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Much has been made of McCain’s angry crowd in Lakeville last week, where the candidate snatched a microphone from the hands of a questioner asserting that Barack Obama is “an Arab.” McCain’s response to this claim? “No ma’am. He’s a decent family man and citizen.”
Let’s run the tape again:
Questioner: “He’s an Arab.”
McCain: “No, he’s decent.”
The candidate’s response manifested in headlines like “McCain tamps down hostility” and “McCain calms supporters.”
It took respected pollster James Zogby to cry foul and declare “I am an Arab and a decent man.”
We are left to infer that an Arab man is less then a “decent family man.” Enough is enough! From the beginning of this campaign there have been those who have used Muslim and Arab in an effort to smear Barak Obama. This exploitation of bigotry and the stoking of racist fires to forward an agenda is reprehensible. This is not only offensive to the Arab Americans, but to all Americans. As any ethnic group who has ever been used to scare the electorate knows, this is a dangerous game that tragically can ends with innocent people being hurt.
And while We are pleased to see that the senator is trying to dispel rumors about Senator Obama, but we feel the need to point out that Arab Americans are also decent men and women with the full rights of citizenship as enumerated under the constitution. Arab Americans are part of the great melting pot that is this country’s strength. We work towards peace in the Middle East along side our Jewish partners. We raise our sons and daughters to be model citizens of this nation. We serve this country with honor. The suggestion that any ethnic group is treacherous and Anti-American is unacceptable, dangerous, and unbecoming of such a great nation.
If you missed the exchange (doubtful, I know) here it is again from our friends at The Uptake:
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7 Comments »
Comment posted October 13, 2008 @ 10:40 am
My initial reaction was the same as Zogby’s. McCain’s response of “he’s a decent family man and citizen” implies that Arabs are NOT that.
And it was a lame response anyway after all the race-baiting his campaign’s been doing.
Comment posted October 13, 2008 @ 11:07 am
So now we’ve got this Minnesota gothic image embedded on the public register? Call it racism. Call it bigotry. Call it stupidity. But recognize it for what it is essentially. It is hate with its rayon hose, rolled.
Yes, it is racism rolled down to the ankles folks. Orthopedic hate raising it’s antiquated face, again, in this new century. It is hatred of “the other” Bigotry carelessly reaffirming what some may have assumed was dead…but it was “just away”, as they say…and still alive in Lakeville?
Out-state Minnesota will be graced – if that is the right word – by Alaska’s “shadow governor”, Todd Palin this week; vooming up his snowmobile ethics all across the upper part of the state. Racism will rise again I suppose. We haven’t changed that much, sorry to say. But ignore it and it won’t just go away.
Who’s going to win the race on racism this time? Human rights, civil rights are on the block in nice Minnesota? Will the voters throw the Bill of Rights in a roadside rest station as ‘race’ goes speeding by with Todd ‘the exterminator’ revving up the engines in northern Minnesota? Will there be another Lakeville incident?
Whose face will be the next Republican-retro-poster child for Minnesota? Another hate-monger? I hope not. One face of ignorance,hate,bigotry,racism…is enough already.
Comment posted October 13, 2008 @ 11:45 am
The comment was racist and off base and McCain’s response was way lame and really backhandedly insulting to Arabs. But the fact he sort of called this woman on her racist, inappropriate comment was picked up by the rest of the people there who did applaud McCain’s reaction. McCain should take that as a cue that his supporters do not want to see his campaign dragged down into bigotry. He should rein in Palin and start controlling his own tongue.
Comment posted October 13, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
Too late, too disingenuous. Too strategically important. Voters will now be able to go to the polls and vote against: 1) the black guy, 2) the Arab, 3) the Muslim, 4) the terrorist, 5) the socialist, 6) the Anti-Christ, 7) the….well, you get the point. This was anything but an accident.
Comment posted October 13, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
McCain’s response just shows what type of person he was. There will always be ignorant racist Americans but McCain showed what a racist he is and the Corporate Media also showed how racist they are. I”m so glad with Zogby’s response.
Comment posted October 16, 2008 @ 11:02 am
Depressingly enough, this is pretty much what a discussion with my mother is like: lots of broad, generalized, meaningless, scared, uninformed statements.
Comment posted October 25, 2008 @ 7:08 pm
Lets just say the people driving into that McCain “town hall” were looking for a fight. I was with a small group of alternate thinkers across from the school carrying our innocuous signs, like..”How is your 401k?” We were called communists,stupid, given the finger and well you can just imagine. These are the same people I probably sit next to in church and in line at the grocery store. NICE.
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