Reverend Wright and the Colored Girl's Condundrum
The Reverend Wright "Controversy" is overblown. This
story already linked on TPM offers insight into why Obama chose
Wright's church. I buy into it. But why is it that the majority of
Americans won't find out about this explanation and probably don't
care? It's the Colored Girl's Conundrum.
See, growing up as a racially ambiguous person (Mum was Indonesian Chinese, Dad Irish-Scotch-French American) has not been so much tragic as it is really, really annoying. In the pre-9/11 days I used to just see it as an opportunity when people asked me "Where are you from?" (Kansas City - but I usually led the conversation around to where their kids were born so that I could point out I was born at the exact same hospital) or the offensive "What are you?" (which was my opportunity to show tolerance and give them a dissertation on Southeast Asian culture instead of the wiseacre "a human being, dumbass").
9/11 changed all of that. Why? Because the terrified hordes of nice white people began to see terrorist Arabs everywhere. And suddenly everyone started treating me with suspicion. I was being interrogated by Joe and Jill (white) America at every turn. I received hate email from my white boyfriend. A friend of mine called the FBI because she saw some Persian guys buying kitchen knives at Tuesday Morning. I got on a plane where some white guy and his wife went ballistic on a Hindu family because the dad put a suitcase in the overhead compartment next to his. A Sikh was arrested in Texas. A Jewish friend of mine was accosted in a bar and accused of planting a bomb (they took him for an Arab - which is only natural since Jews and Arabs both happen to be Semitic peoples). In Mexico I was told there was a "mark" on my passport indicating I should be searched.
All of this would be very disturbing if I was Arab. But guess what? I'm not!! I'm also not Muslim - I went to Catholic school and was confirmed but recently converted to Buddhism which is the religion of my Mum. So instead of disturbing it's deeply violating and INSANE. Try living with that level of deep suspicion and hostility which is aimed erroneously at you and you know what? You might go crazy. So, now I'm an expat.
And I look at Barack Obama's patient, methodical approach to the relentless suspicion about his race and his beliefs and I shake my head. Because I've been through that. And I honestly think it is sick and wrong that anyone should have to do that at all. Chris Wallace might frame it as "finding out about the new kid on the block" but did McCain have to face such interrogation early in his career (flag pin anyone)? Clinton? Reagan? Did Bush, for Christ's sake? I stand in awe of Obama's massive patience and aplomb. I actually came to the conclusion long ago that that sort of racially defined suspicion should not be tolerated. But he never did. Literally, I'm stunned by what seems like an astronomical amount of compassion on his part.
Because that's the Colored Girl's Conundrum. What to do? Patiently bite through this period of national paranoia and hostility? Or stand my ground and define for people what I don't consider acceptable behavior on their part. I chose one, Obama's got the other. We'll see if that works out for him.
See, growing up as a racially ambiguous person (Mum was Indonesian Chinese, Dad Irish-Scotch-French American) has not been so much tragic as it is really, really annoying. In the pre-9/11 days I used to just see it as an opportunity when people asked me "Where are you from?" (Kansas City - but I usually led the conversation around to where their kids were born so that I could point out I was born at the exact same hospital) or the offensive "What are you?" (which was my opportunity to show tolerance and give them a dissertation on Southeast Asian culture instead of the wiseacre "a human being, dumbass").
9/11 changed all of that. Why? Because the terrified hordes of nice white people began to see terrorist Arabs everywhere. And suddenly everyone started treating me with suspicion. I was being interrogated by Joe and Jill (white) America at every turn. I received hate email from my white boyfriend. A friend of mine called the FBI because she saw some Persian guys buying kitchen knives at Tuesday Morning. I got on a plane where some white guy and his wife went ballistic on a Hindu family because the dad put a suitcase in the overhead compartment next to his. A Sikh was arrested in Texas. A Jewish friend of mine was accosted in a bar and accused of planting a bomb (they took him for an Arab - which is only natural since Jews and Arabs both happen to be Semitic peoples). In Mexico I was told there was a "mark" on my passport indicating I should be searched.
All of this would be very disturbing if I was Arab. But guess what? I'm not!! I'm also not Muslim - I went to Catholic school and was confirmed but recently converted to Buddhism which is the religion of my Mum. So instead of disturbing it's deeply violating and INSANE. Try living with that level of deep suspicion and hostility which is aimed erroneously at you and you know what? You might go crazy. So, now I'm an expat.
And I look at Barack Obama's patient, methodical approach to the relentless suspicion about his race and his beliefs and I shake my head. Because I've been through that. And I honestly think it is sick and wrong that anyone should have to do that at all. Chris Wallace might frame it as "finding out about the new kid on the block" but did McCain have to face such interrogation early in his career (flag pin anyone)? Clinton? Reagan? Did Bush, for Christ's sake? I stand in awe of Obama's massive patience and aplomb. I actually came to the conclusion long ago that that sort of racially defined suspicion should not be tolerated. But he never did. Literally, I'm stunned by what seems like an astronomical amount of compassion on his part.
Because that's the Colored Girl's Conundrum. What to do? Patiently bite through this period of national paranoia and hostility? Or stand my ground and define for people what I don't consider acceptable behavior on their part. I chose one, Obama's got the other. We'll see if that works out for him.
