The Continuing Saga

What follows is my second "letter to a young patriot." I won't reprint his response to my first letter, but hopefully you'll get a sense from what I've chosen to focus on below. This has been a very challenging time - seeing at last the manifestation of his indoctrination into a fundamentalist Christian world view, and wondering how this could happen. I have some theories...maybe a post for another day...

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Hey, thanks for your reply. I’m moving past trying to change your mind about the vote, but would like to continue this dialogue if you’re willing.

My argument about the righteous anger of Rev. Wright was not meant to apply to Obama. I was just saying that in my opinion, there’s a lot of understandable anger out there, and that Obama is likely to be “associated” with lots of folks who are less than thrilled with the institutionalized oppression of ethnic/racial minorities and women. You can put me in that group, although I’m not able to claim any association with Obama. I think one of Obama’s strengths is that unlike me, he maintains a sense of optimism about being able to change the country for the better. I’ve never seen or heard anything that legitimately portrays him as harboring racial hatred toward whites, but as a member of a community, and as a community organizer, he has of course associated with folks with more radical views than his own. Again, I see it as a strength that he interacts with a broad spectrum of people, and is willing to name the inequality that is being exacerbated by current economic policy. I am so relieved to have a leader with the courage to talk about progressive taxation of the rich. By my value system it’s absolutely immoral that the richest Americans are getting richer while the middle class is disappearing, and the poorest are seeing critical government programs cut to fund the occupation of Iraq and tax breaks for wealthy corporations.

About the Ayers thing – I know they have had contact beyond the board membership. But the point of the white privilege article I attached is that what gets termed “bad judgment” when Obama’s involved doesn’t even merit a mention when it’s connected to McCain or Palin. There are a different set of rules being applied. I doubt McCain believes all the stuff that some of the people who have supported his campaign or pastors in churches he’s attended have said, but it’s not being transferred onto him as his belief system.

About racism in general - I don’t know about it going “two ways.” There’s not a universally accepted definition of racism, but most scholars agree that it goes beyond dislike of a particular race, and is related to the distribution of power, resources and privilege. So I think that racism can flow in a lot of directions, but I don’t think it can truly ever be directed at whites (as a group). You can be mad at your oppressors, speak out against them or even use violence against them – that’s not racism, it’s revolution. I don’t know if the dislike and prejudice of particular racial/ethnic groups can be eradicated, but I do believe it’s the government’s role to level the playing field as far as access to resources and opportunities.

People who hold the power are not likely to give it up all that easily. But when you do the math on the sheer volume of the working class vs the elites – 80% of “us” vs. 20% of “them” it’s a no brainer. That’s where these fringe issues come in. They divide us and distract us from what’s going on with the growing divide between rich and poor. And by fringe issues I mean those that are really more personal in nature (patriotism, gay rights, reproductive rights, etc.), and end up appealing to some core values we hold and can relate to more easily than the financial structures that perpetuate inequality. So you have an entire group, which I am beginning to understand that you consider yourself a part of – the evangelicals – who are willing to ignore these huge structural issues in order to focus on who can marry whom, or how to legislate morality. And that is very troubling to me.

You mentioned that I could guess that Obama’s “misinterpretation of the bible” wouldn’t be cool with you. I am not a religious scholar, but I researched the misinterpretation issue, and found a website about it that you might find interesting: http://www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com/#Info. There are quotes about Obama’s belief system that were very telling.

So you have to focus on your midterms, but when you are through why don’t you poke around a bit on the internet beyond the Focus on the Family website? I know from experience that things can always be taken out of context by the media, or twisted (or even completely made up) by detractors – so you always have to look at a number of diverse sources and consider the citations, go to the original source whenever you can, and look for independent analysis.