ObamaManiac
Like my dear friend QueenBee, I am through the roof with excitement over Barack Obama's nomination. I don't think I could say it any better than she did over at her blog, so read it here and I second the emotion.
I heard today that Millennials tend to be gender- and race-neutral, which gives me another great infusion of hope for the future. Although I've (barely) tried to respond to my Republican father about Obama, I often come up against a brick wall of bigotry. It's sad to see people inour country so twisted by fear about the color of someone's skin -- the amount of melanin programmed into their genetic code.
Juxtaposed against a story I saw about a group of Floridians flying a gigantic Confederate flag, I'm thinking that over time, that kind of racism is going to die out and be replaced by the more realistic approach to things espoused by Generation Y. My own children don't seem to view Obama as a black man. He's an inspirational figure who happens to be bi-racial.
I'm not saying they don't have playmates who are prejudiced. Sport asked me for an information sheet debunking myths about Obama and his "hidden Muslim agenda" so he could read it to his friends at school. I was stunned that even 10-year-olds are talking about him. And Lego quickly corrects his friends when they call Obama "Osama." Such ignorance can only be addressed one person at a time. But I think a lot of that is coming from things they hear their parents say.
It's times like this that I'm proud to be a librarian! When my kid asks me for a fact sheet, that's a power trip, baby!
UPDATE: My sister feels I indirectly accused my mother of being racist, which I did not intend to do. I apologize for that. I have had issues with some of the things my father has said in the past and I make allowances because I feel it is a direct result of the way he grew up. And they did not raise us to be prejudiced.
6 comments:
Yes, Banana woman. It's so unfortunate that racism is taught. DQ has tried (unsuccessfully) to explain Obama is not a Muslim as well. People are using fear in the campaign against him...so sad. I am so excited, I have ordered my ObamaMama tshirt!
Have you checked out his "Stop the Smears" website? I've seen a really really really ugly email about him that I tried to forward to them but it won't go through. The website has some good info--and it is great when you become a "source" for your kids, isn't it? I still get calls on occasion.
Yes I have, Tex, and I've bookmarked it to access when I get those stupid forwards.
Dear ObamaManiac or Kool Aid drinker?
I stumbled on to your blog thinking I was looking up and old friend. Boy was I surprised and disappointed. Do you people even have a clue? Because you are a Republican you are a racist? I would hate to confuse any of you with facts since they really don't seem to enter into a conversation with you do gooding, save the world nut jobs. We want to have "open talks" with our enemies, with no conditions...End the war regardless of the number of people who will be killed after they are no longer protected by any civilized people (that being us!). I would have thought you folks, since you like books so much, would pick up a history book now and then and see how well that has worked in the past. Does Hitler mean anything to you? Or was he a figment of several million dead people's imaginations? Or ask your Vietnamese freinds how many of their realatives died after we left.
Don't bother with facts or actual events. Just make it up as you go along...that seems to work for you.
We need to let Everyone come here from those poor countries and take the money that I and your parents worked so hard for to put little disrespctful Holier than Thou liberals through college. Let's just hand it over to anyone who wants to come here to enjoy our good life because making money is bad and evil and we have too much of it. Give me a break. Get in the real world and out of academia or wherever you are and join the national work hard for a living wealth re-distribution program you liberals seem to favor so much. Here's an idea why don't you refuse your next pay raise and insist your employer give it to the poor because you have so much and the poor have so little. DO that and take in a bunch of homeless immigrants in your home and sacrifice your childrens soccer or whatever they do. When you do that and Obama turns over the millions he has nade in questionable real estate deals with known criminals than I'll come over to your side. I don't see Caroline Kennedy and all those other do gooders walking away from their wealth and having the poor camp out on their lawns. When all that happens I'll join you. Until then maybe you should re-think what and how this country got where it did. Was it always right, no, but it was Always our country and I for one don't want to give it away. I worked three jobs once and my parents did as well to get where we did. Why does anyone who worked for anything have to give it away or be called racists because they rose from lower circunstances to a better life and some minority didn't? Please...And while we are on the subject, of the Confederate flag you might as well re-read your history there as well bookhead! The Civil War started in 1861 as an economic war, slavery was not an issue until 1863 when the draft riots began because people in the North refused to go to war in what was called the "Rich Man's War" Old "HOnest Abe changed tactics and as a result he wrote the Gettysburg address...and if you'll read the address you'll notice that old "Honest Abe" only freed the slaves in the South. In fact as a lawyer he represented salve owners, something most history/ proaganda books, (written in North by the way), fail to mention. He also was instrumental in the formation of Liberia in Africa where he wanted to ship all black people back to. Probably didn't know that either. The winner of a war writes the history, and fighting a war over slavery sounds much more noble than fighting over money. The actual reason for the war was the North was an industrailized economy and the South had the raw materials and chose to sell them abroad for (OH NO!) more profit! So Southeners are automatically racists, even though the people that captured the slaves and sold them were their black brothers. So don't lecture people on racism, or the Confederate Flag and criticize your parents (who I'm sure worked hard to make sure you had a comfortable life) until you grow up and understand the issues.The Confederate States were an Independent Country fighting for their right of self determination...and the flag is a symbol to those of us who had ancestors who fought and suffered through their own attempt at independance. I'm sure as such an open minded person you have no problem with the Mexican flag flying anywhere on our soil, so let some of your fellow countrymen celebrate THEIR heritage and war for independance.
A black, green or purple President is fine with me and most Americans, but don't think you impress anyone and you are so open minded just because you support one. Check the voting record, find out where he stands on the issues and then decide. I doubt you know very many of his issues. If you do, you'll be the first because he hasn't defined any of them and they seem to keep changing. The best thing that could happen to our country is for him to win. If we make it through those four years of a Democratic Congress and President without being blown up or destroyed from within it will insure he is a one term guy and we will have the next 12+ years of somebody else. And remember all those people you all want to sit down and talk to "unconitionally"...they want to kill your kids, and their kids want to kill your kids. Please tell me how you'll talk them out of that?
Vote how you want to, it's your right, one who people died for. Just come down off your high horse and stop the name calling. I'm sure your parents are so proud. By the way have they read your blog yet?
The Great Communicator said this about liberalism--”It has nothing to say, nothing to add to the debate. It has spent its intellectual capital, such as it was--and it has done its deeds. ---Ronald Reagan, Washington D.C. March 1, 1985
"The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them". Mark Twain.
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