The New Obama World

President Obama has exceeded all expectations I had of him as candidate Obama. In his last speech to the Muslim world he has elevated, not only the status of faithful, law-abiding people, but he has elevated the status of humankind. He has not given in to terrorism by recognizing that individual differences in religious belief do not make us adversaries. He has not given in to terrorist behavior by acknowledging that there are far more good Muslims living day-to-day, with the same goals and aspirations as those of us who are Christian, than there are terrorists invoking the Muslim religion as justification for their savage actions. He has recognized Muslims of all nations as a people who have longed to be recognized for the good they represent and not for the hate brought upon them by their own saboteurs.

For centuries Muslims have been feared, hated and misunderstood. To be sure their culture is vastly different from our American culture. They have suffered great religious persecution in much the same way Christians have experienced persecution. Nor have Muslims , by and large, been recognized in recent world history for the contributions made to art, technology and science. Just as United States history text books have left out huge amounts of information of the contributions of African-Americans to our national development, text books for classes in world history conspicuously leave out huge amounts of information about Muslim contributions. In my pursuit of information of the history of black Americans, I read a lot of books about Africans' contributions to the building of America that I never read in a text book in school. It is as if, once considered not equal by Western standards, certain ethnic populations just never existed.

If there is to be any reconciliation with nations that are prodominately Muslim it has to begin somewhere. President Obama's speech may have appeared to be apologetic to some Americans and less than adequate for some Muslims, but it was a beginning. It is true that no one else could have given that speech and connected so forcefully with the very people we need to engage in order to defeat terrorism. Muslims have suffered mightily from terrorism too and they have a huge human stake in eliminating it from their own lands.

There is such irony that at just the time when America needed someone to begin healing the religious and ethnic rifts in the world, that Obama burst onto the scene, seemingly out of nowhere as a African-American, and in short order, began a dialogue with the Muslim world.

Judicial Activist?

There is such racial angst against President Obama out here in the real world, methinks that if the second coming of Jesus were to happen, and if Obama nominated Jesus Christ to the Supreme Court, he would be reviled, ridiculed, dissed for lack of creds and vilified by the right-wing-nuts. Nobody who is nominated by Obama is going to be recognized for anything positive in their personal or professional lives by the hate-obsessed right wingers. In other words some of us have not come very far, picture the inquisition.



I was raised as a ' fundamentalist' but thank God, I got over it. The Jesus I perceived as a child in Sunday School was the ultimate activist. Its not that this is what I was taught, it is that I came to my own conclusions, even as a child. Jesus could not stand injustice and stood up to it at every opportunity. He was reviled, ridiculed, and dissed for the lack of credentials whenever he confronted what was then, right wing ideologues. Jesus was not some namby-pamby who let anyone attach labels to what he stood for and what he did not stand for. His message of love, forgiveness, tolerance and openness was lost on those very souls he sought to heal and those very fundamentalists crucified him.



The right-wing-nuts have been with us always, just as we are taught the poor are with you always, there are those who have always opposed the way others live their lives. It is not sufficient for the oppressors to live their own lives and let others live theirs even when the lifestyles never encounter. Oppressors want to tell everyone how to, live and believe, in the intolerant ways they espouse and, if one does not comply, one is vilified publicly and given less than full human status.



All of this to say that Sotomayor, probably the most qualified and credentialed an individual of any sex , or any race, that is likely to qualify for nomination to the Supreme Court, is inevitably going to run into some high caliber opposition for no reason other than sexual and racial intolerance on the part of those who just cannot stand her achievements as a Latino woman. Instead of celebrating Sotomayor as the remarkable human being she is, they are nit-picking every little thing in her background and extracting words out of context in a vain and small attempt to diminish her as a nominee. How pathetic they are. How myopic not to acknowledge that she personifies the American Dream. They are afraid of the strength that can rise up, persevere against insurmountable odds, inspiring awe in a public she has not even met and, worst of all, absent any real issues in her past, it is dangerous for the right wing zealots to try to destroy her. In the attempt to destroy her person hood they will further destroy themselves.