Thanks to mib for sending me this NPR Morning Edition story about Richard Trumka's pro-Obama, anti-racism speech. Trumka is the AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer and gave this speech at the U.S. Steelworkers annual convention in July. A video of his speech (see below) was posted to YouTube a couple months back, but judging from the comments, it seems that almost all the 356,954 current views are recent - only 30 of the 773 comments are from more than a week ago.
He addresses the issue of race head-on, like few people have this election. He tells a story about a woman in his hometown of Nemacolin, PA who claims Obama is a Muslim. He explains that Obama is a Christian, "as much a Christian as you and me". And then he asks the question that has rarely been asked this election "So what if he's Muslim?"
As for his delivery, I was captivated. Just watch. Given the current atmosphere of the campaign, it's even more important that people see this speech now.
Today at a McCain town hall meeting in Lakeville, MN,
a woman voiced concerns that Obama was an Arab. McCain explained that Obama was not an Arab. Presumably she meant that he is Muslim. Or that he is a terrorist. Or that he is black. I don't think her concern was with Obama's plan for healthcare reform or early childhood education.
That so many of us cannot distinguish Arab (ethnic grouping) from Muslim (religious grouping) given our involvement with both Arabs and Muslims on the world stage is a failure of our society. The bigger failure, though, is that so many of us directly associate these groups with the
nasty rhetoric that has recently been emerging from the McCain+Palin campaign (yes, I said that right - if they don't make efforts to stop what happens at rallies, they are approving the message of hate).
There are more than 1 million Arabs in America, 3/4 of them Christian (Catholic, Orthodox & Protestant), and 1/4 Muslim. There are Arabs who are not Muslims, Muslims who are not Arabs (Chinese Muslims, for example), and Arabs who are Muslims. And there are millions of Muslims in America, as many as 5-6 million by some estimates. And many of them will be voting this November. Can someone please explain this all to Caribou Barbie, the one who calls Alaska Natives "Arctic Arabs"?
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