Today in my inbox, I have an email from Color of Change asking me to sign an open letter to the McCain/Palin campaign asking them to stop being racially divisive. They've teamed up with Brave New Films in distributing this video collage of racial attacks and media hype.
If we are to believe the media right now, Gov. Palin and Senator McCain are getting the extremists to creep out of the shadows to hurl racial epiphets at Senator Obama.
Am I the only one who can't help noticing it's the same examples being used over and over?
I don't mean to deny that race is a factor in this race, and I don't doubt that McCain is enough of an opportunist to simply ride a wave of hate speech to the White House if he had the chance. However, Michelle Obama made a good point in her appearance on the Daily Show last week that what we're hearing at the moment in the media doesn't match the reality of what they are seeing around the country. It certainly doesn't match the reality I saw in Denver during the Democratic Convention, or in dozens of other places where thousands and thousands of people are showing up to cheer on Obama.
I don't think I've ever been to a single rally or protest in this country that didn't attract some weirdo or another. There are always people saying things like, "Democrats are going to hell", "9/11 was an inside job", "alien implants feel good", "all politicians should be in jail", and so on and so forth. My point is, in any large group of people in this country, it would be pretty easy to gather up any kind of sound bite you needed to make a point.
The "terrorist" chants during the McCain/Palin rallies are umistakeable, and the failure of people like John McCain to crack down on it are pathetic. But I still feel the need to ask people to calm down and realize that we're 20 months into a campaign where Obama has been headlining and leading in polls non-stop. All of a sudden they'll have us believe there's a huge racist uprising?
Just look at the nutty extremists like Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan the mainstream media themselves put on the air every day. Subtle and unsubtle bigotry is just part of every day life in this country. I can't help feeling that we're not doing ourselves any favors by perpetuating the panic. There will always be racists. Are we really going to let them appear so influential in this debate?
To end on a positive note, here's a speech by AFL-CIO's Richard Trumka, which I found very moving (via Andrew Sullivan). I think it's the kind of response we need against racism: it's smart, compassionate, constructive and principled.
Trumka says, we can't "tap dance around the fact" that a lot of people won't vote for Barack Obama because he is black. But now is a good time for good people to stop doing nothing.
Comments
Trumka's speech is really strong, really moving. Thanks for linking to it. It's willfully naive for any body to try to suggest that race is not an important factor in this election.
I agree that "there will always be racists", and that excessive media scrutiny leads to distortions. But that said, what's alarming about the "hate speech" at McCain rallies is that so much of it stems from misinformation disseminated by his campaign. That is unconscionable.
Agreed!
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