Monday, February 4, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Barack is popular in Montana
Barack in Butte, Montana: Defying Conventional Wisdom About Race and Politics
By Laura Flanders, TheNation.com
Posted on January 30, 2008, Printed on January 30, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/75379/
If Barack Obama's South Carolina win was a "black" thing, it's awfully strange how it's going down in Butte. US towns don't come much whiter or more hope-resistant than this battered old Montana mining town. And yet organizers here resonate with his call, not because they think he'll change things here, but because they believe the movement he's inspiring will help them do that work.
It was mid-morning Sunday when I finally flipped open my laptop to watch Obama's South Carolina victory speech. The only other soul in the faded foyer of the once-grand Finlen Hotel was Debbie, the receptionist. Obama's words drew blue-eyed Debbie over. What do you think? I asked. Looking at the crowd, her smile revealed more than a few missing teeth. "That looks like everybody," she said. "That's good."
The Finlen is a lonely place; a 1920s relic perched on a snow-swept slope between stone-cold, closed Victorian banks and bars and the country's biggest toxic Super Fund site. Butte was once the copper capital of the world (and the most unionized town in the US) but the swag and smut of the 1880s is long gone and Butte's as broken now as the bones of its best-known 20th century export -- Evel Knievel. And even he is dead.
The exuberant crowd behind the stylish Senator Saturday was Southern, sunny, multi-racial and all revved up. The backdrop to his words in Butte was very different. Obama's pledges of "change" and "purpose" and "belief" echoed, airy, into this wintry, white, whupped, western town. This place aches for solid stuff like union jobs and productive work and there was precious little promise of either in Obama's speech.
So can Obama's magic move Butte? Before the morning was over, I was able to ask the question to a group of local activists. The Montana Human Rights Network was holding its annual"Progressive Leadership Institute" in the Finlen this weekend and two dozen local organizers gathered around to hear the speech in between workshops on running effective campaigns and running for local office.
"It's not that he would change anything in Butte," said Alan Peura, a City Commissioner in Helena. "But he's building momentum that we can use to make that change ourselves."
Although John Edwards was by my survey probably the group's favorite candidate, Obama roused them, not by his policy promises, but by opening he presents for their work.
"At the very least, we'll have four years of movement-building from the Presidential bully pulpit, which is the polar opposite from what we've had," chimed in Jason Wiener, a Missoula city councilman.
Obama's wrong on fuel, said Patricia Dowd. He supports liquid coal, a fossil-fuel-burning non-alternative that Dowd, an environmentalist, is against. "But I love the fact that he always thanks his organizers first. He values what we do and that makes it easier for us to do our work.''
"I don't trust all this talk about bi-partisanship," said retired MT Congressman, Pat Williams, one of the longest-serving progressives ever to sit in the US House. "Compromise can be just another word for collusion." On the other hand, even Williams sees movement potential at the party level if Obama were to be the candidate. Williams served in Congress under Clinton in the early 1990s. He saw how the Clinton magic worked - for Clinton only. "We lost the Governors, the House, the Senate."
Ken Toole, one of the founders of the Network and a student of the Right remembers how the Right came to power. Gaining the White House wasn't the last it was the first stage of that process. "The best thing Obama could be is our Reagan," said Toole. "Reagan didn't deliver a whole lot in terms of policies, but he shifted the country's direction." Even from Butte, it's clear to organizers: Obama's not the savior: we are. He opens a door. We push.
Laura Flanders is author of Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species.
By Laura Flanders, TheNation.com
Posted on January 30, 2008, Printed on January 30, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/75379/
If Barack Obama's South Carolina win was a "black" thing, it's awfully strange how it's going down in Butte. US towns don't come much whiter or more hope-resistant than this battered old Montana mining town. And yet organizers here resonate with his call, not because they think he'll change things here, but because they believe the movement he's inspiring will help them do that work.
It was mid-morning Sunday when I finally flipped open my laptop to watch Obama's South Carolina victory speech. The only other soul in the faded foyer of the once-grand Finlen Hotel was Debbie, the receptionist. Obama's words drew blue-eyed Debbie over. What do you think? I asked. Looking at the crowd, her smile revealed more than a few missing teeth. "That looks like everybody," she said. "That's good."
The Finlen is a lonely place; a 1920s relic perched on a snow-swept slope between stone-cold, closed Victorian banks and bars and the country's biggest toxic Super Fund site. Butte was once the copper capital of the world (and the most unionized town in the US) but the swag and smut of the 1880s is long gone and Butte's as broken now as the bones of its best-known 20th century export -- Evel Knievel. And even he is dead.
The exuberant crowd behind the stylish Senator Saturday was Southern, sunny, multi-racial and all revved up. The backdrop to his words in Butte was very different. Obama's pledges of "change" and "purpose" and "belief" echoed, airy, into this wintry, white, whupped, western town. This place aches for solid stuff like union jobs and productive work and there was precious little promise of either in Obama's speech.
So can Obama's magic move Butte? Before the morning was over, I was able to ask the question to a group of local activists. The Montana Human Rights Network was holding its annual"Progressive Leadership Institute" in the Finlen this weekend and two dozen local organizers gathered around to hear the speech in between workshops on running effective campaigns and running for local office.
"It's not that he would change anything in Butte," said Alan Peura, a City Commissioner in Helena. "But he's building momentum that we can use to make that change ourselves."
Although John Edwards was by my survey probably the group's favorite candidate, Obama roused them, not by his policy promises, but by opening he presents for their work.
"At the very least, we'll have four years of movement-building from the Presidential bully pulpit, which is the polar opposite from what we've had," chimed in Jason Wiener, a Missoula city councilman.
Obama's wrong on fuel, said Patricia Dowd. He supports liquid coal, a fossil-fuel-burning non-alternative that Dowd, an environmentalist, is against. "But I love the fact that he always thanks his organizers first. He values what we do and that makes it easier for us to do our work.''
"I don't trust all this talk about bi-partisanship," said retired MT Congressman, Pat Williams, one of the longest-serving progressives ever to sit in the US House. "Compromise can be just another word for collusion." On the other hand, even Williams sees movement potential at the party level if Obama were to be the candidate. Williams served in Congress under Clinton in the early 1990s. He saw how the Clinton magic worked - for Clinton only. "We lost the Governors, the House, the Senate."
Ken Toole, one of the founders of the Network and a student of the Right remembers how the Right came to power. Gaining the White House wasn't the last it was the first stage of that process. "The best thing Obama could be is our Reagan," said Toole. "Reagan didn't deliver a whole lot in terms of policies, but he shifted the country's direction." Even from Butte, it's clear to organizers: Obama's not the savior: we are. He opens a door. We push.
Laura Flanders is author of Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Clinton Revisited
Obama '08? It's Clinton '92 all over again. With one small difference ...
With his megawatt charisma and compelling life story, Barack Obama would be cruising to the nomination in another year. But this year he faces a new phenomenon: the twin-headed candidate
Jonathan Freedland in Columbia, South Carolina
Saturday January 26, 2008
Guardian
Sixteen years ago, this state and America were wowed by a new candidate who seemed less politician than force of nature. He packed halls and school gyms till they were bursting, promising that a new day was coming. Aged just 46, his arrival seemed to presage a generational shift. He drew comparisons with John F Kennedy; the rock-star welcome in town after town felt like Beatlemania. He spoke of change and of hope, buttressing his message with his own compelling life story: a father he didn't know, a devoted mother who had defied the odds to bring up her son. Black audiences were especially fervent for him.
That man was Bill Clinton.
Now, four elections later, that remarkable odyssey is being repeated. In 2008, as it was in 1992, the race for the Democratic nomination has been electrified by a newcomer to national politics. This time it is Barack Obama, 46, also fending off accusations of inexperience, who has thrilled a new generation, his rallies staffed and fired up by teenagers and students, just as Clinton's were 16 years ago. Now it is Obama who has made hope - once the watchword of the self-styled "Man from Hope" - his own. It is Obama who, in a state where African-Americans make up half the Democratic electorate voting in today's pivotal primary, has black audiences on their feet.
Except the Obama of 2008 faces an obstacle the Clinton of 1992 never had to endure. He is up against a wholly novel phenomenon in US politics: the double-headed presidential candidate. All week in South Carolina he has done battle with not just his main opponent, but that opponent's spouse, the pair commanding as much media attention as if both their names were on the ballot. What's more one of those two adversaries is the most effective campaigner in modern political history: one William Jefferson Clinton.
It is making Obama's presidential bid look like an uphill task, even here in South Carolina where eve-of-poll surveys show him comfortably ahead. And yet, one can't help but conclude that, in any other year, against any other opponent(s), Obama would be cruising towards the Democratic nomination, powered by a charisma unseen since that first season of Clinton 16 years back.
There are differences. Obama's rhetorical style is grander and more soaring, quoting JFK one moment, and Martin Luther King's "fierce urgency of now" the next. Clinton's addresses were more conversational and intimate. And while Obama can rivet a packed auditorium, he does less well in close encounters with voters - which suggests he might not share the extraordinary, almost telepathic, gift for empathy that was so central to the ex-president's success.
The contrast was amply illustrated on Thursday. In the morning Obama delivered his stump speech in the high school at Kingstree, a small town in the south-east corner of the state so poor that most of the shops on the main street were either run down or boarded up. When he took questions one came from a Vietnam war veteran who, with his voice cracking, complained of the indignity of fighting for benefits that were rightfully his. "For us," he said, "excuse my French, it's been hell."
Obama listened, briskly told the man he appreciated his service and went on to detail his own record on the Veterans Affairs committee of the US Senate. What was lacking was a human response to the man's distress.
Now, Clinton-watchers can guess what the former president would have done: he'd have asked the man to say more about his condition; he might even have gone over to him and given him a hug (an image which, usefully, would have popped up on the evening news).
As it happened, you didn't have to guess. For Clinton, his schedule as packed as if he were running, had a similar encounter at a campaign stop in Barnwell later that day, with another Vietnam veteran. And the ex-president did exactly what Obama had not done; asking the man what ailed him - and visibly winning his vote in the process.
In its own way, this goes to the heart of Obama's problem. Against a normal opponent it wouldn't matter if he lacked the hyper-empathy of a Bill Clinton. He has so many gifts of his own, including a presence so powerful that he can keep thousands of people waiting in a hall for an hour and a half, as he did in North Charleston on Thursday night - and as candidate Clinton did 16 years ago - and still have them crying out for more. But Obama is not up against a normal opponent.
For one thing, Hillary is no slouch herself. She suffers by comparison with both her husband and Obama. As the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has written of Hillary: "All those years in the shadow of one Natural, only to face the prospect of being eclipsed by another Natural." But judged by any other measure - say the standard of almost all British politicians - she's very good. To watch her at historically black Benedict College in Columbia yesterday morning was to see a fluent, persuasive performer on the top of her game. She does not inspire - she got more applause at the beginning of her speech than at the end - but she has lost some of the wonkishness of the past, now translating policy into colloquial English, lambasting, for example, the "predatory" student loans that mean "too many young people are having the door slammed in their face".
Still, it's not her campaign style that sees her in such a strong position for the Democratic nomination, even if she loses tonight in South Carolina. She has the legendary Clinton machine to thank for that. At each campaign stop local bigwigs and powerbrokers are there in the front row: evidence of a vast network, built over 16 years, of people who are keen to see the Clintons back in the White House and have the local, on-the-ground, organisational muscle to make it happen. Favours given and favours returned: that has been the Clinton way and it is mighty effective.
But there's far more to the Clinton machine. There's also a team of operatives with great tactical nous. In South Carolina they have repeatedly succeeded in putting Obama on the defensive - whether over his comments praising Ronald Reagan or past legal work for a slum landlord - even in areas in which Hillary herself should be vulnerable.
But above all, Hillary's greatest asset has been her husband. Few doubt that he is steering campaign strategy and there is no one better. In South Carolina he has been happy to play attack dog for his wife, leaving her to make high-minded speeches that ignore her Democratic opponent and focus, loftily, on the case against George W Bush. They are "double-teaming" against Obama, leaving his head spinning so badly that, as he admitted the other day, "sometimes I don't know who I'm running against".
So fate has played a cruel trick against Barack Obama. It has made him the most exciting newcomer in US politics for a very long time - then pitted him against the man who held that title first.
With his megawatt charisma and compelling life story, Barack Obama would be cruising to the nomination in another year. But this year he faces a new phenomenon: the twin-headed candidate
Jonathan Freedland in Columbia, South Carolina
Saturday January 26, 2008
Guardian
Sixteen years ago, this state and America were wowed by a new candidate who seemed less politician than force of nature. He packed halls and school gyms till they were bursting, promising that a new day was coming. Aged just 46, his arrival seemed to presage a generational shift. He drew comparisons with John F Kennedy; the rock-star welcome in town after town felt like Beatlemania. He spoke of change and of hope, buttressing his message with his own compelling life story: a father he didn't know, a devoted mother who had defied the odds to bring up her son. Black audiences were especially fervent for him.
That man was Bill Clinton.
Now, four elections later, that remarkable odyssey is being repeated. In 2008, as it was in 1992, the race for the Democratic nomination has been electrified by a newcomer to national politics. This time it is Barack Obama, 46, also fending off accusations of inexperience, who has thrilled a new generation, his rallies staffed and fired up by teenagers and students, just as Clinton's were 16 years ago. Now it is Obama who has made hope - once the watchword of the self-styled "Man from Hope" - his own. It is Obama who, in a state where African-Americans make up half the Democratic electorate voting in today's pivotal primary, has black audiences on their feet.
Except the Obama of 2008 faces an obstacle the Clinton of 1992 never had to endure. He is up against a wholly novel phenomenon in US politics: the double-headed presidential candidate. All week in South Carolina he has done battle with not just his main opponent, but that opponent's spouse, the pair commanding as much media attention as if both their names were on the ballot. What's more one of those two adversaries is the most effective campaigner in modern political history: one William Jefferson Clinton.
It is making Obama's presidential bid look like an uphill task, even here in South Carolina where eve-of-poll surveys show him comfortably ahead. And yet, one can't help but conclude that, in any other year, against any other opponent(s), Obama would be cruising towards the Democratic nomination, powered by a charisma unseen since that first season of Clinton 16 years back.
There are differences. Obama's rhetorical style is grander and more soaring, quoting JFK one moment, and Martin Luther King's "fierce urgency of now" the next. Clinton's addresses were more conversational and intimate. And while Obama can rivet a packed auditorium, he does less well in close encounters with voters - which suggests he might not share the extraordinary, almost telepathic, gift for empathy that was so central to the ex-president's success.
The contrast was amply illustrated on Thursday. In the morning Obama delivered his stump speech in the high school at Kingstree, a small town in the south-east corner of the state so poor that most of the shops on the main street were either run down or boarded up. When he took questions one came from a Vietnam war veteran who, with his voice cracking, complained of the indignity of fighting for benefits that were rightfully his. "For us," he said, "excuse my French, it's been hell."
Obama listened, briskly told the man he appreciated his service and went on to detail his own record on the Veterans Affairs committee of the US Senate. What was lacking was a human response to the man's distress.
Now, Clinton-watchers can guess what the former president would have done: he'd have asked the man to say more about his condition; he might even have gone over to him and given him a hug (an image which, usefully, would have popped up on the evening news).
As it happened, you didn't have to guess. For Clinton, his schedule as packed as if he were running, had a similar encounter at a campaign stop in Barnwell later that day, with another Vietnam veteran. And the ex-president did exactly what Obama had not done; asking the man what ailed him - and visibly winning his vote in the process.
In its own way, this goes to the heart of Obama's problem. Against a normal opponent it wouldn't matter if he lacked the hyper-empathy of a Bill Clinton. He has so many gifts of his own, including a presence so powerful that he can keep thousands of people waiting in a hall for an hour and a half, as he did in North Charleston on Thursday night - and as candidate Clinton did 16 years ago - and still have them crying out for more. But Obama is not up against a normal opponent.
For one thing, Hillary is no slouch herself. She suffers by comparison with both her husband and Obama. As the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has written of Hillary: "All those years in the shadow of one Natural, only to face the prospect of being eclipsed by another Natural." But judged by any other measure - say the standard of almost all British politicians - she's very good. To watch her at historically black Benedict College in Columbia yesterday morning was to see a fluent, persuasive performer on the top of her game. She does not inspire - she got more applause at the beginning of her speech than at the end - but she has lost some of the wonkishness of the past, now translating policy into colloquial English, lambasting, for example, the "predatory" student loans that mean "too many young people are having the door slammed in their face".
Still, it's not her campaign style that sees her in such a strong position for the Democratic nomination, even if she loses tonight in South Carolina. She has the legendary Clinton machine to thank for that. At each campaign stop local bigwigs and powerbrokers are there in the front row: evidence of a vast network, built over 16 years, of people who are keen to see the Clintons back in the White House and have the local, on-the-ground, organisational muscle to make it happen. Favours given and favours returned: that has been the Clinton way and it is mighty effective.
But there's far more to the Clinton machine. There's also a team of operatives with great tactical nous. In South Carolina they have repeatedly succeeded in putting Obama on the defensive - whether over his comments praising Ronald Reagan or past legal work for a slum landlord - even in areas in which Hillary herself should be vulnerable.
But above all, Hillary's greatest asset has been her husband. Few doubt that he is steering campaign strategy and there is no one better. In South Carolina he has been happy to play attack dog for his wife, leaving her to make high-minded speeches that ignore her Democratic opponent and focus, loftily, on the case against George W Bush. They are "double-teaming" against Obama, leaving his head spinning so badly that, as he admitted the other day, "sometimes I don't know who I'm running against".
So fate has played a cruel trick against Barack Obama. It has made him the most exciting newcomer in US politics for a very long time - then pitted him against the man who held that title first.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Toni Morrison's Letter to Barack Obama
"Dear Senator Obama,
This letter represents a first for me--a public endorsement of a
Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it.
One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is
one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will
not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain:
this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come
again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.
May I describe to you my thoughts? I have admired Senator Clinton for
years. Her knowledge always seemed to me
exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert.
However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure
it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a source of my
admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal
woman has ever ruled in America . Only conservative or "new-centrist" ones
are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I
would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might
make me "proud."
In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned
myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen
intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that
has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't
see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which
coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only
with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we
believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for
each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that
feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit
it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster
the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.
When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a
leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with
courage
instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's
citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it will take to
help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it
desperately needs to become in the world?
Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing
the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so
frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the
womb.
There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for
this time.
Good luck to you and to us.
--Toni Morrison"
(taken from Roots - NYT)
This letter represents a first for me--a public endorsement of a
Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it.
One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is
one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will
not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain:
this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come
again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.
May I describe to you my thoughts? I have admired Senator Clinton for
years. Her knowledge always seemed to me
exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert.
However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure
it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a source of my
admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal
woman has ever ruled in America . Only conservative or "new-centrist" ones
are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I
would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might
make me "proud."
In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned
myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen
intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that
has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't
see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which
coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only
with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we
believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for
each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that
feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit
it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster
the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.
When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a
leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with
courage
instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's
citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it will take to
help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it
desperately needs to become in the world?
Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing
the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so
frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the
womb.
There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for
this time.
Good luck to you and to us.
--Toni Morrison"
(taken from Roots - NYT)
Friday, January 25, 2008
NIA takes a stand against blatant racism
NY PAPER PUBLISHES RACIST OBAMA PARODY
Read the parody, NiaOnline's complaint, and the newspaper's explanation
Boy, when the pundits said this presidential campaign is getting nasty with regard to the topics of race and gender, they weren't kidding. Yesterday blogger Eisa Nefertari Ulen sent this little tidbit our way. It's a horribly racist caricature of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama that was published in The Independent, a newspaper that claims to have the highest distribution of any local newspaper in Long Island, NY's East End (which includes The Hamptons).
The mock column, "Why I Should Be Our Next President," is written under the byline of a candidate named "Yo Mama Bin Barack" with Sen. Obama's smiling face next to it. Portrayed as a racially-confused buffoon who is trying to be Black, Yo Mama Bin Barack says things such as, "Ultimately, if [Hillary Clinton] gets too close, one of my New York advisors has advised me to, 'Bitch slap that ho.' White women, I am told, like that," and "We be, you know, sick of whitey supressin' and congestin' so, you know, we won't denigrate or sophisticate but emulate and populate, you know, the system is, like, broken, y'all!" This, for the edification of the East End's elite populace (as well as the online masses, since a version of the parody was posted in the paper's online edition).
NiaOnline contacted the The Independent on Jan. 23 to express our outrage and ask for an explanation. The editor-in-chief and co-publisher of the newspaper, Rick Murphy, sent us a letter of apology the next morning and said that no one had put him up to it. The Independent also took down the online version and posted an apology.
Read on to see a copy of the column that we made before it was taken down. You'll also see NiaOnline's letter to The Independent, as well as the newspaper's apology to NiaOnline.
Many people believe that overt racism is all but dead in our country, and that the real enemies now are institutional racism and "the soft bigotry of low expectations." There is also a popular view that if the media would just stop talking about the role of race in this campaign, we could just focus on "the issues." Call this a cold splash of water in the face of those notions. Good, old-fashioned, overt racism is alive and well, and hard at work in this campaign and in our 21st century lives. Share that cold splash with as many people as you can, by bookmarking this page and passing the web link on to as many people as you can. Contact The Independent too, and let them know what you think of their little joke. It's time to wake up.
Low Tidings: "Why I Should Be Our Next President"
NiaOnline's letter to The Independent
The Independent's letter of apology to NiaOnline
Messrs. Murphy and Mackin:
A colleague of mine posted a link on her blog to your recent Low Tidings column, "Why I Should Be Our Next President." Clearly, this mock column by "Yo Mama Bin Barack" was an attempt to satirize presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama.
Political satire has a long and venerable history in our country, grounded in our right to free speech and the necessity to keep humble the powers that be. However, satire is defined by Merriam-Webster's as "trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly." There is absolutely nothing trenchant, witty, or the least bit informed about the crude, venomous, bigoted and tasteless caricature of Senator Obama that you published. It also does nothing to expose anything credible about him. Any decent human being, regardless of race or party affiliation, would find it to be offensive.
Granted, you have the right to publish whatever you want. The public also has the right to let you and your advertisers know, through their words and wallets, when they consider your speech to be hostile and demeaning. Perhaps you think that publishing racist columns won't affect your bottom line out on the East End of Long Island. It would be folly to assume that.
I represent a multicultural readership of thousands of educated and politically aware women across the country. Before putting this matter to our readers and our colleagues on the media, we would like to know why you decided to publish the column. Who wrote it? Perhaps this is all a hoax?
Sheryl Huggins
Vice President of Information Services, Nia Enterprises and Editor-in-Chief, NiaOnline
Hi Sheryl:
I am personally acknowledging that this failed attempt at satire was a terrible lapse in judgment. As a co-owner and co-publisher, I can tell you no one is putting me up to this. I am sincerely sorry I have offended you. I can't explain why I chose to write the column [but I want] to assure you that we are a multicultural employer with a long history of diversity. In fact, our highest paid employer [sic] happens to be a man of color. That said, there was no excuse for the column and I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me.
Rick Murphy
Editor-in-Chief, The Independent
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