The backstory: My friend Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond and I were emailing about the presidential campaign and a recent article written by Eve Ensler about the McCain/Palin ticket. Nana, who is a really talented writer in her own right, made a really interesting point about the role of religion in the race and was nice enough to let me post it. Funnily enough, as I upload this, I’m listening to a segment on WNYC about how many in the Muslim community feel alienated by this election and the right wing’s attempt to villainize Obama as Islamic, which is a point that also came up during Nana and my chat about “tolerance” (Obama clearly is not a Muslim, but if he were, is that really the end of the world?) Her words are below.

I did read the Eve Ensler piece and just reread it. It’s powerfully written. I appreciate her linking the ‘drill, baby, drill’ chant from the RNC, and the evolution stance to an idea that precludes evolution of our nation. She writes from a thoughtful place, I think, not a place of intellectual superiority. 

A place I think a lot of liberal people come from when they speak about Palin’s religion. I take umbrage with the way Palin’s religious beliefs are being used to cast her as irrational and non-progressive. I think it’s just as intolerant as some of her beliefs are. 

As a Christian, I often hear friends, co-workers, etc bashing Christians/Christianity as ridiculous, fundamentalist, and backward and it pisses me off because I do believe that a large reason why our society is going down the drain is the fact that we’ve lost our morality and social conscience. If peeps on wall street/in our government/on the streets/in our churches/in our schools, etc were committed to loving their neighbors as themselves and God with all their hearts, I doubt we would be watching our schools fail because peeps don’t want to pay taxes or support programs that would foster equality. I doubt women would fear isolation or stigmatization if they became pregnant unexpectedly and would, ironically feel they had more choices because they wouldn’t be going it alone. I doubt that we would be desecrating our planet for commerce and pillaging other countries for oil. Etcetera, etcetera… Or maybe we would, but I doubt it.    

Either way, it is very tense over here as far as the election and our economy is concerned. As columnist Andrew Sullivan said on a recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, America is having a profound identity crisis. We are used to being a rich, superpower, and we are used to being a white, patriarchal society that only shares the crumbs of privilege with well-behaved minorities and women - well-behaved meaning those willing to behave like white men and assimilate into white culture. 

If McCain and Palin win, it will be a relief for the white majority and a continuation of the invisible knapsack of privileges white people get to carry around. Poor whites will continue to suffer and get left behind, but they’ll still have the solace of their skin color. It will also mean this total lack of respect for other nations in an increasingly global and changing world in which the neo-colonial tactics of America and the West just won’t be tolerated. 

If Obama and Biden win, it will mark the beginning of a new era that forces us all to look past our prejudices, fear, and the stereotypes we’ve all become comfortable clinging to. And that takes away our solace too. 

This weekend, I went to an Obama rally in Northeast Philly. The crowd was largely made up of hardscrabble, white union workers - the kind of men I, as a black woman from New York, have always envisioned knocking back a six-pack to fill their bloated bellies before brawling at the local bar, and then getting  into their pick-up trucks looking to visit some vigilante justice on the niggers, towel heads, wetbacks or kikes. But they were out in support of Obama, and perfectly cool to the deadlocked and afro-puffed brooklynites that had come up to their neighborhood to canvass for Obama votes. It made me check my own stereotypes and preconceptions. 

When we went knocking on doors to share info with undecideds, I got the feeling - again, I’m assuming - that many of these people don’t interact with blacks on a regular basis. Some of them were dismissive, but most were extremely polite. I guess, where I’m going with this rant is that it’s just so important for us to investigate the things that seem alien and antithetical to us and what we believe. It’s important for us to walk a mile in our enemies’ shoes and get to understand where they are coming from instead of dismissing, ridiculing, vilifying or even deifying them. It’s not enough to tolerate - there’s something condescending about tolerating a person - it’s critical that we do the hard work of loving our enemies and doing good even to those who hurt us. It’s the only way we’ll escape the traps of fear, ignorance and hopelessness, which are the real enemies of progress.        

Posted: October 13th, 2008  Category: Life, Trends  Comments: No comments#