Tag: race

No longer a "white" house

If you’ve seen the email forward of the guy on the bike, riding through traffic, on the back of his t shirt is the slogan "It’s called a white house for a reason" then you know some of the fallout from the election results.

People are justifiably upset by this slogan and it’s racist underpinnings.

I think the statement needs more credit. The slogan is true because the mentality behind it has held true. It has been a white house for 43 presidencies. And people have been used to thinking of it as a white man’s job.

Guess what? 

No longer!

What happens next?

I went to a debate in here Doha last night, with people who represented both parties, Republican and Democrat. What struck me as I listened was how much was not being said. The Republican representative kept talking about John McCain as the ‘acceptable’ candidate. Now what, in the world, does that mean?

I did ask a question during the Q and A (about why the Republican party likes to apply mud slinging rhetoric to others and ignore their own mud) but not the one I’m contemplating this morning.

Regardless of who wins, what happens next? Will we just go back to pretending the content of a man’s character was not the subject of pre-election days, but rather the color of his middle name? All uncomfortable racial and gender politics that have been uncovered in this long campaign – will they just be swept under the rug and business as usual?

Forget about reaching across party lines for a moment. Who is going to breach the racial divisions?
Let’s hope for our sake it’s whomever is elected president.

I went to school with a lot of black people….

Believe it or not, the title of this piece is an actual quote of a woman during a recent NPR story when questioned about her leanings for the 08 vote. This gem came out while she denied that she was "racist or whatever you want to call it." Clearly, as you’ll see in a moment, she couldn’t use the infamous refrain, "some of my best friends are…." because she doesn’t know any. We can assume the last black person she knew was someone she went to high school with. Scary but true of the racial divide in modern society.

Later on in the interview this woman mentioned she  is opposed to John McCain but may not cast a vote in this election because "until he [Obama] was nominated for president, I didn’t really think about it [having a black president]. She’s worried that he [Obama] "would only think about his people".

Revealing, shocking, honest, scary commentary from your average American citizen.

Are the majority scared? Do they sniff change in the air?

The world holds its breath…