It is said that a lie can travel the world before the truth can get out the door, and this is certainly true of urban legends and unfounded rumors about Barack Obama. We therefore join his “Fight the Smears” campaign to quash these urban legends and unfounded rumors with proven and verifiable facts. Here are the rumors and urban legends in question:
(1) Obama's opponents misquote Obama's "Dreams From My Father"
(2) Obama's opponents accuse him of being a Muslim
(3) Obama's opponents claim that he won't say the Pledge of Allegiance
(4) Obama's opponents say that Michelle Obama used a racist word
Obama's Opponents are Misquoting "Dreams From My Father."
From Obama’s site at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/
The Smear
Smear:
Obama’s Books Contain Racially Incendiary Remarks
A recent email forward allegedly quotes passages from Senator Obama’s books related to race and religion. The majority of these are alterations, deliberate manipulations, and in one case, an outright fabrication of Obama’s words.
...SMEAR EMAIL
From Dreams From My Father: ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race.’THE TRUTH
The above quote does not appear in the book, and here is what Barack Obama really wrote in "Dreams From My Father." The indicated page numbers are for the paperback edition, ISBN 978-1-4000-8277-3
I would occasionally pick up the paper [Louis Farrakhan’s “The Final Call”] from these unfailingly polite men, in part out of sympathy to their heavy suits in the summer, their thin coats in winter; or sometimes because my attention was caught by the sensational, tabloid-style headlines (CAUCASIAN WOMAN ADMITS: WHITES ARE THE DEVIL). Inside the front cover, one found reprints of the minister’s [Farrakhan’s] speeches, as well as stories that could have been picked straight off the AP news wire were it not for certain editorial embelleshments (”Jewish Senator Metzenbaum announced today…”).
Barack Obama, “Dreams From My Father,” p. 201 [Obama does not praise The Final Call's hate speech but he does not condemn it either.]
It contradicted the morality my mother had taught me, a morality of subtle distinctions–between individuals of goodwill and those who wished me ill, between active malice and ignorance or indifference. I had a personal stake in that moral framework; I’d discovered that I couldn’t escape it if I tried. And yet perhaps it was a framework that blacks in this country could no longer afford; perhaps it weakened black resolve, encouraged confusion within the ranks. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.
If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, caused most of my quarrels with Rafiq. [Rafiq al-Shabazz, a “self-professed [Black] nationalist” (page 198)]
“Dreams From My Father,” pp. 199-200
That was the problem with people like Joyce [a college classmate of Italian, African-American, Native American, and French ethnicity]. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounced real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. …The truth was that I understood [Joyce], her and all the other black kids who felt the way she did. In their mannerisms, their speech, their mixed-up hearts, I kept recognizing pieces of myself. And that’s exactly what scared me. Their confusion made me question my own racial credentials all over again. …To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.
“Dreams From My Father,” pages 99-100
It may not be a good idea to create a website to "fight the smear" in the age of the Internet when you have Obama's baggage.
3 comments:
Deacon Billy Bob Email
I find your characterization of religious people unjust and offensive. I'll leave it up to let others see the bigotry.
The nearest thing I have found to your characterization of the religious is the Rev. Wright. It is hard to parody him.
Senator Obama is NOT a Dirty Muslim!
"What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge," says Mr. Obama, while denouncing statements of him being a Muslim as a smear. Why is the presidential candidate who claims to be religiously inclusive is treating the word "Muslim" as an insult? Apparently, it is OK for Mr. Obama to be associated with terrorists like William Ayers or racists like Jeremiah Wright, but God forbid somebody would call him a Muslim! No, he won't stand for that kind of smear! We admit that most terrorists are Muslims, but most Muslims are not terrorists and the statement on Mr. Obama's website is insulting to hundreds of millions of people.
How could a man who discards his family heritage in favor of political expediency be even considered for presidency of the United States? Where are all the so-called "Islamic civil rights groups" like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, MAS, etc. who are quick to defend every Islamic terrorist, but are silent when Muslims in general are being denigrated? Would Mr. Obama have the same reaction if someone claimed that he was raised as a Jew? We sincerely doubt that.
Muslims Against Sharia demand immediate removal of "SMEAR: Barack Obama is a Muslim" statement from the official Barack Obama's website as well as an apology for giving the word "Muslim" a negative connotation.
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/06/senator-obama-is-not-dirty-muslim.html
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