Archive for 'Politics'
Is Muslim The New Queer?
Posted on October 11, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Politics, Religion.
The U.S. presidential election has led to fairly significant debate on black-white race issues as well as gender politics. This campaign has triggered passionate hatred for Muslims and Arabs in this country, and yet that form of racism and prejudice has barely been discussed.
Just yesterday an elderly woman at a campaign event with John McCain rambled into the microphone about how she doesn’t trust Barack Obama and then said, as if it were her kicker, “HE’S ARAB.”
McCain took the microphone back, shook his head, and acting like he is suddenly better than gutter politics, said something along the lines of, “No, no, Mam. He’s a decent, family man.”
What?! That old lady did not say Obama is a terrorist. She did not say he is a murderer or a rapist or a drug dealer to little children. She said he is “Arab.” And yet, McCain automatically understood her point and equated “Arab” with “bad man.”
Similar things have been happening on a regular basis throughout this campaign. Every time people spread emails and rumors that Obama is Muslim, they are not trying to inform voters of the man’s religion. They are saying, Don’t vote for him because he is Muslim. Every time some religious-right radio talkshow host uses Obama’s middle name of Hussein, he is saying, Don’t vote for Obama because he is Muslim.
Obama has on occasion said that it shouldn’t matter if he were Muslim or not. But he has not done that enough. Usually, he just denies it, as if being called Muslim were an accusation. Wouldn’t someone who wants to run on a mantle of hope and bring this country forward on race relations say over and over again, “There is nothing wrong with being Muslim. Muslims have the right to run for office. Muslims are not all terrorists.”
When people accuse Obama of being Arab, he should similarly say, “There is nothing wrong with being Arab. We have many allies in the Arab world.”
Step back a moment and think again about that old lady at the McCain event yesterday. Imagine her instead saying that she doesn’t trust Obama and…. “HE”S JEWISH.” Or she doesn’t trust Obama and … “HE’S CHRISTIAN.” Or she doesn’t trust Obama and …. “HE’S POLISH.”
And then, imagine the man running on the Republican Party ticket to be president of the United States say, “No, no, no, he’s not Jewish. He’s a decent, family man.”
Yes, of course, there is still plenty of hatred against Jews out there in the world. But a Republican presidential candidate would never say that because there would be a backlash from the Jewish community, and probably (hopefully) from many other communities.
So where’s the backlash now? We hear a lot about this election getting “uglier” and politics getting “dirtier.” We discuss those voters in the South or rural PA who say they’d never vote for a black man. So why don’t we hear about the ongoing racism against Muslims and Arabs that has been coming out in this campaign?
I am Jewish and grew up learning about the Holocaust and the apocryphal story of the Danish king who wore the Star of David when the Nazis tried to round up the Jews. As the story goes, all the Danes then wore the Star of David, thereby protecting the real Jews from being sent to concentration camps. I grew up hearing stories about the German families who risked everything to hide Jews in their basement. And, of course, about the families who stood by and did nothing. To them, we said Never Again.
Now, in post-9/11 America, it is the Muslims and Arabs who are the object of racism. While there are so many Americans who are quick to correct the facts and make sure the public knows that Obama is not Arab or Muslim, where are the people speaking up and saying that the Arabs and Muslims are not evil, bad people? How come now almost nobody is saying it’s not OK to hate?
Rather than correcting these lies by proving that Obama is Christian, we should be denouncing them. And, like the story of the Danish king, we should all be willing to say, I am Arab, I am Muslim.
This was cross-posted on the Huffington Post.
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OffTheBus — Palin Did Not Implode
Posted on October 4, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Media, Politics.
I have been working at the Huffington Post’s OffTheBus section for the past month. We cover the U.S. presidential campaign by enlisting citizen journalists, professional journalists, students, professors, doctors, teachers, and just about everyone else to write ground-level reports on the campaign.
Yesterday, OffTheBus writers from across the country (and a couple in Canada) went to VP Debate Watch Parties and contributed stories on how the audience reacted to the candidates. Check out the stories featured on our page today. OffTheBus members also contributed reports on how their local media covered the debate.
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“Mom” for Vice President!
Posted on August 29, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Politics.
Check out my blog on the Huffington Post today:
Watching Sarah Palin accept the Republican nomination for vice president, all I could think was that I am so grateful my mother did not run for president or VP while I was a baby. This is hardly good judgment on Palin’s part.
Such a sentiment is surely anti-feminist of me. Women, including mothers, should be allowed and encouraged to pursue high-powered careers. And having a mother who works is the best way to teach one’s children that women should be financially independent and treated equally in the workforce.
But running on a national ticket months after your child was born? Let alone a son who has Downs Syndrome and therefore under the best of circumstances is going to need every last bit of attention. How can one possibly be an involved and nurturing parent while campaigning in such a heated race?
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Oped in Hartford Courant
Posted on August 26, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Culture, Media, Politics, Religion.
Check out my personal essay in the Hartford Courant this Wednesday. It’s about driving cross country and learning about the presidential campaign and American culture from the radio shows along the way. It was on the Los Angeles Times/ Washington Post wire and also ran in the Chicago Tribune.
My husband and I just finished driving from our home in Los Angeles to my parents’ in upstate New York because I will be taking a job on the East Coast. The trip was a great success: We slept in a budget hotel each night and never got bed bugs — just one night with a spider — and we made it to New York without crashing or getting a speeding ticket. More important, we learned about this country we live in, yet know so little about.
Neither of us had ever been to most of the places we visited along the way. My husband was born and raised in Burma, and I have never traveled in the South or much of the Midwest. We got to check out the vistas in the Grand Canyon, art galleries and jewelry shops in Santa Fe, beautiful brick mansions in Tulsa, Cardinal fans in St. Louis and cornfields in Illinois. But what was most interesting to us about our trip was listening to the radio.
Throughout the entire country — between Los Angeles and New York — we couldn’t flip through the radio stations without finding multiple shows dedicated to people talking about Jesus. Some were singing songs about him; most were discussing how their lives had changed since they had accepted the Lord into their heart. On one station a host was interviewing a child about which Biblical verse was her favorite.
Read more.
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Interpreters for U.S. Left Behind
Posted on July 9, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Immigration, International, Politics.
Check out my story on the Huffington Post today:
Every couple of weeks an email from Baghdad pops up in Iraq War veteran Joey Coon’s inbox at his home in Washington, D.C. It’s Coon’s 23-year-old Iraqi interpreter, nicknamed Dash, pleading for help to get out of Iraq and into the United States. Dash feels in constant grave danger that he and his family will be killed because of his work with American troops.
“People like Dash put their lives on the line to help keep people like me and my friends and fellow soldiers and Iraqi civilians safe,” said Coon. “It was a very admirable, heroic thing that he did, I think, and I do feel that both soldiers and the American people in general have a certain responsibility here.”
That responsibility, however, is one that is more or less being shirked off by the presidential campaigns. While both candidates hotly debate each other’s plans for withdrawing or maintaining troop levels in Iraq, virtually nothing is being said about the 4 million Iraqis who have been displaced by the war or about the tens of thousands of Iraqis like Dash who feel at immediate risk for having worked with the Americans. Even less is being said about how the incoming administration will deal with the humanitarian crisis still evolving.
That’s why Coon and veterans like him are working harder than ever to mount a national campaign to save the lives of their interpreters by bringing them to the United States. Although there has been some progress recently made in establishing special immigrant visas for Iraqis who worked for Americans, the process of getting these Iraqis to the United States continues to be filled with long, bureaucratic delays. As papers get shuffled, untold thousands of Iraqis are left in danger.
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I Want a Leader
Posted on July 3, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Immigration, International, Politics.
Barack Obama can find time in his schedule to have two press conferences on his timeline for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq - in one day. Couldn’t he fit in one press conference - say in one month - in which he discusses his plan for Iraqi reconstruction, humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement?
The chair of the campaign’s immigration policy group, Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, insisted to me that the senator is deeply committed to helping the almost five million Iraqis displaced by the war. He said Obama feels that the United States has a responsibility to these people.
So where’s the press conference?
Leadership is about bringing up sticky, uncomfortable issues. It’s about taking a stand when others want to hide under a blanket. A president with true leadership can force the American people to grapple with the difficult questions - like what the hell are we going to do about this massive humanitarian and security crisis that the war we started created - and get them to rally around an issue simply because it’s the right thing to do.
We’ve been in this war for five years. Debating how quickly we remove combat troops is the easy part. Figuring out what happens once we leave is the real challenge. And it would be nice if the candidates took 30 minutes out of their months of campaigning to tell us what they plan to do.
(P.S. Sorry, I can’t tell you how committed John McCain is to Iraqis displaced by the war. His campaign won’t return my phone calls or emails.)
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Obama Crashes My College Reunion
Posted on May 26, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Politics.
Check out my column on the Huffington Post’s Off the Bus today about Sen. Barack Obama coming to Wesleyan this weekend.
Wesleyan University, my alma mater, is a small liberal arts school that gets a disproportionate amount of media coverage, usually for its uber-liberal ways. It has made the press for having a naked dorm and co-ed rooms. This time we made the headlines, and we didn’t have to take our clothes off. Sen. Barack Obama veered from the campaign trail to give Sunday’s commencement address for Wesleyan’s class of 2008.
I happened to be going to the campus this weekend to celebrate my five-year reunion. I flew in to Connecticut from Los Angeles; others came from as far as Madrid and Buenos Aires. We left behind spouses, fiances and at least one baby so we could focus on each other and our memories. We love our Wesleyan.
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Obama Speaks at Wesleyan
Posted on May 26, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Politics.
Sen. Barack Obama veered from his campaign trail to give the commencement address at Wesleyan University this weekend. I was there for my five-year reunion. Here are some pix:
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Occupation Diplomacy
Posted on May 20, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under International, Politics, Religion.
Check out my latest blog on the Huffington Post’s Off the Bus.
One thing is certain about the outcome of this November’s presidential election — whoever wins will have the monumental job of improving America’s standing around the world. He or she (I’m one of the few who won’t pronounce Hillary Clinton’s campaign dead until it’s official) should start by loudly proclaiming his (or her) anger and repugnance at the American soldier in Baghdad who used a copy of the Koran for target practice.
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Blossoms Over Burma
Posted on May 16, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under International, Politics.
