Imagine what it must be like for a man like Barack Hussein Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois and one of the major candidates running for the 2008 presidency, to walk around with a pair of Arab names and 9% of his life having been lived in the world's most populous Muslim nation (Indonesia).
The name is a gift to those who relish demolishing him, not just as part of the usual political gamesmanship that happens with every election, but as a signpost to the limits of American tolerance.
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You conveniently left out the fact that Obama is more Arab than African. Maybe you mention it later but I’ll never know because I can’t read past this:
“Imagine what it must be like for a man like Barack Hussein Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois and one of the major candidates running for the 2008 presidency, to walk around with a pair of Arab names and 9% of his life having been lived in the world’s most populous Muslim nation (Indonesia).”
You’re flatly incorrect, and obviously are more motivated by slander and prejudice than anything else. The only thing more African in Obama is his Americanism, which is indistinguishable from that of John McCain.
If someone were to come forward with a solution to our credit crisis, the last thing I’d ask him/her is nationality, religion, etc. I’m reminded every four years of the intellectual shortcomings of the partisans.
I am wondering why people think Obam is Arab?
he has arab in his first name.
“nobama,” I have French in my first name. Does that make me French? No. And guess what: I was born an Arab! Yet I’m an American. Go figure.
If Obama is an Arab, so…? Isn’t the Bin Laden family associates of the Bush family? I don’t care if Obama really is an Arab Muslim, he has my vote and the votes of my sister and two neices, my eight children and their spouses, my husband, his sisters, brothers, neices and nephews. It’s the economy, stupid.
It is because a guy named Ken Lamb wrote that Obama is 50% Caucasian, 43.75% Arab and 6.25% Black. This is making its rounds in right wing circles.
I think though someone forgot to tell Lamb that Arabs are considered part of the white race. Lamb turned Obama into a White Man (94%).
“The categories promulgated in 1978 by the OMB in fact did draw distinctions, but unlike earlier policies, not on skin color. Known as “directive 15”, the standards identify four race categories:
* American Indian/Alaska Native: this category includes indigenous north American groups, and despite genetic similarity, remains distinct from indigenous persons from central and south America because of certain land and treaty obligations;
* Asian or Pacific Islander: this category originally covered persons with origins in countries East of the Indian subcontinent, but was adjusted after the Association of Indians in America lobbied the OMB to move their group out of the white race category;
* Black: persons with origins in the black racial groups of Africa- this category purposely does not encompass continental Africa to distinguish North African regions and European settler populations; and
* White: persons originating in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa;”