“Why Don’t You Think He Can Win?”

… “because he’s black.” Huh? OK, I know white racism and prejudice, but when it just jumps out at you like that, and especially first thing in the morning?! I just had to run in here and blog about it before I lost the thought process momentum to do it. Oh, my, goodness!

I want to say something like “thank you West Virginia / Appalachia” for making America seem, oh, well, it still is, but showing America’s racism for all the world to see! And putting the most well, how do I say it? the most “Appalachian-sounding” woman on there to do it, if a racist sounds a certain way, this woman is it! BBC World Service’s Newshour is on now, so once it goes off, see if you can find the podcast/archive of it online, and listen to it for yourself!

I’m starting to think that it’s not “white Americans” as HIllary so overtly said last week, that wont’ vote for Obama, but it’s a certain kind of “white American”, mainly from the Appalachian region or from people who have roots there. Daily Kos sums this up nicely. And the theory makes sense to me and is borne out if you look at the stats from all the primaries we’ve had so far.

And now I’m off to get ready for work.

Go Indiana!

Assalamu alaiakum, wow! Following a post from the Daily Kos blog. Quoting from a story linked from DailyKos:

“Let me tell you, when all the votes are counted, when Gary comes in, I think you’re looking at something for the world to see,” Clay, an Obama supporter, said in a telephone interview from Obama’s Gary headquarters. “I don’t know what the numbers are yet, but Gary has absolutely produced in large numbers for Obama here.”

Clay said the results were late coming in from Lake County because of the large numbers of absentee ballots that had to be counted — about 11,000. Under local practice, all of the cartridges from voting machines in Gary and nearby East Chicago are first collected at the local airport before being driven to the county headquarters to be tallied with the results from the rest of the county, he said. He said there were no major technical problems holding up the count.

“It takes a little time. We want to be sure that every vote is counted fair and right,” he said. “I just talked to the director out there and they are working like junkyard dogs to get that done as soon as possible. They are taking some time but I told them to do it right. That’s what taking the time.”

Kos thinks that this is kinda dirty and may not be good for Obama in the credibility department saying:

“Local practice”? There’s no reason to withhold the total vote until absentees are counted. The optics of this look rotten, no matter how legitimate the vote count might actual be.

I lived in East Chicago for four years, and visited Northwest Indiana frequently. It would seem that Lake County could go heavily for Obama, given that cities like Hammond and especially Gary, have large African-American populations. However, once you get down to Crown Point, Highland, Munster, etc., basically, the further south you go,the more “white” you get, and I’d think that that part of the county could go more for Clinton. However, it’s also the least populated part of the county too.

So we’ll see what happens…

Running off to see if I can find some Lake County numbers…

BTW… I did not think that North Carolina would go so heavily for Obama and I didn’t think that Indiana would be so close!

A Blacklash? – New York Times

Assalamu alaikum, here is the original post linked to via The Field blog noted in the post below. I’d still like to see the graph data, the article doesn’t tell me any more than the blog post did, which, obviously, puts me at a disadvantage… Accessible graphs anyone?

More Thoughts…

Assalamu alaikum, I’d wanted to title my post something like “Disappointed”, or something along those lines, but I didn’t want to seem naive or anything like that.

I’m frankly just tired of politics! And I never thought I’d say this but if Obama doesn’t get the nomination (meaning if Hillary steals it and/or if Jeremiah Wright continues to say and do things that he knows will hurt Obama just for the sake of getting him back), then I’m telling you, I will not vote for Hillary! I’ll vote I just won’t vote for the President. Because as some have said on the blogs, a vote for Hillary is condoning and sanctioning her antics. Perhaps it’d not bother some white guy in Kentucky who’d not vote for Obama simply because he’s black, however, her antics bother me! And what’s worse, she thinks that all of us who are appalled by her behavior will just hold our noses, support her, and vote for her like good little Democrats. I know I’ve said I’d not vote for Hillary before, the difference is, I’m considering not voting at all! That’s the thing I never thought I’d say.

Frankly, I’m just disillusioned with the turn things have taken. You have Obama doing everything he can to distance himself from Jeremiah Wright, then Jeremiah Wright all but slapping him in the face in front of the national media (and that event just happened to have been organized by a Hillary supporter? this is not a coincidence), and then you have Obama forced to “repudiate” Jeremiah Wright. And for what? To try to appease people who have no love for Obama, who won’t support him, who won’t vote for him anyway?

Between Obama and Clinton, Obama is the better, more positive candidate, but between the pro-Israel stance, the “I’ll bomb Pakistan if I have to” rhetoric, the repudiation of his own pastor and acting as if he’d never heard Wright make controversial statements (I mean controversial to a good segment of white America) even though he attended this church for 20 years, and him going on Fox News, all of this just looks to me like another politician trying to do damage control and keep himself from sliding down too much in the polls.

For me, it’s not about what Wright said anymore, it’s about Obama appearing to capitulate to the forces of the mainstream/rightwing media, who are just going to keep moving the goal posts, who are just going to keep coming up with new “tests”, and who seemingly will stop at nothing, with the help of Hillary, to keep him from getting nominated. And that is what this is about! Obama has to prove himself, has to pass tests, that Hillary and McCain don’t, simply because, well, he’s black, and we all like to think we’ve come so far as regards race relations, well, Obama, and Jeremiah Wright and the Shawn Bell case tell me otherwise!

I’ll tell you what I’m disappointed about, that I got caught up in the “yes we can” stuff, that I actually started to think that perhaps we as a country had made some progress, and perhaps to some extent we have. However, Hillary’s actions, and the fact that they seem to be working in some quarters, the fact that Jeremiah Wright could be the one thing that causes the Obama campaign to come crashing down (what happened to him being honest, and all of that pro-Obama stuff Wright was talking about?) tells me that we’ve not really come that far. Because if we had, we’d not have guys in Eastern Kentucky openly and unabashedly *not* voting for Obama based on race. We’d not have Bill Clinton making snide remarks about why Obama won South Carolina and how “that doesn’t mean anything ’cause Jesse Jackson did it in 1988″. And we’d not have Hillary capitalizing on the fears and prejudices of white America in order to win votes. Bill and Hillary Clinton have made their prejudices very clear to me, and this alone will forever leave a bad taste in my mouth! They’re Republicans in Democrat clothing, and this election campaign has made that clear to me! Especially when in many instances, Hillary has all but campaigned for McCain, perhaps we should just call her McCain-lite.

And Obama, he’ll throw anyone “under the bus” (someone on jack and Jill Politics said they hated that phrase and I think I do too) for some political points that he might not ever get. If he was really for “change we can believe in”, he’d speak the truth about the plight of the Palestinian people, he’d have stood by his pastor, even when times got rough, and he’d not have gone on Fox News! But he’s just a politician, an very inspiring one, a very articulate one, but still a politician nonetheless.

I’ll still vote for him, if he makes it as far as November, but I’m not as “fired up and ready to go” as I once was, “yes we can” just doesn’t have the same motivating resonance as it once did. Despite the grassroots support Obama has, the Hillary machine will find some way to stop him. Because, well, she’s just Hillary, and that’s just the way she is!

And Obama is just Obama, and no matter who gets into office, I don’t seem myself being any better off, as a Muslim, or an American. If Obama can repudiate the pastor he’s known for 20 years, for political capital, then what is he going to do, how is he going to treat people he doesn’t know, for political points?

Jack and Jill Politics has many links up about Jeremiah Wrights appearances on TV as of late, and admittedly, I’ve not watched them. However, if his appearance at the National Press Club are what they seem to be, an attempted to snub and get back at Obama, then I’m also disappointed in this as well. And perhaps Obama had to repudiate him, I don’t know. I’ve not quite sorted this all out. But it just shows me that this is not a perfect world, and they’ll find some way to make Obama fail, because we’re dealing with a predominantly white, corporate-driven media, who doesn’t want to see change. And neither do a sizable portion of Americans it seems.

I’m just tired of this! I’ve barely watched TV, and I don’t even have the heart to actually watch Obama, or Wright, or Clinton, or anyone, I’m just tired of it! Because I’m tired of getting my hopes up, thinking that things will actually change, only to have some other manufactured scandal come up, and dash my hopes!

Things will not change, and if the Democrats keep it up, we’ll have the Bush Presidency III with John McCain in the White House. With the help of Fox News, Sean Hannity, etc. *sigh* This is Democracy at work. I’m wondering if I should even vote at all.

Some More Thoughts on Blindness, Race, and Bitterness…

Assalamu alaikum, just a few more thoughts on my previous post. I guess it should go without saying that I don’t think that all white people are prejudiced, nor all sighted people ignorant about the capability and competency of the disabled, etc., I mean, I don’t think it’s “willful” ignorance or prejudice, at least and until the facts are brought before people and they still continue to languish in their own denial.

Let’s talk about race firstly. Most white people are good, kind people who want the best for everyone, and the same could be said of course for all people, however, after 500 years or so of colonization and enslavement of people occupying huge chunks of the world, there is a “privilege” that has emerged out of that, a “privelege” that has emerged from ending up at the top of the heap. I have often talked about how “I don’t understand color and thus don’t understand what the big deal is”, etc., etc., on this blog and in my offline dealings with people. I admittedly like to say this because it allows me to sit here and talk about how my lack of knowledge and understanding of color has made me a more open-minded person, and in my own mind “not like most white people”. I have had moments where in the back of my mind, I’d thought that this deserved some sort of commendation of me from people of color kind of like a “oh look at her, she’s white and not like most white people, isn’t that wonderful?”

However, when I think of that, when I think of the idea that I should somehow be commended for “not being like most white people”, I feel horrified, because it’s occurred to me that my “white privilege” has allowed me to “not be able to understand what color is”. If I were black, or brown, or, well, a person of color, I’d know all too well “what this color thing means”, and especially so if I were a black man. Because some white policeman would be all to happy to “explain” it to me via a barrel of a gun or a knightstick or a tazer. I’d “understand color” even if I couldn’t see it, I’d at least have an understanding of what this “color thing means”.

But my whiteness shields me from “this color thing” and allows me to “continue to try to sort this thing out”, and I’m saddened by this. My blindness also shields me from some things. I’m almost sure if I were sighted, I’d get more problems at the airport, more people yelling anti-Muslim slurs out of their car windows at me while I’m on the street. However, as I’m blind, and that is readily apparent, my blindness trumps my “Muslimness”. And also admittedly, my whiteness trumps it too. Not that I’d do this, but the hard fact is, if I wanted to, I could throw off my hijab and modest clothes, throw on a miniskirt, run back home and go back to “the person I was before I was a Muslim”. I could do this and probably no one would be the worse for it, except well, me, for running from the truth.

So when I talk about the “oppression of Muslims” or the fear and apprehension I have as a Muslim living in the US, I say this knowing that for some my “fear and apprehension” would not be considered legitimate because I “chose” this path. I wasn’t “born” this way, it’s not like color where you can just throw it off and instantly become someone else? So, is my “fear and apprehension” OK, legitimate, does it deserve to be given more or less consideration as others’ fear and apprehension? This is what I’m wrestling with.

Let me say here unequivocally that there is no god but God, that Muhammad is His Servant and Messenger, that Islam is my religion, and that I’ll not abandon it for anything in this world! Just because times get hard, or because Islam and Muslims are being portrayed badly, or whatever! However, some would not look at it this way, they would still see it as a “choice” to be oppressed a “choice” to be treated badly, because if I didn’t “choose” to be a Muslim, then this wouldn’t happen to me.

Regarding blindness, people usually are ignorant and harbor stereotypes about what they don’t know. And as regards blindness, they try to imagine what they would do, if they were blind, they would think that they’d not be able to do things for themselves or to live independently if they were totally blind or visually impaired in some way. However, what they don’t take into account is that many blind people, whether born so or losing their vision later in life, have usually had a long time to master living in a sighted world without sight.

What I wanted to say is that there are many white people who recognize their privilege and who are struggling with that, and who are also trying to irradicate racism and prejudice both within themselves and others. And there are sighted and non-disabled people who are not only cognissant of the fact that blind and disabled people are quite capable and intelligent people, but they are also campaigning tirelessly for the rights and dignity of the disabled to live as full, equal, and independent citizens.

Regarding Obama, I support him but I don’t feel he is a “Messiah” or anything, he’s a politician first and foremost and out of the viable candidates that we have, he’s the least harmful or appears to be so, among the three, himself, McCain and Clinton. However, assuming he gets the Democratic nomination, I’m not sure if he’ll get the Presidency in November. And if Hillary gets the nomination, well, I couldn’t in good conscience vote for her, and again, she’d lose the election to McCain anyway, because she’s got so many negatives going for her.

So anyway, hopefully this clarifies some things. Time to get outside and enjoy the day!

Race, Blindness, Bitterness and Other Thoughts

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.