A Racist E-Mail On Obama Awaits Me At Home
Already, it seems, the hopes that an election contest between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama would be a high-minded debate of such issues as Iraq, the economy and global warming is giving way to racial stereotypes against Obama.
I arrived home late last night from my college reunion trip to Boston only to find a shocking e-mail from a friend, saying it might be worth consideration. It was a combination of every possible attack racially against Obama and his wife, Michelle, focusing first on whether he was a legitimate child and going down from there.
It is, I think, a matter of hope for America that Obama is a biracial candidate. But whoever the lowlife was who wrote this e-mail could only remember that at the time they married, Obama's parents were defying the miscegenation laws of half the states of the Union (but not, of course, Hawaii, where they married).
Are the voters of the USA going to let this hopeful election be dragged down into a cesspool, because that's what scurrilous messages on the Internet are doing. Is McCain going to allow his character to be sullied by not speaking out against such attacks?
I'm sorry to have to call the frequently enlightened woman who forwarded me the e-mail a friend, but the fact is she has been one since 1957. I sent her a message asking her not to forward me trash.
This came just a short time after another friend of long standing told me over lunch that America would never elect a black man to the presidency. This man calls himself a liberal.
Yet, you know what, Obama and his well-organized campaign continue to make their points in a rational way as if they actually expect him to be elected, as I do.
Our bet is that America has changed, and can rise above the bloody past of slavery and segregation to elect a man who towers intellectually over his opponent, and promises a new policy of less divisiveness at home.
Just who his parents were, and how they came to be married, is hardly worth discussing against those considerations.
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The news comes from Salt Lake City that the Deseret News is selling property to the Mormon church, or transferring it, since the church already owns it, for $3 million, so it can fund employee layoffs.
At the L.A. Times, by contrast, the forthcoming layoffs won't cost owner Sam Zell much, because he has already vowed to reduce the scope of the severance packages.
At the weekend reunion, the wife of one of my classmates from Chicago told me she has found Zell's wife to be quite a bit more civilized than he is, and also knows, and admires, Michelle Obama.
I arrived home late last night from my college reunion trip to Boston only to find a shocking e-mail from a friend, saying it might be worth consideration. It was a combination of every possible attack racially against Obama and his wife, Michelle, focusing first on whether he was a legitimate child and going down from there.
It is, I think, a matter of hope for America that Obama is a biracial candidate. But whoever the lowlife was who wrote this e-mail could only remember that at the time they married, Obama's parents were defying the miscegenation laws of half the states of the Union (but not, of course, Hawaii, where they married).
Are the voters of the USA going to let this hopeful election be dragged down into a cesspool, because that's what scurrilous messages on the Internet are doing. Is McCain going to allow his character to be sullied by not speaking out against such attacks?
I'm sorry to have to call the frequently enlightened woman who forwarded me the e-mail a friend, but the fact is she has been one since 1957. I sent her a message asking her not to forward me trash.
This came just a short time after another friend of long standing told me over lunch that America would never elect a black man to the presidency. This man calls himself a liberal.
Yet, you know what, Obama and his well-organized campaign continue to make their points in a rational way as if they actually expect him to be elected, as I do.
Our bet is that America has changed, and can rise above the bloody past of slavery and segregation to elect a man who towers intellectually over his opponent, and promises a new policy of less divisiveness at home.
Just who his parents were, and how they came to be married, is hardly worth discussing against those considerations.
--
The news comes from Salt Lake City that the Deseret News is selling property to the Mormon church, or transferring it, since the church already owns it, for $3 million, so it can fund employee layoffs.
At the L.A. Times, by contrast, the forthcoming layoffs won't cost owner Sam Zell much, because he has already vowed to reduce the scope of the severance packages.
At the weekend reunion, the wife of one of my classmates from Chicago told me she has found Zell's wife to be quite a bit more civilized than he is, and also knows, and admires, Michelle Obama.
Labels: Presidential campaigning
posted by Ken Reich at 7:45 AM
1 Comments:
Ken: You may be interested in this similar post to my blog: Bracing for the Race Baiting.
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