Emily’s latest post down below features an interesting link to a commentary from Black America Web (BAW) from last June. It talks about how poor whites vote against their own interests by voting Republican.
I usually find that such pieces miss important opportunities because they fail to recognize what politics is. Politics, for them, is voting for people to take care of the politics for you. It’s never something done at the level of the everyday. This is why the importance of religion and community organizing rarely figures into their equation. This is why the authors of such pieces are perpetually confused.
This time, however, I thought the piece was interesting but only because I couldn’t help thinking that throughout some of it, we could have some fun with “Find and Replace.” If BAW’s commentary weren’t so in love with having the Democrats solve everyone’s problems, you can almost modify it in this way:
Commentary: Arabs and Muslims Voting Against Their Own Interests Out of Elitism Only Reap More HardshipSenator Barack Obama has been giving the middle finger to all the Arabs and Muslims who will vote him into office.
Yet while some pundits have decried Obama’s insults as proof that Arabs and Muslims are the last group that can be insulted with impunity, I say that for the majority of them, the condition is largely one of their own making.
Instead of using their power to join with struggling people of color and the poor to conceive of a world that will create a fairer playing field for everyone, too many of them believe that the whiteness and economic class they share with other powerful Americans can light the path to privilege for them.
But the refusal to acknowledge they stopped being White on September 11 is salient seven years later. So they use their political power to distinguish themselves from people of color and the poor who have, for generations, been struggling with many of the same issues that they are struggling with now. They embrace the rhetoric of white supremacist zealots; rhetoric that paints any attempt to imagine a world of true equality and democracy as being akin to all things anti-American.
And even though most of them are more likely to receive more insults from Obama than their fantasy of having him over for dinner, they won’t care. He’s bourgeoise, and they’re bourgeoise.
All is right with their world.
Related posts:
- Campbell Brown: Some of my best friends are Arabs and Muslims
- Israel Army Sorry for Fake Voting
- Arabs and Muslims making lists!
- PSM: Pre-Conference Commentary
- Voting Day – Meet the Candidates
People chose their preferred candidates based on a whole range of reasons. Just because some of us may weigh issues like discrimination heavier than let’s say Christian family values, doesn’t mean everyone does…
People aren’t so clear cut based on race and economic class. Religious and cultural beliefs, among other factors, may lead a person to vote in a way that makes you think he/she isn’t voting in his/her best interest… but that’s really not anyone’s call but the voter.
The only “elitism” I see is that found in the original and altered article. Especially when one writes: “Yet while some pundits have decried Obama’s insults as proof that Arabs and Muslims are the last group that can be insulted with impunity, I say that for the majority of them, the condition is largely one of their own making.”
Posted by Programmer Buydatti | October 17, 2008, 12:42 pmI think Programmer Buydatti needs to read the article again.
Posted by Anonymous | October 17, 2008, 12:46 pmHold up… was the 2nd paragraph edited at some point after (or during) the time I posted the above comment?
If so, that’s mean!
If not, then my bad… I totally missed it.
But I could have sworn it read differently.
Hmmm. I smoke too much crack.
Posted by Programmer Buydatti | October 17, 2008, 12:56 pmOh for God’s sake!! Enough is enough already. First of all, do you really have nothing better to do other than to attack Obama and Obama supporters? I mean, really, is this the wisest use of this blog? Is there no other pressing issue in Iraq, Palestine, or Lebanon you can find to blog about right now? Oh that’s right, you all found time to attack Campell Brown. You know, I definetly don’t think we spend enough time attacking people who say things in our defense because they may not share all of our politics! Really! *oozing with sarcasm*.
As for the idea that an Arab, like myself, who avidly supports Barack Obama, is all of a sudden a Ammo Tom or a House Sand N***r if you will… Let me tell you first of all I have been a proud Arab all my life, since I was in grade school in Indiana trying to teach all the Abyads about the greatness of Salah al Din and Haroon al Rachid, through my years of activism at UofM, and through today when I still aspire to return to shitty economy Detroit, for no other reason other than to work with my community there.
Me and Obama don’t see eye to eye on everything. Cetainly not Palestine. But I’m not voting for him to become the next Palestinian Prime minister. (though he couldn’t do much worse than the current leadership thats for sure.) I’m voting for him to become the President of the United States. A country, that I genuinely care about, despite my keen awareness of and regret for so many of its government’s herrendous actions on the international and domestic stage historically. People in this country are suffering! Blacks, latinos, and yes, even many, many Abyads! Heaven forbid I should give a damn about them too. And I believe as President, he will do a far better job for the well fare of this country, and he will represent my view points and beliefs far better than any other president we’ve had has. Though I certainly don’t expect he will represent all of my view points and beliefs to a tee.
I’m not an idealist looking for a Messiah that I will see eye to eye with on everything. Maybe you are. Good luck finding him.
Posted by Jerk Nadim | October 17, 2008, 7:15 pmamen! I look forward to a response from Qui Qui
Posted by Phil | October 17, 2008, 11:21 pmso according to the article, if arabs put themselves with other people of colour and the poor, somehow magically everything is going to get better.More self-victimization.
Posted by Anonymous | October 18, 2008, 12:42 amThe problem with Jerk Nadim’s position is that it is precisely the one which has pushed the Dems more and more to the Right over the last several decades; that is, as progressives continue to send the message to the Dems that they will vote for whatever Dem candidate materializes, without condition, the Dems are free to pander to the Right of their party.
Compare to the Repubs; McCain offered Palin to his voters because he knew that an unmollified Right-wing of his base would withdraw its support rather than vote for an insufficiently prehistoric candidate. Dems, on the other hand, demand nothing of their “champions”, relying on hope that, once elected, their candidate will be free to unfurl his Leftie flag.
This strategy has brought us the Clinton bombing of Iraq, welfare “reform”, Dem complicity in the continued prosecution of the wars, NAFTA, etc, and now a candidate who’s happy to sign off on domestic spying (the FISA vote), continued supine and limitless support of Israel, increasing the defense budget, endorsing unilateral invasions of sovereign nations as it suits us, wimping out on adding things like bankruptcy protection to the bailout bill at precisely the moment when bankers needs gave him the most leverage to do so, etc etc.
Obama offers a smoother hand at the tiller of empire, that’s all. Some of us want more.
And I’d like to know why jerk nadim even bothers to identify himself as an Arab in terms of explaining his poitical inclinations. There is nothing-nothing at all-in Obama’s program that is promising from an Arab perspective. He is tepid in demystifying Islam, instead offering wimpy denials that he embraces that faith. He pledges infinite support for the murder and sociocide of Palestinians. He promises further devastation for Afghanistan (honorary Arabs in this context).
If you want to make the “he’s best for the US” argument, fine. Wrong, but fine. But I don’t get why you, qua Arab, would support a man who’s shown nothing but contempt for our people.
Posted by Ismail | October 18, 2008, 5:20 amArabs and Muslims Voting Against Their Own Interests
Speaking of which, Nader said on PBS he would give sectarian based autonomy in Iraq, ie he agrees with the Biden plan.
Posted by nadia | October 18, 2008, 9:38 amIsmail –
I do not agree that Obama has shown nothing but contempt for our people… There is a difference between someone not coming to our defense, and showing contempt. He had to defend himself from Clinton nor McCain. Understandably he is a little gun shy right now
I think for that we would have to look towards the Republican party for really bigotry and contempt towards our community: the use of his middle name as sign of how foreign and dangerous Obama is; the insinuation that Obama is like Osama, there fore inferring that he a terrorist; the continued use of Muslim or Arab as an accusations; finally McCain defending Obama from the accusation that he is Arab by stating that he is a decent man, as if they are mutually exclusive.
I am not saying that Obama is perfect, but some perspective is needed here.
Our problem should be with the questioning of Obama’s ethnicity not the answers.
Posted by nadine | October 18, 2008, 10:47 amNadia:
Nader actually said, “Six months negotiated withdrawal with modest autonomy between Shiites, Sunnites and Kurds, under a unified Iraq.”
Autonomy isn’t necessarily partition. The difference in the Nader and Biden plans are that Biden is recommending carving up Iraqi territory into separate states.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/
politics/july-dec08/nader_10-14.html
Posted by Anonymous | October 18, 2008, 10:54 amThe plan that I saw go to vote in congress was for “federalism” or decentralization into 3 zones, not actual partition into three separate states.
Regardless it still operates on the same logic that greater autonomy should be alotted based on sect which is what SCIRI/ISCI/whatever they’re calling themselves now wanted eroding the role of the provinces and strengthening religious powers.
Maybe it worked in Lebanon, but in Iraq it didn’t go over well and its implications are problematic.
Posted by nadia | October 18, 2008, 1:58 pmI’m with Jerk Nadim on this one. Arab Americans are, in my estimation, part of a broader people-of-color/marginalized America collective that will generally do better under Obama. But, I’m not trying to intellectualize on this forum, which has gradually gotten wacker and more wack…
Posted by Khaled B | October 20, 2008, 12:30 pm