We have many discussions moving from GD to The Pit, here’s one going the other way!
Beginning on this pageLib and I began to hijack a discussion. He objected to my claim that one needn’t go any farther than Obama’s implicit acceptance of Islamophobia during his campaign to see how pervasive prejudice against Muslims is in America. His strongly held position is that Obama did not implicitly accept Islamophobia. No doubt I overstated my case at one point, saying that Obama
Obama had, at least once, attacked those prejudices, and Lib showed me where - on Larry King.
but I agreed with Obama’s own assessment that he had been derelict in pointing that out, perhaps a necessary concession to the political reality of American Islamophobia, but a concession nonetheless.
So in this forum I ask the question: did Team Obama implicitly accept Islamophobia or not?
It was not a concession to political reality; it was a concession to the actual reality of time and space. A candidate travels to multiple cities in a day, gives interviews to multiple press outlets, and has multiple meetings with multiple people involved and not involved with the campaign. He has to spend his time laying out his platform and vision for how he will execute the office of president.
Take yourself as an example. I presume you have a great distaste for anti-semitism. But you did not mention that in your OP. And you do not mention it in the vast majority of your posts. Do you think people should characterize you as making concessions to Jew haters? That’s ridiculous.
And as I pointed out in the Pit, the CNN interview was broadcast throughout the world. It was the perfect time and place for Obama to state his position (though he had before and hence stated it elsewhere.)
He definitely could have said “not that there’s anything wrong with that” more often. I’m not sure if that was really implicit acceptance as much as, it might’ve just been ignoring it and focusing on trying to kill a rumor. The incident with the Detroit women in niqabs was arguably more of a concession to Islamophobia, but I don’t know if Obama’s campaign is to blame for that one, or just the people who put together that one event.
I wonder whether this is is more of an implicit acknowledgment that “I am not X, not that there is anything wrong with X” is perceived by the hard of thinking as being a nuanced, too cerebral, hence weak and indecisive, even contradictory statement.
Exactly. It would seem far too Kerryesque, and they were determined to avoid his many missteps.
I don’t think Obama implicitly accepted Islamophobia, and the strong support he had from the American Muslim community largely reflects that. He just had issues that were - and are - more important to him, notably the economy, the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, the environment, education, and the economy. If the national conversation was all about Obama’s middle name, he would lose. He was smart enough not to do that.
He also addresses it on his Fight the Smears website, calling such tactics “an insult to people of all religions”. The Detroit incident had absolutely nothing to do with the Obama campaign. When Obama learned of it, he contacted the people involved and apologized to them.
I think that’s probably how they looked at it, too, but this isn’t expressing contradictory support for a law, it’s about equating membership in a religion with terrorism. If somebody had accused Obama of being part of a Jewish banking conspiracy, he would have said more than “I’m not Jewish.” This was a complicated area for him because of his skin color. Even if his father’s family hadn’t been largely Muslim and even if he’d never lived in Indonesia, I think there would have been people calling him a Muslim and a terrorist just because he was black.
While they definitely voted for him, some American Muslims were apparently not pleased that he didn’t speak up about this more often.
Why do you think Obama saying “not that there’s anything wrong with that” would have scared off the Islamophobes in the first place?
All your reasoning relies on Islamophobes being terrified if Obama said that, but I see no reason to believe that is the case. In fact, Obama did say that, and you have provided no evidence that Islamophobes wet their pants upon hearing it.
That’s rather unreasonable. The point, whether it’s right or wrong, is that if he’d spoken out some more, that would be one step against Islamophobia because it would be a presidential candidate (and now president-elect) standing up directly against the insinuation that Muslims are terrorists. I know that Bush often spoke up against that view and I’m sure Obama will as well, but when he’s president, that kind of big tent stuff is expected. In theory he might’ve been taking more of a risk if he’d made the same statement as a candidate, and that would have given it more meaning.
Elendil’s Heir, I think that the Islamic community to some extent accepts the political reality of Islamophobia as well. If I was Muslim who would I support? The candidate whose campaign is actively fostering Islamophobia or the candidate who I feel is mostly staying silent in face of Islamophobia as a concession to political needs of the moment?
No, Carmady, I do not think that the Islamophobes would have wet their pants. But it may have lost a few votes that he did not want to lose. To me it is somewhat akin to being in a group when someone says “Kike” or makes a racist or “faggot” joke - do you ignore it or speak up? You are not an antisemite or a racist or a gay-basher if you stay quiet, but you have made a concession to antisemitism or racism or homophobia by what you have not said or done. To me Team Obama had a relative silence that spoke volumes about the magnitude of Islamic prejudice in this country.
Lib, also as pointed out in the Pit, and here by Marley, if someone had “accused” him of being Jewish I would have expected him to do a lot more than mostly just “No, I am not.” I would have expected the “But so what if I was?” to be said at least as loudly and each time. I and many Jews would have been horrified if he had not done so. And he would have done so because antisemitism is not, at this point, so severe or endemic in this country and because he was in a perceived real contest for Jewish votes. The political calculus would have him be loud where it had him more subdued in the case of Muslims.
Yes, I think overall Obama faced the political reality that he could not fight every battle at once and win the campaign. He was implicitly accepting Islamophobia and refused to get caught up in gay marriage rights. I don’t think he had a choice though. To protest the bigotry involved in both issues would have probably cost him the election.
I don’t think accepting of Islamophobia is the same as being Islamophobic though. I seriously doubt he is for a variety of reasons.
Well, the detroit incident had something to do with the Obama campaign. The women were kept out of an Obama campaign rally by Obama campaign volunteers. It’s true that Obama himself didn’t make the decision, and, like you said, the campaign then apologized to the women affected, but it was still an action by the campaign.
I agree. And sadly I understand exactly why it was done, and shamefully I don’t know if I can say I’d do things differently were I in Obama’s position.
Obama didn’t do anything, goddammit. He didn’t even know about it until later.
This whole topic is just asinine in its conception. Obama took an awful lot of ridiculous hits during his campaign, beyond just the Muslim nonsense. He was called a socialist. A friend of terrorists. A seedy Chicago politician. A foreigner lying about his citizenship. And yes, a nigger. They said he met with the Iraq government in secret and told them to ignore Bush. They said he was an organizer for ACORN. They said he favored infanticide. They said he snubbed US troops in Germany. They even attacked his family, with lies about Michelle. Remember the idiotic “Whitey” incident? People at McCain-Palin rallies called for him to be killed.
Through it all, he stood tall, pressing on about his agenda for the American people and what he would do as president. He never responded in kind, even on the rare occasions when he defended himself. He remained calm and focused, which comforted enough people that they voted for him. He is the greatest leader the Democratic Party has produced in my lifetime. All this sniping at him over FUCKING NOTHING and MADE UP CRAP really just riles my ass.
He is intelligent, articulate, honorable, decent, young, vigorous, good hearted, and wise. It is my considered opinion that before anyone bitches about him, they should rise to his level. You won’t have a leader of this calibre again before you die, so if we destroy this one just to mollify our own petty, whiny, precipitous complaints about piddly shit, we’ll deserve it when Sarah Palin or someone of her ilk gets sworn in.
A lovely and impassioned post that I largely agree with except I don’t think anyone in this thread is really complaining about Obama. Has anyone said Obama should have done anything different concerning Islamophobia during the campaign?
I have great hope for Obama. I have campaigned for only two candidates for President. Reagan and Obama. I think he ran an incredible primary and campaign. I think he almost always took the high road and much higher than any candidate I can recall that won except maybe Carter.
I also think the reality is he knew he could not afford not to largely ignore the Islamophobia that surrounded his campaign.
He’ll be using it in the inauguration. I wouldn’t phrase it this way either. The objection was to people using his middle name in public as evidence he was a secret Muslim or terrorist or just plan foreign.