Thursday, October 16, 2008

Lies and Race

This is Obama's response to the email that really got me ticked off. Ticked off enough to want to drive right out to his campaign headquarters and get a sticker for my car.

The email was full of quotes that were ridiculously twisted or misrepresented. Obama doesn't even respond to all of the quotes that were in the email, but I found several other websites that did. Not a single one was scary in the proper context. It really gets my goose to have an inbox full of this crap. And I understand why people forward it...it really presents Obama as a person they should be scared of. And they kind of want to believe it, so they do and they don't bother to check the facts.

And I may as well briefly talk about race. Someone in my family sent an email out that said, basically, that the only reason not to vote for Obama is because you are racist. That is stupid. You may just be Republican. But there are lots of people who will not vote for Obama because he is black. Fortunately, most of those people are not the type to vote, or Republicans, so no one was counting on their vote anyway.

I taught this lesson in school that was neat. I presented 4 issues, and split the class into 4 groups. Each group researched the positions of both candidates and then presented them to the class. As they did, I had each student write which candidate he agreed with. At the end, I had them write who they would vote for.

One of the students paper looked like this:

National Security/War: Obama
Education: Obama
Economy: Obama
Illegal Immigration: Obama
I vote for McCain.

So, of course, I talked to him later and asked him why he would vote for McCain when he agreed with Obama's positions. His simple response: "Because he is black."

It broke my heart. As long as parents raise their children to see a difference in black and white, this racism problem will never go away.

But it shouldn't be a factor in who you vote for. You have to vote the issues. I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, and I can't let race dictate my vote in November.

But you Obama fans...be careful throwing around that whole racism issue. Some people are racist, sure. But some are just Republicans.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Carmen,

Race is always a factor. Race is bias. I'm sure Obama will lose some votes because of race, but it is negligible. I believe McCain will lose just as many votes because of ageism. That's also a type of bias and for some reason it is o.k. Obama has nothing to worry about because of racism. Over 90% of African Americans will vote for him and some will vote for him because he is black and some will vote for him because McCain is white. McCain faces a similar situation.

I wouldn't pay much attention to what kids think. Their views will change in the real world. They are in a position of little responsibility and when they have bills to pay and a family to take care of they will form true opinions. Hell, if everyone continued to maintain their political views that they had in high school and college, there would be no Republicans in this country.

--Brad