{"id":86,"date":"2008-10-30T11:35:20","date_gmt":"2008-10-30T11:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/barack-obamas-failure.html"},"modified":"2008-10-30T11:35:20","modified_gmt":"2008-10-30T11:35:20","slug":"barack-obamas-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/10\/barack-obamas-failure.html","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama’s failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

I support Obama for President, and I believe that given the Republican Party’s war on muslims<\/a> in the public and political sphere (Mazen Asbahi<\/a>, Rima Sinclair<\/a>, now Rashid Khalidi<\/a> just the latest examples), his Presidency will do much to mitigate the tide of Islamophobia washing our political shores. But Obama is still a failure<\/b> for not facing the muslim smear head-on, with the same political courage he demonstrated in the wake of the Reverend Wright affair and his now-historic speech on race. Did that speech erase racial prejudice? No, but it estalished the framework for a post-racial politics. If Obama had shown similar courage, and applied his considerable rhetorical and leadership skills, towards the muslim smear, he might have laid a smilar groundwork for a post-religious politics, which would not only beefit muslims but also Jews and other minorities, and increased America’s leverage and moral leadership abroad as we seek to promote liberalism and human rights abroad, which is a fundamental strategic objective for own national security).<\/p>\n

This failure of Obama to confront religious prejudice is directly responsible for the durability of the muslim smear: 23% of all Texans<\/a> and 28% of Kentucky Republicans<\/a> still believe Obama to be muslim (and higher percentages remain unsure if he is Christian or not). Nationwide, it’s 12%, and more likely to sway Democrats against Obama<\/a> than Republicans for obvious reasons. <\/p>\n

Related: good summary and overview of Arab and muslim stereotypes and the complicity of our presidential candidates<\/a> in perpetuating them, by Jack Shaheen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I support Obama for President, and I believe that given the Republican Party’s war on muslims in the public and political sphere (Mazen Asbahi, Rima Sinclair, now Rashid Khalidi just the latest examples), his Presidency will do much to mitigate the tide of Islamophobia washing our political shores. But Obama is still a failure for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[29,100,91,26,95],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islamerica","tag-barack-obama","tag-islamophobia","tag-muslim-smear","tag-politics","tag-presidential-election"],"yoast_head":"\nBarack Obama's failure - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Barack Obama's failure - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I support Obama for President, and I believe that given the Republican Party’s war on muslims in the public and political sphere (Mazen Asbahi, Rima Sinclair, now Rashid Khalidi just the latest examples), his Presidency will do much to mitigate the tide of Islamophobia washing our political shores. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}