Obama, White Supremacy and FEAR

I know, I know....I haven't been blogging....I had a family wedding (congrats to my brother and his new bride currently chillin' on their honeymoon in Hawaii) and have been working a ridiculous amount this week. But rest assured I remain engaged in not only this election but our political process and there are so many things going on currently it is beginning to make my head spin. But I just have to speak about my recent experiences

First, I remain cautiously optimistic that Barack Obama will be our next president. while the polls (some of them anyway) have him ahead...I am not taking anything to chance. I have already voted, I urge everyone I see to make sure they get out and vote and I have been giving time in the battleground state of Indiana to get the message (and the people) out. I am cautious...because I never underestimate the powers that be to go against the force of justice. I am encouraged that many more people seem to be coming around to Barack's common sense positive message. And many people are realizing (like me) that while he is not perfect he is the right leader for this time to move our nation into the next generation. I am realistic...I am not expecting Obama to be Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny rolled into one. He is inheriting a country in a complete MESS and I actually feel sorry for him (or anyone) who has to sort through this garbage. I pray for him and his family that they remain safe and that if he is blessed to win the election that above all else he is granted the gift of Godly wisdom (circa the book of Proverbs) to steer this country out of the nightmare of our present hate-filled, warmongering, economically troubled state.

I am friends with a wide variety of people including some very white, very male, very republican colleagues. Some support Obama, some support McCain, some don't like either candidate...mostly they have been respectful in their discussions with me and we have been able to agree to disagree and have quite a few lively debates. However, as the race has swung more towards Obama, I have noticed (particularly among the lukewarm Obama supporters and the McCain Supporters) a bit of a panic. This panic is echoed on the conservative blogs and on places like Fox News...it is the discomfort with someone like Obama being their leader. You can see that many of these white men, who are so accustomed to their place on the top of the heap are visibly shaken by the thought of someone they feel they have an inherent superiority to being their "leader". They don't verbalize that...but they do start coming up with the most flimsy, petty, and irrelevant (and disprovable by objective data which they ignore) reasons why they just can't support Obama. They don't have hard data or research...just random hearsay, rt wing propaganda (that they now believe is gospel truth), and the bitter rantings of other scared middle aged white men like themselves. I think the psychological ramifications of having someone who they so clearly feel is not their "equal" be this close to being the potential leader of the free world is simply too much for most of them to bear. Now I am not saying these people are racist. But I think it is time we call a spade a spade (so to speak) and deal with the facts.

The USA is my country...and I love it...but I love it with (as my Pastor would say) a GOOD understanding. We have to accept the facts, that for all this country's wonderful attributes...this country was founded upon and is rooted in white supremacy....now I am not talking KKK, lynching, and neo-Nazi's (although those are the far end of the foundation that was laid) no what I am talking about is the fact that the very foundation of this country was premised on a fact that one group was better and more deserving than another ("manifest destiny" anyone). This was what allowed the first settlers here to disregard the Native Americans and take away their land. This is what allowed the people who wrote our founding documents to declare that "All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and still themselves hold (black) people as property. This is what allowed the leaders of this country to fight a war with and annex a large portion of Mexico to expand our country in the Southwest but then get an attitude with Mexican "immigrants" and seriously consider the stupidity of erecting a border fence. White Supremacy is what allowed Native Americans to be herded onto reservations and have their land stolen, it is what allowed "separate but equal" with regard to African-Americans be the law of the land well into the mid to late 20th century, and what caused Japanese-Americans to be interred in camps as prisoners of war in their own country, and what makes today health care disparities, educational disparities and income disparities to flourish particularly with the mostly minority and urban populations. Barack Obama is the very antithesis of those ideas of inferiority and unamericaness of the "other". His candidacy has challenged many deeply and silently held beliefs about our country's "best and brightest" and what they should look like and now that it seems that he may be on the cusp of victory...white supremacy will not go quietly into that good night.



What we see as the last vestiges of White Supremacy is the fear, and hate that has been oozing from the McCain\Palin Camp, the right wing blogsphere and Fox News. In this last week of the campaign, they have taken a "kitchen sink" approach to Obama. Every single questionable association (no matter how trivial the relationship) is put up as a disqualification for Obama. The Republican campaign has become solely about tearing the other guy down...not lifting this nation up. The Republican campaign has been consumed by ugliness, pettiness, sniping and has played to the basest level of every person's deepest fear. They have offered no plan, no vision and have stuck to name calling ("socialist", "redistributer", "muslim", "pal of terroist") and have convinced all the people at their rallies that Obama is something evil to be Feared and stopped before he destroys this country and consequently the True American ( read "white American", "red state american) way of life. "without a vision the people perish"

The campaign of the republicans is suffering because of tremendous negativity...to put it quite simply...God don't like ugly. At its very simplest, the politics of fear and division is losing to the politics of hope. And I for one am glad this appears to be the case and inspired about the direction my country is moving in. It is my hope that on next Tuesday when we elect Barack Obama as our 44th president we will place the nails in the coffin and finally bury our national sense of Fear and move from a country rooted in white supremacy towards a country that seeks equality of all its members and soars with the promise that this nation can rise to embrace the better angles of our nature.

That is my hope...that is what I believe...and that is what I am fighting for.