Chris xx Route 66's blog: "end bigotry"

Election spurs 'hundreds' of race threats, crimes By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer Jesse Washington, Ap National Writer 2 hrs 51 mins ago Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars. Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America. From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders. There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes. One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said. She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear. "I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking." Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them." Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change. "If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said. Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries." "Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission." If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5. The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory. Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia. The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision." Other incidents include: _Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say. _At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins." _Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars. _Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said. _University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said. _Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose. _Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa. _A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.' _In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house." Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger. "The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race." "We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'" "It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."

Obama victory opens door to new black identity By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer Jesse Washington, Ap National Writer 2 hrs 19 mins ago WASHINGTON – Shortly after leaving the voting booth, 70-year-old community activist Donald E. Robinson had a thought: "Why do I have to be listed as African-American? Why can't I just be American?" The answer used to be simple: because a race-obsessed society made the decision for him. But after Barack Obama's mind-bending presidential victory, there are rumblings of change in the nature of black identity and the path to economic equality for black Americans. Before Tuesday, black identity and community were largely rooted in the shared experience of the struggle — real or perceived — against a hostile white majority. Even as late as Election Day, many blacks still harbored deep doubts about whether whites would vote for Obama. Obama's overwhelming triumph cast America in a different light. There was no sign of the "Bradley Effect," when whites mislead pollsters about their intent to vote for black candidates. Nationwide, Obama collected 44 percent of the white vote, more than John Kerry, Al Gore or even Bill Clinton, exit polls show. In Ohio, domain of the fabled working-class white swing voter, where journalists unearthed multitudes of racist quotes during the campaign, 46 percent of white voters backed Obama's bid to become the first black president, more than the three previous Democratic candidates. Obama did not define himself as a black candidate. So Robinson now feels free to define himself as something more than a black community activist. "We've taken that next step. It's moving toward what we call universal brotherhood and sisterhood," Robinson said after voting for Obama in his northwest Washington, D.C., neighborhood. "We shouldn't be split and have all these divisions. That's why I say it's a bright day." L. Douglas Wilder, the first black person to be elected governor of Virginia, shares Robinson's sense of American identity. "But I can tell you, when you say that, people take umbrage," Wilder said. "They believe that you are dissing them, putting blacks down. I don't have to tell you what I am, you can look at me and see that I'm not white. So what difference does it make?" It took Obama's election, however, to make that idea real. "It's immediately transformative," Wilder said. "It immediately changes the level of discussion. This thing is bigger than we thought it was. It's too big to get our arms around, and it grows exponentially each passing day. It sets us on a brand-new course." Yet the past is a heavy burden to shed. U.S. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a former civil rights activist who was jailed during the protest marches of the 1960s, said that Obama's election does move America toward a "more perfect union." But when it comes to self-definition, he believes the current state of that union leaves him no choice. "We don't come into this world defining ourselves," Clyburn said. "I was born into a world that had defined limits for me. I had to sit on the back of the bus, I couldn't attend the nearby school. My wife had to walk 2 1/2 miles to school, walk past the white school to get to the school for blacks. She didn't define that role for herself. That role was imposed upon us." Certainly racism did not disappear after Obama's white votes were counted. No one is claiming that black culture and pride and community are no longer valuable. Many also dismiss the idea of a "post-racial" America as long as blacks and other minorities are still disproportionately afflicted by disparities in income, education, health, incarceration and single parenthood. But white groups that once faced discrimination, such as the Italians, Jews and Irish, have moved from the margins to the mainstream. America debated whether John F. Kennedy could become the first Catholic president; now that's a historical footnote. So the prospect of a black population that is more of "America" than "black America" has profound implications — especially for the civil rights establishment that continues to battle for blacks who remain at the bottom. Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, acknowledges that Obama's election does change the nature of his job, "but not in the way people might think." The Urban League spent the last eight years trying to hold the Bush administration accountable on civil rights. Now Morial is hoping to cooperate with the government and apply his organization's expertise to issues like poverty, education and job training — which will help rebuild the entire American economy. Morial noted that President Reagan had a base of aggressive and vocal advocacy groups to help push his agenda through Congress. "You can march against things, and you can march in support of things," he said. "If you're an executive trying to get things done, you need visible and vocal support." Clyburn suggested that civil rights groups should adopt new tactics of working closely with the legislative branch, because Obama and the new Congress will be more receptive to their agenda: "We don't need to be on the streets raising hell." "We've always used a variety of tactics," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson. "Legislation, litigation, sometimes demonstration, and the vote. And sometimes the consumer dollar." When Jackson was breaking barriers in his presidential runs of 1984 and '88, it was the zenith of Reagan's "morning in America." Jackson's tactics were employed against a conservative establishment that used racially divisive issues such as welfare and crime to great advantage. Now there's a new president, a new day, and new ideas built upon the old. "My grandmother told me when I was 5, 'Boy, if they ask you what you are, just tell them that you're an American," said Benjamin Jealous, the 35-year-old president of the NAACP. "The reality is that our heritage, our culture, our families, our community have been extremely important to us. It's always been our right, and in many ways what we fought for, to be seen simply as Americans."

The Obama Advantage How race was his ace in the hole. By Anne Applebaum Posted Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008, at 3:34 PM ET -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Way back in January, soon after Barack Obama won an improbable victory in the Iowa caucuses, I wrote an article arguing that—despite the conventional wisdom and the snide "white Americans will never vote for a black man" comments from my European friends—it was not a disadvantage to be a black presidential candidate. On the contrary, it was an enormous advantage. I was right—but for the wrong reasons. At the time, when his main opponent was Hillary Clinton, I thought Obama's skin color helped distinguish him from the Bushes, the Clintons, and the other dynastic families that then appeared to have an inexorable grip on American politics. His face alone told voters that he was the true anti-oligarchical, anti-status-quo outsider in the race. If nothing else, it identified him as a candidate who was definitely not related, or married, to a former president. But while not being Mrs. Clinton helped him win the primaries, not being white helped him even more in the national election—and not only among black voters or guilty white liberals. Why? Because all Americans, white and black, liberal and conservative, are brought up to believe that their country is different, special, the "greatest nation on earth," a "city on a hill." We are all taught that our system is just, our laws are fair, our Constitution is something to be proud of. Lately, though, this self-image has taken a battering. We are fighting two wars, neither with remarkable success. We have just experienced a cataclysmic financial crisis. We are about to enter a recession. We are unloved around the world, and we know it. Electing our first black president won't by itself solve any of these problems, but—to use the pop-psychological language for which Americans are justly famous—it sure makes us feel good about ourselves. That hysteria you saw on television in Chicago was, yes, partly about the return of the Democrats and partly about the passing of George Bush. As the rain-on-the-parade dispensers of sour grapes are already writing, it was absolutely about ideology, too. But it was also about relief: We really are a land of opportunity! I think Obama knew this. It certainly explains why he started his acceptance speech by declaring, "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible … tonight is your answer." Strange though it sounds, I think McCain knew it, too: It explains why he went out of his way to praise Obama for "inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president." A century ago, he reminded his somber, occasionally booing audience, an earlier American president, Theodore Roosevelt, was widely condemned for inviting black educator Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House: "America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States." He didn't have to say that—but he wanted a little of that "America is great again" feeling. He, too, was attracted, touched by the idea of a black president. Maybe it's superficial, and surely it won't last. But I am convinced that it explains a lot, both about the election result and about this weirdly euphoric aftermath. That desire to feel, once again, like "the greatest nation on earth" explains why my friend J. the Republican cried when she watched Obama's acceptance speech, even though she didn't vote for him; why people stood in those longs lines to vote, all across the country; why I woke my children on Wednesday morning by singing "God Bless America." In, the end, it comes down to this: All Americans are told, as children, that "anyone can grow up to be president of the United States." Because we have a black president we can now, however briefly, once again feel certain that it's true.

Obama's grandmother dies a day before election By HERBERT A. SAMPLE, Associated Press Writer Herbert A. Sample, Associated Press Writer 56 mins ago HONOLULU – Barack Obama's grandmother, whose personality and bearing shaped much of the life of the Democratic presidential contender, has died, Obama announced Monday, one day before the election. Madelyn Payne Dunham was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign trail in Charlotte, N.C. The joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng said Dunham died peacefully late Sunday night after a battle with cancer. They said: "She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances." Obama learned of her death Monday morning while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla. He planned to go ahead with campaign appearances. The family said a private ceremony would be held later. Republican John McCain issued condolences to his opponent. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives," the statement by John and Cindy McCain said. Last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with Dunham as her health declined. Obama said the decision to go to Hawaii was easy to make, telling CBS that he "got there too late" when his mother died of ovarian cancer in 1995 at 53, and wanted to make sure "that I don't make the same mistake twice." Outside the apartment building where Dunham died, reporters and TV cameras lined the sidewalk as two police officers were posted near the elevator. Signs hanging in the apartment lobby warned the public to keep out. Longtime family friend Georgia McCauley visited the 10th-floor apartment where Obama had lived with his grandparent. "So many of us were hoping and praying that his grandmother would have the opportunity to witness her grandson become our next president," said state Rep. Marcus Oshiro, an Obama supporter. "What a bittersweet victory it will be for him. Wow." The Kansas-born Dunham and her husband, Stanley, raised their grandson for several years so he could attend school in Honolulu while their daughter and her second husband lived overseas. Her influence on Obama's manner and the way he viewed the world was substantial, the candidate himself told millions watching him accept his party's nomination in Denver in August. "She's the one who taught me about hard work," he said. "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me." Obama's nickname for his grandmother was "Toot," a version of the Hawaiian word for grandmother, tutu. Many of his speeches describe her working on a bomber assembly line during World War II. Madelyn and Stanley Dunham married in 1940, a few weeks before she graduated from high school. Their daughter, Stanley Ann, was born in 1942. After several moves to and from California, Texas, Washington and Kansas, Stanley Dunham's job landed the family in Hawaii. It was there that Stanley Ann later met and fell in love with Obama's father, a Kenyan named Barack Hussein Obama Sr. They had met in Russian class at the University of Hawaii. Their son was born in August 1961, but the marriage didn't last long. She later married an Indonesian, Lolo Soetoro, another university student she met in Hawaii. Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and stepfather at age 6. But in 1971, her mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents. He stayed with the Dunhams until he graduated from high school in 1979. In his autobiography, Obama wrote fondly of playing basketball on a court below his grandparents' 10th-floor Honolulu apartment, and looking up to see his grandmother watching. It was the same apartment Obama visited on annual holiday trips to Hawaii, a weeklong vacation from his campaign in August, and his pre-election visit in October. Family members said his grandmother could not travel because of her health. Madelyn Dunham, who took university classes but to her chagrin never earned a degree, nonetheless rose from a secretarial job at the Bank of Hawaii to become one of the state's first female bank vice presidents. "Every morning, she woke up at 5 a.m. and changed from the frowsy muumuus she wore around the apartment into a tailored suit and high-heeled pumps," Obama wrote. After her health took a turn for the worse, her brother said on Oct. 21 that she had already lived long enough to see her "Barry" achieve what she'd wanted for him. "I think she thinks she was important in raising a fine young man," Charles Payne, 83, said in a brief telephone interview from his Chicago home. "I doubt if it would occur to her that he would go this far this fast. But she's enjoyed watching it." Stanley Dunham died in 1992, while Obama's mother died in 1995. His father is also deceased. When Obama was young, he and his grandmother toured the United States by Greyhound bus, stopping at the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Disneyland and Chicago, where Obama would years later settle. It was an incident during his teenage years that became one of Obama's most vivid memories of Toot. She had been aggressively panhandled by a man and she wanted her husband to take her to work. When Obama asked why, his grandfather said Madelyn Dunham was bothered because the panhandler was black. The words hit the biracial Obama "like a fist in my stomach," he wrote later. He was sure his grandparents loved him deeply. "And yet," he added, "I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fears." Obama referred to the incident again when he addressed race in a speech in March during a controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother," he said. Dunham was "a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world but who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her on the street." Still, much of who Obama is comes from his grandmother, said his half sister. "From our grandmother, he gets his pragmatism, his levelheadedness, his ability to stay centered in the eye of the story," she told The Associated Press. "His sensible, no-nonsense (side) is inherited from her." Madelyn Lee Payne was born to Rolla and Leona Payne in October, 1922, in Peru, Kan., but lived much of her childhood in nearby Augusta. She was the oldest of four children, and she loved to read everything from James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" to Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." Dunham and her husband were "vicious" bridge players, according to her brother Jack. After retirement, the two of them would take island cruises and do little but play bridge and a more difficult version called duplicate bridge.

Christian right intensifies attacks on Obama Christian right spins doomsday scenarios about Obama as final election nears ERIC GORSKI and RACHEL ZOLL AP Religion Writers AP Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action. The imagined look into the future is part of an escalation in rhetoric from Christian right activists who are trying to paint Obama in the worst possible terms as the campaign heads into the final stretch and polls show the Democrat ahead. Although hard-edge attacks are common late in campaigns, the tenor of the strikes against Obama illustrate just how worried conservative Christian activists are about what should happen to their causes and influence if Democrats seize control of both Congress and the White House. "It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me," said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter "false and ridiculous." He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working. Like other political advocacy groups, Christian right groups often raise worries about an election's consequences to mobilize voters. In the early 1980s, for example, direct mail from the Moral Majority warned that Congress would turn a blind eye to "smut peddlers" dangling pornography to children. "Everyone uses fear in the last part of a campaign, but evangelicals are especially theologically prone to those sorts of arguments," said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University political scientist. "There's a long tradition of predicting doom and gloom." But the tone this election year is sharper than usual and the volume has turned up as Nov. 4 nears. Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication, titled one of his recent weekly e-mails to readers, "Life As We Know It Will End If Obama is Elected." Strang said gay rights and abortion rights would be strengthened in an Obama administration, taxes would rise and "people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms." Separately, a group called the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has posted a series of videos on its site and on YouTube called "7 Reasons Barack Obama is not a Christian." The commission accuses Obama of "subtle diabolical deceit" in saying he is Christian, while he believes that people can be saved through other faiths. But among the strongest pieces this year is Focus on the Family Action's letter which has been posted on the group's Web site and making the e-mail rounds. Signed by "A Christian from 2012," it claims a series of events could logically happen based on the group's interpretation of Obama's record, Democratic Party positions, recent court rulings and other trends. Among the claims: — A 6-3 liberal majority Supreme Court that results in rulings like one making gay marriage the law of the land and another forcing the Boy Scouts to "hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys." (In the imagined scenario, The Boy Scouts choose to disband rather than obey). — A series of domestic and international disasters based on Obama's "reluctance to send troops overseas." That includes terrorist attacks on U.S. soil that kill hundreds, Russia occupying the Baltic states and Eastern European countries including Poland and the Czech Republic, and al-Qaida overwhelming Iraq. — Nationalized health care with long lines for surgery and no access to hospitals for people over 80. The goal was to "articulate the big picture," said Carrie Gordon Earll, senior director of public policy for Focus on the Family Action. "If it is a doomsday picture, then it's a realistic picture," she said. One of the clear targets is younger evangelicals who might be considering Obama. The letter posits that young evangelicals provide the margin that let Obama defeat John McCain. But Margaret Feinberg, a Denver-area evangelical author, predicted failure. "Young evangelicals are tired — like most people at this point in the election — and rhetoric which is fear-based, strong-arms the listener, and states opinion as fact will only polarize rather than further the informed, balanced discussion that younger voters are hungry for," she said. In an interview, Strang said there are fewer state ballot measures to motivate conservative voters this election year and that the financial meltdown is distracting some voters from the abortion issue. But he said a last-minute push by conservative Christians in 2004 was key to Bush's re-election and predicted they could play the same role in 2008. Kim Conger, a political scientist at Iowa State University, said a late push for evangelical voters did help Bush in 2004, "but it is a very different thing than getting people excited about John McCain," even with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick. Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, said the dynamics were quite different in 2004, when conservative Christians spent some energy calling Democrat John Kerry a flip-flopper but were mostly motivated by enthusiasm for George W. Bush. Now, there is less excitement about McCain than fear of an Obama presidency, Burress said. "This reminds me of when I was a school kid, when I had to go out in the hall and bury my head in my hands because of the atom bomb," he said.

Enough Joe the Plumber; here's to Kareem the Soldier Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers last updated: October 21, 2008 08:53:54 PM WASHINGTON — "Joe the Plumber" was only one of two Americans injected into the presidential election this past week. The other was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, whom former Secretary of State Colin Powell invoked in his endorsement Sunday of Barack Obama. Khan was a 20-year-old soldier from Manahawkin, N.J., who wanted to enlist in the Army from the time he was 10. He was an all-American boy who visited Disney World after he completed his training at Fort Benning, Ga., and made his comrades in Iraq watch "Saving Private Ryan" every week. He was also a Muslim who joined the military, his father said, in part to show his countrymen that not all Muslims are terrorists. "He was an American soldier first," said his father, Feroze Khan. "But he also looked at fighting in this war as fighting for his faith. He was fighting radicalism." Khan was killed by an improvised explosive device in August 2007 along with four other soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter while searching a house in Baqouba, Iraq. He's one of four Muslims who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and are buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where 512 troops from those wars now rest. About 3,700 of the U.S. military's 1.4 million troops are Muslims, according to Defense Department estimates. Khan, a child of immigrant parents from Trinidad, was 14 when the Sept. 11 attacks happened. Feroze Khan said he remembered his son watching in stunned silence: "I could tell that inside a lot of things were going through his head." Three years later, Feroze honored his son's request and allowed him to enlist him in the Army. "I told him: 'You are going to the Army.' I never said there is a war going on in a Muslim country. I didn't want him to get any ideas that he was fighting (against) his religion." Feroze kept his fears for his son's safety to himself. His son was assigned to the Stryker Brigade Combat Team out of Fort Lewis, Wash., deployed to Iraq in 2006 and fought on Baghdad's Haifa Street, a Sunni insurgent stronghold. His tour was extended as part of the surge of additional U.S. forces to Iraq, and he called or messaged home often until he was deployed to restive Diyala province, where he was under fire too often to contact home regularly. But he prayed every day, his father said. One Sunday morning, his son sent an instant message: "Hey Dad. Are you there?" Feroze Khan was out, and he saw the message when he returned. A few hours later, his ex-wife called. Soldiers had knocked on her door in Maryland. Their only child was dead. A few minutes later, soldiers appeared at Khan's door. "I guess it helped that I knew beforehand," he said. "There are no words to describe it." Kareem Khan was a month from finishing his tour when he was killed. On Sunday, Powell said that Khan's sacrifice and service had swayed him to discuss the way that Muslims have been portrayed in the presidential campaign, and the contention that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is a Muslim. Obama "is a Christian," Powell said. "He has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, 'What if he is?' Is there something wrong with being Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That is not America." He added: "I am troubled that within the (Republican) Party we have these kinds of expressions" suggesting that Obama is a Muslim, and that if he is, he likely associates with terrorists. Powell said that he felt strongly about the issue after he saw a photo of Khan's tombstone in the New Yorker magazine. In the black-and-white picture, Khan's mother is resting her head on her son's tombstone. On each side of the stone are flowers, and in between is a copy of the Quran. On the face of the tombstone is a crescent and star, indicating that the soldier buried there is a Muslim. "He was an American," Powell said.

Muslim fiction puts Obama in no-win fight Protesting this lie too much could make him look like bigot October 14, 2008 BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist They say a lie can't live forever. What they don't say is how much damage a lie can do before it is put to rest. With respect to the lie that Barack Obama is a Muslim, the damage has been immeasurable for the Muslim community. Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell "The Muslim community across America has long been saying that the Bush government has made the war on terror a war against Islam and Muslim," said Aminah McCloud, professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at DePaul University and director of the Islamic World Studies program. "Though denying that, they have supported the rhetoric that makes being Muslim the worst thing one can be," she said. "Because the country has made a 15th century old religion and civilization taboo, Barack Obama supporters can't even come to the Muslim citizens to get support," McCloud noted. "And the Muslim citizens cannot go out and campaign for him like they would campaign for anybody else. I am just a little bit embarrassed that a country that was really a beacon of religious power has now gone back to the dark ages of the Crusades." The lie has forced the Obama campaign to confront it as a smear, which makes his defense about as bad as the offense against him. An exchange between John McCain and a silver-haired supporter last Friday during a town hall meeting proves McCloud's point. An indecent implication "I'm scared. I have read about him, and he is an Arab," the elderly woman said. To his credit, McCain forcefully shook his head no. He went on to tell the woman that Obama is a "decent man" with a "good family." But it may be too late for McCain to distance himself from the monster that his campaign has nourished. Ironically, Obama was vilified by conservative pundits for his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a Christian theologian. Still, Obama's opponents have been able to convince some white voters that he is a Muslim. "I would think it is odd that if you have a person who is baptized in a church and has children who are baptized in a church, for white people to decide that person is not Christian," McCloud said. "Fortunately, there are an equivalent of Christians and Jews who have said no to that effort." Most of us like to think of America as a tolerant society, but the lie against Obama took root because ordinary Americans know very little about Islam and Muslims. And the rhetoric about terrorists and Muslims in the national debate may have stirred up anti-Muslim sentiments. Two weeks ago, a Muslim student at Elmhurst College was attacked on the school's grounds, leading hundreds of students on the campus to later rally around the victim. When you consider that America really is a cultural melting pot, it makes it all the more absurd that three weeks before the election, political operatives are still engaging in blatant fear-mongering. But there is a bright side to all of this. National polls showing that Obama is leading McCain nationally is an indication that a lot more people believe the truth than those who believe the lie. Just when you thought it was over ... So, it makes sense that vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin is now trying to convince voters that Obama pals around with terrorists -- another tall tale. Coincidentally, it is Palin who has been caught fibbing since a report released by a bipartisan commission last weekend makes it clear that she wasn't being truthful about her actions regarding her former brother-in-law. The commission found the governor abused her power when she tried to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper for personal reasons. Palin, who has billed herself as a born-again, tongue-talking Christian, a reformer and a maverick, violated a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act when she put pressure on a former public safety commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law, who was going through a nasty divorce with Palin's sister. Heck, maybe someone ought to be asking whether this woman is really a Christian. Unfortunately, despite the evidence, some would rather believe the lie from Palin than the truth about Obama.

Sarah Palin and the "Sambo" Remark Saturday September 6, 2008 To hear the L.A. Progressive blog tell it: "So Sambo beat the b--ch!" This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama's win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination. The quote is attributed to Palin by "Lucille," an unidentified Alaska waitress. At first glance it sounds like an offensive, off-the-cuff remark--but there's a lot more to it than that. This year's election cycle was rife (at least among the punditry) with discussion of race versus gender. Who would be the first to break the white male monopoly on presidential nominations: A black man, or a white woman? We could have saved ourselves all this trouble if we'd just nominated Shirley Chisholm in '72, but never mind. The 2008 Democratic primary has been characterized as the oppression olympics, as a competition to see whether racism is worse than sexism, or vice versa. But there was another time in our nation's history when an even more fundamental question of race versus gender was being resolved: December 1865. The American Civil War had just ended eight months prior, and talk was afoot of giving black men the right to vote. White suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in a letter (emphasis mine): The representative women of the nation have done their uttermost for the last thirty years to secure freedom for the negro, and so long as he was lowest in the scale of being we were allowed to press his claims; but now, as the celestial gate to civil rights is slowly moving on its hinges, it becomes a serious question whether we had better stand aside and see "Sambo" walk into the kingdom first. As self-preservation is the first law of nature, would it not be wiser to keep our lamps trimmed and burning, and when the constitutional door is open, avail ourselves of the strong arm and blue uniform of the black soldier to walk in by his side, and thus make the gap so wide that no privileged class could ever again close it against the humblest citizen of the republic? The term "Sambo" has fallen out of favor as a racial epithet in recent years, and so--considering the context of the current presidential election--the phrase "Sambo beat the b--ch" would almost have to be a subtle reference to Stanton's remark. Would a group of fortysomething Republican politicos from Alaska have gotten the reference? Probably not. But Sarah Palin might have; she self-describes as a feminist and belongs to Feminists for Life, a group that reveres the writings of 19th-century suffragists but has little use for later feminist material. But it would have been strange to use it in a conversation with ordinary Republican political operatives, because they wouldn't have understood what she was talking about. McCain had famously fielded a "How do we beat the b--ch?" question (regarding Hillary Clinton) from a supporter months earlier, at a time when Clinton was the presumptive Democratic nominee. When Obama defeated her, that rendered the supporter's crude question moot--so the statement would have doubled as a response to the McCain supporter and a wry reference to the history of the race vs. gender issue that dominated the news cycle during the Clinton-Obama primary. The phrase is too succinct, too complete, to have been the invention of a shrill blogger four months after the fact. I don't mean to sound like I admire the remark--it's offensive--but it encapsulates so many different controversies, so much history, that it's not something that an enemy of Palin would have created out of whole cloth as a smear because it's too complex. If you're going to have Palin say a racial epithet, it makes sense to just have her say something crude and simple without all the subtle references.So I don't really know. I can't see Palin saying it over lunch to a group of Republican colleagues, but I can't see it going unsaid either. Somebody must have said it. I don't pretend to know who, when, or where, but it comes with its own why. You can't win our issues so, you choose to play the race card pathetic http://racerelations.about.com/b/2008/09/06/sarah-palin-and-the-sambo-remark.htm

“In the Light of Love” ENGLISH A joint statement signed by: Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory, Catholic Archbishop of Atlanta Plemon Tauheed El-Amin, Imam, the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam Rabbi Scott Saulson of Atlanta The Rt. Rev. J. Neil Alexander, Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta As people of faith with a strong belief in individual human dignity - regardless of race, language or place of birth - we are concerned about the callous and hateful perspective of many of the loudest voices heard lately around immigration issues. Our concern includes constant reference to men, women and children in derogatory terms that seem to dismiss their, and our own, humanity and to justify any proposed mistreatment or punishment. Defaming, diminishing and dismissing newcomers as less than human strikes us as neither very faith-filled nor very American. Our concern is with family, civic and faith values. If we are to treat others as we would like to be treated, if we believe that mercy will be measured out to us even as we measure it out to others, it seems important to look at forgiving those who once violated the unworkable immigration laws of our country. These are people who, lacking a “line to stand in,” crossed the border at great peril, or who have stayed here on an expired visa, or who have joined family members while waiting a decade or more for immigration documents to be processed. These are people who are taking risks to work for a better life for themselves and their families in a new land. Legal status in civil law is important, but it is not a final measure of humanity. It is not a great leap to consider divine law, about “loving the stranger” (Deut. 10:19), “you shall not wrong or oppress the stranger, for you were once strangers. . .” (Ex. 22:21), and “. . . I was a stranger and you welcomed me. . .” (Matt. 25:35). We are not suggesting that the United States must not act to secure its borders. Nor do we believe that the failed Senate legislation was without major flaws and inadequacies in such areas as family reunification and temporary workers. We are remembering that most of our ancestors, under a much simpler immigration policy of generations ago, made the voyage to the United States. Some arrived in iron shackles; others shared the dream of a better future for themselves and their families. Insulting nicknames were coined and phrases such as “yellow horde,” and “Irish need not apply” were common. Racism and bigotry led to actions which still stain our national history. Such wounds take much time and effort to heal. Our blaming newcomers for long-standing problems of health care, education and employment, our denigrating those who may look and sound different from us, does not make us stronger or safer – it diminishes us. We accept the labor of the desperate, the suffering of separated families, the taxes and the purchasing power of millions of people. It is wrong to say those same people may not be accorded basic human rights and protections or to deny that they are essential to our economy and our future. May God forgive us even as we forgive others. Forgiveness has always been a value at the very core of the major faith traditions. It is the mutual path to healing. Let us open our hearts with the hope of finding solutions that are best for our nation, for our world, for our souls, and for the future of our children who are listening so intently to this lesson. We are sowing the future with our words and our actions in the vast field of our global neighborhood. We will reap what we sow. May God help us.