Unabashed

One last post on the political front before I retire my post as resident political pundit:

The New York Times has once again labeled the South racist, crediting the shocking tendency of the South to vote Republican. This time, it’s obvious because, in various locations, the South voted as much as 10% more in favor of the Republican party than in ’04’s election. The title of the article is “For South, a Waning Hold on Politics,” but it should have been “The South, Now With More Racism!” because it was nothing more than a thinly-veiled attack against Southerners, with skewed statistics and an agenda the author didn’t even attempt to conceal. Once you read into the article, you’ll realize how thinly veiled it really was, too, if it was veiled at all:

Mr. Obama’s race appears to have been the critical deciding factor in pushing ever greater numbers of white Southerners away from the Democrats.

I don’t know who to be mad at with this, the NYTimes for stirring up something that’s less an issue here than it is even in New York–I’ve experienced the haughty New York bias against Southerners, and it’s uglier than any form of prejudice now in the South, my friends–or my fellow Southerners, who, if this article is true, have finally broken my spirit, because they are backwards. My tendency is to blame the author, because he chose a tiny hamlet in western Alabama as representatives of the entire South. Sure, there are pockets of racism alive and well, in Vernon as well as in other places all over the country. Possibly even (GASP!) New York City. Does Ocean County, New Jersey, who voted 58% in favor of McCain, represent your political values, Mr. Author? I doubt you’d like that very much at all if your political values were criticized because of a nearby town’s voting preferences, especially if those preferences happened to be the opposite of your own. So hey, New York, why don’t you work on your own prejudices and leave us alone? Or, better yet, why don’t you help educate some of these areas you’re indicting instead of tattling on them to the rest of the world?

For the article, the author didn’t visit quaint Montevallo or stately Huntsville, the home of this nation’s space program, for a sampling of reactions to Obama’s election. No, they visited Vernon, populatin 1,900 and change. A small, isolated town that I’m imminently familiar with, where the high school graduation rate is low. The people swell with Southern hospitality, but, isolated as they are, you might say they’re behind on the times. I’m not saying they’re backwards, they’re isolated, and there’s not much cultural diversity there, so they have fewer experiences in relating to minorities than many of us do. Maybe that sounds like I’m making excuses, and maybe I am. The point is that the majority of counties in Alabama increased their votes for Democrats this election compared to ‘04, but this author chose Vernon to represent the entire state–the entire South, even.

The article isn’t an outright lie, but in it the author does misrepresent a large geographic area by using skewed statistics. He reveals only the statistics that will paint the South in an ugly fashion, and conceals the others. This article could just as easily have been written about the numbers of people who did vote for Obama (myself included), and the massive amount of progress overall.

The article even points out the fact that Virginia and North Carolina:

made history in breaking from their Confederate past and supporting Mr. Obama.

But did they use Virginia or NC as representative of the whole South? Did they focus on positives or progress? No. They chose Vernon, Alabama. They didn’t even choose nearby Shelby County, Alabama, in which I live, which voted (according to this map), 5% higher Democrat in this election than in ‘04, with a population that’s 87.8% white. Sure, McCain still won the county, but he would have won it no matter who was running on the Dem ticket. And that’s not the point of the article, which only wants us to focus on percentage points gained or lost as compared to the Democratic voters of 2004.

So why not pick Shelby County to represent the entire South? Well, because you can’t pick one spot to represent an entire geographic area. Not if you want to be fair and balanced, which this article obviously did not want to be. It wanted to present the South as a bunch of backward racists, so it found the spot where it could present the message it wanted to deliver.

Of the people I know of who voted for McCain, they did so because of Obama’s policies, and argued their points with competence. For instance, as one friend of mine pointed out, isn’t it possible that middle income families will feel the tax crunch when the taxes on the wealthy are raised? Sure, Obama’s plan calls for a hike in taxes only for people making over 250k, but the people who make that much are the owners of a lot of businesses we middle and lower-class folk work at. Isn’t it possible, seeing their taxes go up, that they might hire fewer people, offer fewer pay raises, and essentially constrict our earning potential?  

In the end, this is just another jab by an ignorant bigot, who unfortunately has published this misleading misrepresentation in one of the most widely read periodicals in the world. One more slap to the face of every Southerner who has worked to overcome the past, to embrace the future and try to make right.

My name is Matt Mitchell. I am a white male. I live in Montevallo, Alabama, and I voted for Barrack Obama.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: bias, bigotry, Black, Democrat, mccain, Modern, New York Times, obama, racism, Republican, south, southern, White

Yes, I’m staying mostly away from political chatter; I live in a red state, and while I’m not exactly liberal I’m not exactly all the way over to the right, either. I disagree to some degree with both sides, and often agree with both sides, too. I took this neat little quiz at mydebates.org, which is actually a MySpace page, and found that I agree with Obama on 8 key issues, McCain on 2, and I think they’re both wrong on two others. So it looks like, at least according to what he says, I’m leaning Obama, as hard as that may be for some of my friends and family to hear. Of course, it’ll be great to see either of them actually follow through with their campaign promises, but you know how that goes. I guess it just boils down to me hoping I’m not voting for the next Hoover, the economy being the way it is.

But what’s really giving me a lot of consternation right now is the smear campaign the conservatives are throwing at Obama. It’s a grass roots movement of people who’ll vote Republican even if Satan was running on their ticket, who are slandering Obama really quite mercilessly. And they’re not just saying that he’s wrong for the job (which he might be), that he lacks experience (which he does) or that his plans won’t work (they may well not); no, they’re saying that he’s in cahoots with terrorists and that this nation’s conservative Christian majority will quickly be overrun by Islam if he’s voted into office. I’ve even read one account where they’re actually accusing him of murdering naturally-birthed babies.

Smear campaigns like that tend to have the opposite effect on me than intended. My suspicion is that for people who’re on the fence, like me, who don’t vote like sheep because a candidate wears a certain lapel pin animal, smear campaigns like this tend to drive them away from the people doing the smearing. By accusing Obama of such ridiculous, fantastic conspiracies, all they really do is make me seek out the truth. And the truth, more times than not, is there, if you look hard enough.

I don’t claim to know Obama, the way he thinks, what he believes or anything else. But I don’t believe conservative Christians do, either, so to make outlandish accusations and attacks on his character is just too hard for me to believe. Evidently, I am in the minority on this, though. Because I know a good many of my fellow Alabamians, as well as people from all across the nation, who are reading these grossly exaggerated claims and impossible scenarios and are believing them at gospel. Take this email, for instance, which I’ve gotten at least half a dozen times:

From Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.”

From Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother?s race.”

From Dreams of My Father: “There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

From Dreams of My Father: “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.”

From Dreams of My Father:  “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, Dubois and Mandela.”

From Audacity of Hope: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’

From Dreams of My Father: ‘I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.’

The first time I got that email, I shrugged, figuring it to be fictional. I haven’t read either of his books, so I couldn’t say for sure, but it just looked like something somebody made up. But then I got the email again, and again, and the people sending it to me were friends and acquaintances who have evidently bought this garbage hook, line and sinker. And I call it garbage because that’s what it is. Snopes.com investigated it and found it to be either completely fictionalized, quoted from a source other than Obama, or presented out of context.

Maybe it’s just that they want McCain to win so badly that they’re willing to believe anything at all about Obama, that they’re willing to spread slander as much as they can in hopes that other sheep will believe it too. Well, sorry, folks, but I’m voting based on the issues at hand, in my hopes that the candidate will actually follow through with some of them. I don’t believe that the President of the USA can single handedly bring about the downfall of the nation; there are too many stopgaps in place even if he tried. I don’t believe he wants too, any way. And for all of you who say that this country was founded on Christianity and conservative values, you’re wrong again. This country was founded on the belief of freedom of religion. Besides, I don’t even know–nor care–what the man’s religious beliefs are. And I don’t care to hear anyone else who obviously don’t know speculate about it.

It’s all moot anyway. McCain gave his big push, brought in the hotty from Alaska and made his best stand, but he won’t win. So solly, Chollie, but democracy is about to win out.

Not that I would mind McCain winning, mind you. I don’t think either one of these men represent any great evil, despite what both sides would have me believe.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: democracy, mccain, obama, Palin, Slander, Smear

General Wesley Clark, an Obama supporter, never missing an opportunity to smear the opponent of his preferred candidate, had this to say about McCain’s service record:

Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president

And if you read that within the context, understanding that Clark was asked about how Senator McCain’s national security policies might be influenced by his military service, you realize two things:

1. General Wesley Clark is a stooge for the Democratic party.
2. General Wesley Clark is an asshole.

For starters, Clark has an opportunity in this interview to take the high road, but makes it abundantly clear that he is in this game only to smear the McCain camp as much as he can. Especially when you consider that his argument against McCain began with “in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk, it’s a matter of gauging your opponents and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions.” To which an open-minded observer might ask: And Obama has? And that is the point: taking every chance to smear the opponent. Thankfully, the interviewer noted the remark and added, “I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean…” To which Clark has to crawfish, saying, “But Barack is not–he is not running on the fact that he has made these national security pronouncements, he’s running on his other strengths. He’s running on the strengths of character, on the strengths of his communication skills, on the strengths of his judgment, and those are qualities that we seek in our national leadership.”

To Senator Obama’s immense credit, he’s distanced himself from the statement. His campaign spokesman said: “Senator Obama honors and respects Senator McCain’s service, and of course he rejects yesterday’s statement by General Clark.”

In the end, I can only observe that Clark has done no harm to the McCain camp, and no good for the Obama camp. He’s only proven two things, and I listed those above.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: clark, Interview, mccain, obama