I have never been very involved in trying to figure out what is going on politically in America, but for some reason, I have been paying close attention to this year’s presidential election. One of the main reasons for this is that a black man, Barack Obama, is only one step away from becoming the president of the United States. When I first heard about Obama, the thing that struck me most about him was not the color of his skin, but the way his name sounded like Osama, as in Osama bin Laden. I used to joke about this fact with my friends before I knew anything about him except that he was black and had an entertaining name. Meanwhile, the media and his political opponents were picking up on the same fact and were using it to tear down his reputation in grand political style. Ridiculous rumors like how he supposedly attended a “radical” madrassa, or Muslim school, circulated all over the country, fueled by the common fear of Muslim extremists after 9/11. Obama managed to disprove his detractors for a while by showing that he was a devout Christian. However, his reverend soon started saying things in his sermons such as, “We should be singing God damn America.” After this, Obama swore he wasn’t at those sermons and stopped using Reverend Wright for his campaign. Two of the founding principles of this country are the separation of church and state and freedom of religion, so why is the media using this against Obama? Perhaps it is because insulting his religion is the safest way to tear down his reputation. Insulting anything else, such as his race, will insult most of the country who find this to be a sensitive matter. Another reason the media and the Internet posters have gone after his religion is because 9/11 and events since then have set up an environment where the country is almost as nervous about Muslims being terrorists as we were in World War II about the Japanese Americans supporting Japan. After the July edition of the New Yorker depicted Obama and his wife as radical Muslim terrorists in the Oval Office, comments about Obama’s religion have died down to be replaced by comments on Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. However, the initial criticisms are not forgotten. I hope that when it is time to vote for the next president of the U.S.A. he will be picked based on his political beliefs and actions and not based on something as trivial as his religious beliefs.
It’s Obama, not Osama
December 11, 2008
Leave a Comment