. Let me tell ya, if Allah had seen fit to make me black or brown, or soemthing other than white, I’d be a militant! But because I’m well, white, I probably have no right to say such things!

But there is a faction of the Democratic party, working with the Republican party that would stop at almost nothing to insure that Obama is not nominated for President and assuming that he gets the nomination, all they have to then do is scare enough white people with the Jeremiah Wright tapes playing over and over again, mixed in with the pictures of him dressed in traditioanl African garb, and wamo! The same white people that live in “sund-down towns” will be voting for McCain in droves!

I’m sorry, I just don’t trust white people! Heck, I don’t trust myself sometimes, I’m ever-vigilant, watching for the inner KKK member in me, that must be coded somewhere in my genetic make-up, to rare its ugly head and scream “white power”, while ripping off my hijab and locking me into a closet somewhere! Yep, I must have a racist “think I have some kinda privilege ’cause I’m white” alter-ego somewhere! Just waiting to come out! And I look for it! We’ve started having this thing happen, it happens every weekend, usually on a Saturday night, but sometimes on Fridays or even Thursdays, and it’s almost like clockwork! A group of cars come down the street, and I can hear them coming long before they get to my section of the street because they’ve got those thumping car stereos that really bother me! I don’t know if the low frequency is doing something to my inner ear or what but I feel like someone is reaching in and just twisting something, I almost feel nauseious and when you get two or three of those things going, and you get the dissonant bass going on, well, I’ve had moments where I think I’m going to throw up, it literally makes me ill!

And I’m irritated because it woke me up on a week night, or it might wake up my stepdaughter, or because I have to close the window so Chloe doesn’t get agitated, or because it’s just entirely too loud for 2 in the morning! Then inevitably, it seems someone calls the police or they just happen to show up, because I hear blaring sirens, and the cars just drive off! Now I can’t figure out if they’re just sitting there in the middle of the street or if they’re pulling into the parking lot of the gas station/convenience store across the street, but I know it’s a bunch of cars and they sound as if they’re having a car stereo contest, and I’ve come to dread it! And I wonder sometimes is this me getting old, or is this some sort of prejudice in me coming out, because most of the music is the most crass and vulgar of the hip hop music genre! Which is even worse if any children you happen to have wake up and hear that! And I don’t want to say anything because if I do I don’t want to be perceived as some close-minded bigot or something when all I want is some peace and quiet and to not feel nauseous every time someone with a thumping car stereo comes by.

Anyway, another issue that came to my mind is the anger/bitterness/bordering on prejudice I have toward sighted/nondisabled people! I’d started to comment on Tami’s post that I’d linked above but I thought it was kind of straying from her original post so thought I’d just comment on it here! As “bitter” as I can be toward the actions of some white people, I have the same sorts of bitterness and anger toward sighted/nondisabled people as well! I almost want to say, for example, that all sighted people are materialistic, only care about appearances or how someone looks, and if you’re not “normally able” in their eyes, you’re nothing and thus don’t deserve to have the same rights and privileges as they have! You don’t deserve to work (but God forbid you take any money from the government). All you’re good for is making brooms or tuning pianos or playing music (all laudable professions but that’s not the point). If you step out of that role, if you say, hey, I want to have a family, I want to raise children, I want to be a scientist, or whatever, if it’s outside of the role that the sighted world thinks you could or should be doing, then watch out! Wann have children, then you run the risk of someone calling child protective services on you because to them, a blind person couldn’t possibly take care of children!

Want to work? Then be prepared to work twice as hard to prepare for that job and then be told to your face that “you’re overqualified”, or some other excuse, knowing all the time that all they see in you is that you’re blind and that’s probably why they didn’t give you the job, though you can’t prove it.

Want to rent an apartment, then you’d better not take your dog guide with you, or they’ll conveniently have offered the place to someone else. And yeah, you might say it’s against the law, but unless you get lucky and can find a good lawyer, and one that’s not going to cost you an arm and a leg to fight the act of discrimination, it’s just easier not to fight it. You can find antoher job to interview for, or another place to rent from, and you just have to pick your battles! Out of the one successful time I was able to fight a discrimination complaint, I’ve got 5 other times where I was denied access to a restaurant, or some other public place. One time I was in the Gary bus terminal, and there was this small restaurant on the second floor of the building, and I wanted to get something to eat because I had a few hours before my bus was due to arrive, and I’d been to this restaurant before, and so I didn’t think there would be a problem!

Boy was I wrong! The owner of the restaurant told me that if I wanted anything, I could order it and they could bring it downstairs to me but that I could under no circumstances eat in that restaurant with my dog! The fact that I was being denied service, by an African American, that I could “go to the back” as it were, was not lost on me, though I didn’t say anything. The next half hour or so was spent in the security guard who was with me pleading with the guy to let me eat there, asking me if I just wanted to order my food and eat it downstairs which I didn’t want to do because I wanted to sit at a table and eat so as not to mess up my clothes by trying to eat a plate of food on my lap, as there were no tables downstairs. Or anywhere else in the building for that matter. And then proceeding to the civil rights office, where I filed a complaint, the lady apologized profusely and told me she’d get back to me, though I never heard anything about it after that day. And eventually ending up getting some Doritos and a Pepsi at the convenience store next door to the restaurant. Let me tell you, that was one of the most humiliating and embarrassing experiences of my life and I vowed that I’d never, under any circumstances, eat at that restaurant again! The owner was not only rude, but well, just totally beyond the pale, he said “I don’t care what the law says, she’s not eating here and that’s final!”

Another time I was denied service at a Giordano’s pizza place in downtown Chicago, I was met at the door by a nice guy who in a sing-songy voice told me “you’ve got a cute dog but you can’t bring him in here, OK?” So my friend and I went to the McDonald’s a few blocks away (I think it was on Randolph Street), and I vowed never ever to eat at that pizza place again, no matter how good the pizza might be. Not only was I denied service, but the man treated me like a little kid on top of it!

OK so where was I going with this? I know I had a point somewhere. Oh, yeah, that I don’t think that even if Obama gets the Democratic nomination that he can win in the general election? Why? Because many white people, if not outright racists, still think that black people can’t be President, and these are the same sorts of people that think that the blind and disabled aren’t as capable as them either, though obviously, this thinking isn’t limited to just white people. In short, there’s still a lot of ignorance and hatred out there! Hillary will exploit it to her own ends now, and you can darn sure bet that McCain and the Republicans will if Obama gets the nomination! What a way to tie it all together, huh?

And before I go, a fianl disclaimer, yeah I know that not all sighted people are ableist or all white people racist/prejudiced, but enough of them are that 80% of the blind are unemployed, 70% of the disabled population at large, and I don’t have to tell you about the police brutality, or the following around of minorities in a store, or other things, to tell you that racism still exists. I’m struggling with my bitterness OK? Sometimes I win, sometimes it does. I’m doing the best I can and I make dua that I can overcome this fault of mine because I really don’t like it. Being angry and bitter is no fun, and it’s most certainly not healthy.

And this post is subject to editing and / or removal later because I know it probably makes no sense to anyone but me.