Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 203 Editor's Choice: 13
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Did Gary Kamiya Even Read Steinem's editorial?
[Read the article: The race vs. gender war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Or did he just decide to enact it?
While, astonishingly, pretending he isn't a Hillary-basher smitten with his own embarrassing, imagined, or projected racial drama in every single column he writes about this race? Stop squabbling about race? You first, Norman Mailer.
If Salon is going to publish a story castigating women for daring to open their mouths about the ways they're being attacked on gender and race (Steinem's editorial was a complex, balanced, fair effort to address this subject and elevate this conversation, and it was entirely misrepresented here -- those wishing to know what she actually wrote should read it, not this biased fantasy), then they should at least have the dignity to say so in the headline instead of frankly misrepresenting the content of the piece.
Kamiya, more than any other journalist covering this issue, needs to take the time to examine his biases before accusing others of bias. Just look at the things he writes about the candidates. It is absolutely astonishing that he, of all people, would feel comfortable writing a piece like this. Astonishing.
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The difference between Obama and Huckabee?
[Read the article: Barack Obama: "Committed Christian -- Called to Bring Change"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is the media: even a post that accurately identifies the problem of media bias serves up a helping of conspiracy, too, by insinuating that if Obama is promoting himself as a religious savior, then it must be because he's responding to being the victim of some shadowy conspiracy pirated by -- "who?" -- Clinton or Edwards, of course.
Maybe he just produced the pamphlet because he's like every other candidate who thinks he's specially chosen by God. Nobody made Obama frame even a Christian-focused, religious brochure with references to being specially and supernaturally called or chosen. He could have simply stressed his actual faith (to counter these alleged rumors), the tenets of his belief, and how they will affect his agenda and leadership. I've worked on a lot of campaigns in the South, and I've seen plenty of religious messages from candidates of both parties that don't stoop to this sort of "chosen one" language.
Obama, however, stooped. And, yet, he gets another pass, even a dash of it in an article about his getting another pass, because, frankly, a lot of the journalists covering this race don't respect him enough to simply give him credit for what he actually says and does. That's the truly ugly part of identity politics -- it innately disrespects that which it claims to endorse. Like claiming you feel individually called by God to run for President.
Look, if journalists were actually even-handed about this stuff, they would find overt violations of campaign rules in more churches, synagogues, mosques, and cathedrals than not. I walked out of my own religious institution this week because they began talking about the election illegally (not talking about tenets of faith on specific issues, which is fine, but the actual election) -- and I will address this with the person who violated the law. But it's hardly a new thing that some faiths and political persuasions get differential treatment on the subject of mixing politics and religion at the hands of the press, and that's a shame because it feeds resentment and backlash.
Or maybe the Obama campaign just got some of Salon's coverage of his campaign mixed into the photocopier that was producing this brochure. That would certainly explain it.
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Conspiracies and Prejudices
[Read the article: Did Hillary Clinton really win in Florida?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Florida beauty contest? A Clinton conspiracy (to enfranchise the voters in Florida?).
Why don't Walter Shapiro, et. al, give up this tired game of trying to pretend they're covering this election and just settle in full-time fantasizing about Obama?
Imagine if voters in a substantially-black Democratic electorate state leaning towards Obama were told by the national committee that their votes wouldn't count. Imagine what Shapiro would write then. And if you can imagine it, which is transparently easy, then you can understand how far this coverage has strayed from anything other than racial punitiveness towards Clinton.
As a Floridian, I appreciate anyone trying to make my vote count. In the meantime, once you're done sneering over the fact that people like me have been disenfranchised, you might notice that we have, in fact, spoken strongly for Clinton.
That's called covering the election.
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"that hope will only become real if the American people make it real"
[Read the article: Biracial, but not like me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OK, so if I don't vote for Obama, according to Kamiya, what I am rejecting is not a candidate, but racial healing itself. How utterly offensive, divisive, intellectually dishonest and blind. This is an election, not a racial litmus test. Or at least it ought to be. But in the pages of Salon, it has become an opportunity to play out the most unbelievably self-indulgent racial fantasies -- the central one being that people like me (as I am not biracial or minority, but white, and thus by virtue of my skin color in need of moral repair) had better vote for Obama, or else I am rejecting racial justice. Not racial equality, mind you, because nobody is actually talking about equality here, but some ephemeral guidance offered by our racially enlightened peers. Or, not peers, but superiors, since we are, by dint of our whiteness, inferior in our comprehension of such things. It's such a simple line to cross.
I would have little trouble supporting Obama if it were not for all the journalists of Kamiya's ilk telling me I have to do so in order to atone for historical racism. His campaign, and his message, have been sadly diminished by such self-indulgence on the part of his advocates who preach this racial message. It's not about transcending anything.