When historians look back on the 2008 U.S. presidential election, they may determine race and trust were the silent and deciding factors in the surprise election of John McCain.  Those same historians may also conclude Barack Obama played a significant role in his own defeat by making race an issue and by eroding the trust of voters by refusing to place his faith in them.

Let’s begin the race issue with a disclaimer.  I looked hard at the Obama candidacy early on, because I didn’t find much in common politically with the choices at the time.  Except for Obama.  We’re both from Illinois.  We’re both racially mixed.  Neither of us conducted our youthful days in conventional ways, at least not conventional to people of earlier generations.

But, before I went Full Barry, I wanted to hear him repudiate those who could not resist the easy temptation to call him the black candidate.  I waited for him to say his father was a black man from Kenya and his mother was a white woman from Kansas, which made him the new, blended face of our nation.  I wanted to hear him say he was not a hyphenated American, because that simple mark dividing races and nationalities also divides our people as a nation.

Instead, he encouraged his followers and confederates to carry his African-American status like a battle flag to rally the troops.

I considered myself an equal mix of Anglo and Chinese until my wife pointed out this week, “Obama’s more of a white man than you are.”  After blinking my eyes a few times, I asked what she meant.

“Think about it.  Your father was part Native American.  Duh.”

I thought about it, and she was right.  My mother is full-blooded Chinese, my father was around a quarter Native American, so that makes me less than 40 percent Anglo, or white.  And (if you’ll pardon my grammar) that makes the black candidate for president more of a white man than me.

Obama’s choice to play the race card may not be lost on a sizeable portion of the non-black electorate.  Some folks already mention the Bradley Effect, which says a decisive number of people just can’t bring themselves to vote for a black candidate, regardless of what they say or do leading up to Election Day.  The name comes from former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, a black candidate who lost his 1982 California gubernatorial bid even though he led in pre-election polls.  

And today, less than two weeks from Election Day, it’s easy to understand why some non-black voters don’t want others to know they do not support Obama.  Who can blame them when any criticism or questioning of the candidate of change results in immediate old-school accusations of racism?

And that brings us to the second factor, the issue of trust.  Obama never really condemns the past and current political views of fellow Chicagoan Bill Ayers, pointing out, instead, that Ayers’ terrorist activities occurred when Obama was 8 years old, and, therefore, have no connection to Obama today.  If that’s true, then Obama’s position negates the argument of some black people who push for reparations because their ancestors were slaves.  That’s because slavery occurred before those living today were born, and, therefore, has no connection to anyone today.  Unless, of course, we have people who believe in slavery, in segregation, and in the superiority of one race over another.  If so, then we can make an argument that those who pal around socially, politically, or professionally with such individuals must share some level of affinity.

But Citizen Obama does not fully trust the American people to know his full and true relationship with Ayers, because he does not trust the American people to look at his life and accept him as our president.

The American people knew George W. Bush grew up around such neo-con luminaries as Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, but we elected him twice to the presidency.

The American people knew Bush was an average college student, and at one time was what some would call a drunkard who even lost his driver’s license for drunk driving, but we elected him twice to the presidency.

The American people knew Bush was an unsuccessful businessman and person not glib or quick on his feet, but we elected him twice to the presidency.

The American people only know about Obama what Obama wants us to know.  And mistrust in the judgment of the American people may tip enough votes to McCain, a candidate the American people know well.

“You want us to be like you, the Land of the Free,” they must have said.  “Yet you falsely imprison your black children and you try to muzzle the freely elected leader of a great and ancient nation.”

Indeed.

We in this country, at least those of us with access to some form of medium, can explore the backstory to these front-page events, and then decide for ourselves what to believe and how to respond.  Others around the world, particularly folks in the Middle East, see the same pictures but hear a different narration.  They do not have the opportunity to decide what to believe or how to respond.

The New York Times ran a story in October 2001 with the prophetic headline: “U.S. appears to be losing public relations war so far.”  The inability of the Bush administration to convince doubters at the time that the war in Afghanistan was justified and that U.S. Middle East policy is evenhanded was the gist of the story.  A Western diplomat pointed out that talking heads cannot compete with the powerful images of wounded Afghan children and Israeli tanks rolling into Palestinian villages.

The war on terror, the story explained, has an image problem outside of these United States, in part because no sense of immediacy exists in those countries, not like here.  Stories of anthrax attacks and the hunt for Osama bin Laden led our newscasts, while Middle Eastern news outlets repeatedly aired images of bombed-out buildings and the funerals of children and grandparents.  Images provided by Western news agencies.

The message they receive, not necessarily the message we send, is that our righteous indignation over the death of innocent civilians does not extend beyond our borders, and particularly does not apply to Muslims.

And so it is with Jena and Mahmoud.

While we condemn the treatment of Muslim women and abhor the violence between members of different Islamic sects, the Muslim world sees images of massive protests in a small Louisiana town described by some as the example of the rampant racism that plagues our nation.

Middle Eastern media do not explain that well-intentioned souls and publicity-addicted agitators may have overplayed a debatably racial situation.  In fact, not until the buses unloaded their well-meaning passengers hoping to relive the heady days of Selma and Birmingham did the mainstream media report the backstory of this sordid affair:  white youths sent to an alternative school for almost a month and given in-school suspensions for two weeks, instead of the minor three-day suspension as earlier reported; an all-white jury that resulted from African-Americans refusing to report for jury duty and not from the machinations of a racist judicial system; nooses hung from an old shade tree that was not the exclusive shelter for white students as frequently described; and black students playing with the nooses instead of running from them in fear and trepidation.

Then there was the brilliantly played public-relations hand of Ahmadinejad.  U.S. media told their audiences that the president of Columbia University invited the Iranian president to speak during his visit to the United States in a move that appeared to be an ill-conceived attempt to capitalize on the moment.  The reality, however, as described after the fact by Newsweek magazine, is that Ahmadinejad was invited to speak last year by a former Columbia dean.  Security concerns prevented that appearance.

A few weeks ago, according to Newsweek, the new Iranian ambassador to the United Nations asked if Columbia still wanted Ahmadinejad to speak, under certain ground rules.

These things do not happen overnight, especially at a university.  The accusatorial and, as some would say, rude introduction of Ahmadinejad by Columbia president Lee Bollinger was worked out in advance, according to Newsweek.  Nothing was left to chance by Ahmadinejad and the Iranians, who used our righteous indignation against us by making Ahmadinejad appear to the folks back home as the innocent victim of another American outrage.

“How dare you invite someone to your house, then insult him and the people he represents,” they said.

Indeed, the chancellors of six Iranian universities and academic centers sent a protest letter to Bollinger.  The first of the ten questions they asked was why did the university and the U.S. media violate Ahmadinejad’s freedom of expression, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution.  We, in this country, know Ahmadinejad received more than his share of face time with the American public, but the folks back home saw only the poorly conceived attempts to restrict his message to the American people.

It boggles the mind that a nation that can sell millions of disposable diapers and bright, shiny diamonds, which do not contribute to the advancement of civilization or to peace in any region of the world, cannot sell the simple concept of a friendly and helpful Uncle Sam.

Mundus vult decipi

Unless one is of Chinese ancestry or has a great interest in the racial hypocrisy that holds hostage our politically correct society, the indefinite suspension this week of the two nitwits who host “The Dog House with JV and Elvis” on WFNY-FM in New York City (www.923freefm.com/pages/13527.php) probably went unnoticed.  The pair aired a six-minute prank phone call to a New York Chinese restaurant on April 5, which the station replayed on April 19.  The call was filled with language that would make a (fill in the blank, or risk offending members of any occupation whose place of business may range from a street corner to the open seas) blush. 

The New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/business/media/24radiocnd.htm) and Radio Online (http://news.radio-online.com/cgi-bin/$rol.exe/headline_id=n16465) are two of several news and information sites that carried stories of the suspensions that followed protests from the Chinese community.

As an American of Chinese ancestry (my grandfather was an illegal immigrant who later owned a restaurant in Chicago and who became the treasurer for one of the city’s triads), I find myself torn between feeling 1) outrage toward cavalier attitudes regarding racial slurs and 2) disgust regarding selective political correctness vis-à-vis humor.

Last year, it was encouraging to see a challenge to Rosie O’Donnell’s Chinese insults, even if her comments did not garner much attention from her sycophants in the mainstream media.  Given the lack of public outrage, one would surmise it is never okay to use the N word, but it is open season for the C word, especially if said on national television.

Here is what happened.  Rosie did not appreciate the media obsession regarding actor Danny DeVito’s apparent on-air inebriety, and she voiced her displeasure on “The View.”

“The fact is that it's news all over the world.  That you know, you can imagine in China it's like: 'Ching chong … ching chong. Danny DeVito, ching chong, chong, chong, chong. Drunk.  'The View.' Ching chong."

When confronted, she said she was doing it to be funny.  In other words, Rosie’s cool, so shut up and get over it.

New York city council member John Liu told reporters O’Donnell’s remarks hit a raw nerve for many Chinese and Chinese Americans who grew up hearing those kinds of taunts.  “We all know that it never ends at the taunts,” he said.

Rosie got away with her comments because they were pre-Imus.  JV and Elvis took their hit, because the Organization of Chinese Americans (www.ocanational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=207&Itemid=94)  promised to follow Al Sharpton’s lead and stage protests of CBS Radio and boycotts of the station’s advertisers until the station “Imused” them.

“It is apparent that not only did JV and Elvis not learn anything from the Don Imus scandal, but CBS and CBS Radio decided that Asian Americans are easy prey for racist radio broadcasts,” said Vicki Shu Smolin, president of the OCA New York City chapter.

And that brings me to the second point: disgust regarding selective political correctness vis-à-vis humor.

No one was safe on the Imus program.  The folks on the show referred disparagingly to the sports guy’s girth.  The producer donned a FedEx envelope to pretend to be a Catholic archbishop as he unleashed a string of dirty jokes about paedophile priests.  Imus referred to politicians and entertainers as morons and idiots.  A comedian who regularly appeared on the show made fun of Imus’ age and called into question the I-Man’s sexual preferences.  In short, they went out of their way to be politically incorrect in the name of humor.

Same is true for JV and Elvis.  Don’t think that their Chinese act was their first on-air humor at someone’s expense.  On March 27, the duo brought on a local, unsigned band, then “directed numerous vulgar anti-gay slurs at the band’s bassist,” as detailed in an alert put out by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (www.glaad.org/action/alerts_detail.php?id=3997).  According to GLAAD, the station’s program director defended the comments as comedy, and refused to apologize.

Did the Big Apple’s Chinese chuckle over the gay remarks?  Did the city’s gays giggle at the Chinese jokes?  And throughout these and other incidents, where was Sharpton, the self-appointed chief of the politically correct police?  Or, are Asian Americans easy prey for racist broadcasts, as the OCA’s Vicki Shu Smolin asked?

One part of me says “Right on, Vicki!” while another part of me asks, “Who has not told at joke at someone else’s expense?”  If you have not, then you’re a better person than I am.

There is a fine line between jokes and taunts, between comedy and cruelty.  And everyone of us, except possibly for the righteous and reverend Mr. Sharpton, has crossed that line.  It is good, therefore, to hold a national discussion about humor, mankind’s true sixth sense.
 

And that reminds me of my wife’s favorite joke that begins, “Two Yankees walk into a bar . . .”