The Obama Project@WindonWater.net

Many people are rightfully concerned about the creation of a police state in Arizona (and now, Texas, since apparently, Texas intends to put a similar law in place. MY fear is more long-term, more about the confluence of economic interests and insidious law. In America, we already have an example of a history of laws passing over time that gradually targetted a particular people, in pursuit of the agricultural interests of the south – and that example is what eventually became the legal framework of slavery. Here is a brief overview of some of the issues:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p263.html

Whatever the status of these first Africans to arrive at Jamestown, it is clear that by 1640, at least one African had been declared a slave. This African was ordered by the court “to serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere.”

The grounds for this harsh sentence presumabley (sic) lay in the fact that he was non-Christian rather than in the fact that he was physically dark. But religious beliefs could change, while skin color could not. Within a generation race, not religion, was being made the defining characteristic of enslaved Virginians, The terrible transformation to racial slavery was underway.

emphasis mine

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p270.html

• Philip Cowen Case: At her death in 1664, a Mrs. Amye Beazlye left to her cousin a black servant named Philip Cowen. The will stated that Cowen should work for the cousin for eight years, then be given his freedom and three barrels of corn and a suit of clothes. At the end of the eight years, the cousin extended the contract three years. At the end of those three years, he informed Cowen that another nine years of service was due. In 1675, Cowen petitioned the court for his freedom. The court sided with Cowen, asking the owner to release him from servitude and to pay him the corn and the cost of a suit.

• Fernando Case: A bondservant for life, Fernando petitioned the court in 1667 for his freedom, arguing that, since he was a Christian and had spent several years in England, he should serve no longer than an Englishman was required to serve. The court dismissed the suit. Fernando appealed to a higher court. (Unfortunately, no record of the higher court’s decision exists.)

(there are two other cases at this link)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p262.html

Three servants working for a farmer named Hugh Gwyn ran away to Maryland. Two were white; one was black. They were captured in Maryland and returned to Jamestown, where the court sentenced all three to thirty lashes — a severe punishment even by the standards of 17th-century Virginia. The two white men were sentenced to an additional four years of servitude — one more year for Gwyn followed by three more for the colony. But, in addition to the whipping, the black man, a man named John Punch, was ordered to “serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere.” John Punch no longer had hope for freedom.

That’s the legal background to the gradual erosion of even the limited rights African Americans had at the founding of this nation, until the legal framework was built up to decide, once and for all, that brown people born slaves should remain so their entire lives, and not as people even, but as property. So, a people arrive in the country with iffy legal status are gradually reduced to permanent slave status. But how about people whose legal status is known? How about free blacks?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p325.html

The passage of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, fueled a huge and vastly profitable underground industry that took full advantage of the inferior legal status of free and enslaved blacks. The law made it possible for a white person to claim any black person as a fugitive, and placed the burden of proof on the captive. Free blacks living in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and other cities near the borders of slave states were especially vulnerable, though several well-known cases demonstrate that no state was immune.

Slave speculators (or slavers) — who legally purchased the rights to runaways, captured them, and then resold them at a profit — often seized blacks at random, banking on their inability to prove their status to the satisfaction of a magistrate. In one case, a slave speculator who attempted to seize AME Bishop Richard Allen found himself in debtors’ prison, charged with attempted kidnapping, false accusation and perjury by Allen, who dropped the charges several months later.

I would like to think that we are so far past this as a country that this could never happen to Mexicans in the south, who are working as day laborers in agricultural fields, but since in some cases Mexicans have already seen slavery conditions, and given our low level of sympathy for Mexicans as our suspicions about the legal migrant status is provoked, are they really so far off from the precarious position African Americans were in so long ago?

I don’t think so.

QT

Elvis Dingeldein asks a thoughtful question in a post called “Also, Don’t Blame Muhammad“, at bobcesca.com: what we can do to prevent the spike in violent religious extremism whenever the religious right is out of power in the US?  His original post was further clarified in the last segment of his radio show here: (June 4 podcast).

I’m going to take my time answering, because I don’t want to come across as having “the answer” – I don’t think I do.  But the question, now fully articulated, seems to suggest some immediate thoughts, and I wanted to share them.

I think, fundamentally – what CAN be done, is what IS being done, and we need to find ways to follow suit.

First – the beauty and challenge of American democracy is that it is predicated on freedom of conscience.   As long as we reserve the right to our freedom of conscience (expressed in the 1st amendment jointly as a restriction on government making any laws that would seem to “establish” a religion and the freedom from government interference with the expression of religion amongst private citizens), we will always have religious expression in the public square.  People hold ideas, be they religious or philosophical, and they reserve their right to act upon those ideas.

Second – and this is one that really hit me the other day – we need to remember that the howling of those who are now “out of power” is not just because they are out of power – it is because the foundation of their world is shaken.

That second one is a biggie.  I had a small glimpse of it the other day, when I saw the headline “Yankees drop 8 in a row to Bosox.”  Something in my stomach turned – and the world felt just slightly off kilter. Let me put that in context: I’m not a “fanatic” – I typically ignore baseball all year long, and only pay attention the the playoffs if the Yankees are in them.  All the rest of the year, baseball goings on are background noise.  So you see what kind of baseball fan I am.  At the same time, I know a lot of Yankee lore.  I know about the House that Babe built, and I remember  Reggie Jackson as Mr. October, and I know about “The Curse.” In fact, I know enough about the curse to have been worried, when the Yankees swindled Alex Rodriguez from the Red Sox, that the curse would be broken.  And sure enough, it was. As disinterested a fan as I am, this makes me feel a dreadful sense of anxiety.   All is not right with the world.  Perhaps the Yankees are the ones who are cursed now, I wonder.  And I’m angry.  I’m angry about the new Yankee Stadium (don’t like the idea at all).  I’m angry about the Alex Rodriguez deal.  I can’t stand Alex Rodriguez – never have liked him, and what little bit of liking I could have had for him dissipated when the Yankees lost to the Red Sox in the pennant.  All of this emotional investment over…. baseball.

Thinking on this slightly irrational reaction to a simple newspaper headline, I suddenly had a grasp of what the world must feel like to some people.  I’m talking about the people who remember when abortion was illegal, and only “those kinds of girls” had them.  I’m talking about people who remember segregation, and especially who remember when there just was no way a black man OR a woman could figure so prominently in national politics.  I’m talking about those whose foundational understanding of the world includes white men on top, all the time.  I’m thinking about how they must feel every morning when they wake up and think “WTF??” I’m thinking about how their knees must knock a little bit, and their stomachs roil whenever they have to hear on the news that there is someone called President Barack Hussein Obama.  Irrational though it may be, I suddenly had a great deal of sympathy for these who history has left behind.  I suddenly realize that for them, nothing may be more important than restoring balance and order to THEIR universe.  What would it take?

Well – there are a bunch of very wicked people who are playing on their fears.  Understanding that quaking sensation in the belly, these wicked people promote these fears, make it seem justified, for their own gain.  But President Obama has chosen another approach – he’s created safe space for those fearful ones.  He speaks in the language of faith to reassure these fearful ones that the world has not turned upside down.  He invites the religious in – because religion is that last bastion of stability that they hold on to.  In short – he reminds them that after all, they are NOT left behind – he’s bringing them along for the ride.

Many on the left decry these efforts by the President, but I think they are wrong to do so.  The toxic atmosphere can only grow more toxic unless people predisposed to feel displaced are instead empowered – but to do good, and to contribute to, rather than be left behind by the march of history.

To the extent that we can, we who are in President Obama’s corner, need to be reaching out for these displaced people, and showing them how they are empowered by the changes happening, rather than leaving them to the vile intent of those who seek only to manipulate their fears.

I said in a comment on Bob Cesca’s site that I was glad that Pat Buchanan was so thoroughly embraced on MSNBC.  He is one of those displaced people I’m talking about.  Surrounded by people who want to hear his opinion, but who disagree, sometimes sharply, his voice can be a part of the change that is happening, a dialectic that propels us forward, rather than a disruptive and destructive force that pulls us down.  I continually remember the anecdote of the campaign when a young canvasser knocked on a door of a poor white family.  The woman who answered, had to ask her husband who they were voting for… and upon the husband’s reply, repeated for the canvasser “We’re voting for the n*gg*r.”  You know what? I’m sure we were glad to have the vote.

QT

Some would wonder why I care more about racism than sexism. The answer is pretty straightforward. Women, while kept back from equal rights, and frequently subject to abuse, both physical and emotional, are nevertheless less likely in our culture to be killed because of sexism. People are more likely to be misogynist and STILL hire the best woman for the job. Conversely, black people are more likely to NOT be hired, and to be jailed and killed for being black. Women, though oppressed, were not slaves in this culture – unless they were black.

So yes – I’m sensitive to sexism, but I’m far more sensitive to racism. America is on the verge of its greatest moment – but the forces of darkness are rising up. For instance, look here, and here.

More soon, but this marks a turning point for me…

QT

A pretty good article: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez21-2008jul21,0,1787991.column

I’ll quote this part here:

In the meantime, voters seem to be reading a whole lot of racial significance into an Obama triumph.

According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, about two-thirds of blacks and Latinos and just over one-half of whites agreed that an Obama victory would improve race relations. Blacks were the most optimistic, with 23% saying it would make race relations “a lot better,” compared with 13% of whites. Similarly, 85% of blacks said an Obama win would be a sign of progress toward racial equality in the U.S.

But does this mean that blacks would see a President Obama as a black leader who “speaks” for them, a leader in the mold of civil rights advocates? Asked who they would choose if they had to pick one individual to speak for them on issues of race, 29% of black respondents selected Obama. Although he got the most support as spokesman, 49% named someone else, and nearly a quarter named no one.

That’s amazingly good news to me. I’m thrilled to see stats confirming that black folks don’t think that Barack Obama is our spokesperson or savior. We like him, but we get it that he’s running for president of the United States…

Here in the United States, the nation is embroiled in the political season as we gear up for presidential elections on the first Tuesday in November 2008.  We’re winding down on the primary season, and will immediately pivot into the general election campaign thereafter.  It is likely that Barack Obama will be one of the candidates for president.  As a result of the primary campaign, a number of disturbing trends have come to light – these include racism, sexism, religious intolerance, anti-intellectualism, classism, and a complete lack of unity.   The Obama Project is an effort to address this in the spirit of what WindonWater.net is all about… namely producing small ripples to push against the current…

What:  The Obama Project will be a series of posts focussed on presenting factual information about candidate Barack Obama that negates misinformation about him – but with the specific goal of NOT promoting the candidate, but rather, promoting the eradication of racism, sexism, classism, religious intolerance, and anti-intellectualism.  Of course, I hope that focussing on these things will yield more unity in place of divisiveness.

How: The mission statement of WindonWater.net is “conversation for a better world, and a happy soul.”   The idea is that by changing the way we talk about stuff, we turn the tide on cynicism and negativity.  How necessary is THAT these days?

Why: Why Barack Obama?  Well, largely because his candidacy has called all of this stuff to the forefront of public discourse.  With this candidate, we have room to talk about racism, and religious intolerance.  We have room to talk about the meaning of love of country (patriotism).  We have room to talk about classism, and sexism.  And of course, the candidate has given a groundbreaking speech on race, that gives us a starting place.

As a Baha’i, I’ve been hesitant to start this effort.  Baha’is are not supposed to engage in partisan politics, but rather, are supposed to simply vote their consciences.  I’ve fallen short of that mark often this cycle, because of being so very partisanly in support of candidate Barack Obama.  Notwithstanding, I have concluded that this is something that I can do, and even should do, and I do believe it is doable without trending toward partisanship (at least I hope it is).

Anyway – as a woman and as an African-American, I’ve been sucked in to the process because the issues are very real to me.  And I do feel a personal need to have a direct response to these issues, and a need to do so in a way that avoids the persistent negativity that has dominated the blogosphere.  I hope others will join the conversation, and lend thoughts and ideas – especially out of the box, especially with a spiritual perspective, as we work through these tough issues.

My goal is to produce one post a week – that’s ambitious perhaps – that pushes against the wind.  Everyone is welcome to continue the conversation – and of course to start topics of interest throughout the thread.  The front page will be adjusted every week to promote the latest Obama Project post.

We’ll see how it goes!

Finally – since it really is more of a blogging project than a forum effort, I’m blogging here, instead of on my main forum site.  I’ll try to RSS to WindonWater.net, just the same.

QT