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Boston Globe: Obama Afraid of Muslims Because of New 'Red Scare'
Photo of Warner Todd Huston.
By Warner Todd Huston | June 28, 2008 - 14:40 ET

Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe has done it again. Now, usually Z is one of those
columnists that is sure every white American is a racist and many of his columns are based on
that assumption, but it looks like he is branching out from his normal black/white identity
politics angle and adding a new twist to his column. You see, Z has just discovered that whites
don't hate only blacks, they hate Muslims too. How inclusive, eh?

Even more ridiculously, Z imagines that white Muslim haters in "red states" are forcing Barack
Obama to distance himself from his Muslim background. In fact, according to Z, Islam is the
victim of white America's newest "red scare" and Obama is feeling the heat because of that
undue hatred. It all means we are "Holding Muslims at arm's length" to Derrick Z. Jackson.

I wonder where Z was on 9/11?
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Anyway, Z's latest Globe column lays into Barack Hussein Obama (yes, Z uses Obama's middle name
here) chastising the candidate of change for turning his back on his Muslim heritage. Z is
upset that Obama has pushed away Muslim assistance with his campaign and is incensed that
Barack has taken pains to refute the Barack-is-a-Muslim line of attack.

I WISH Barack Obama were a Muslim. Better that than having supercilious staffers whisk
women in Islamic head scarves out of photo-ops. Better that than telling Representative Keith
Ellison of Minnesota, the nation's first Muslim congressman, not to come help Obama in Iowa and
North Carolina.

Better that than wooing red states by wobbling before the modern equivalent of the Red
Scare. In his year-and-a-half-long run for president, Obama has visited churches and
synagogues, but no mosque. This has the musty feel of light-skinned African-Americans passing
for white, paranoid over daylight visits from dark-skinned relatives.

"Red Scare"? Again, where was Z on 9/11? Did he miss that little fracas in New York? What
"scare" is there in a world wide attack on the west by radical Islam? Hundreds of thousands of
people around the world have been murdered by Islamists, Z. How is that just a "scare"?

And, need we remind you Mr. Jackson, that the "Red Scare" itself was no mere pointless
jeremaid? Once the Soviet Union fell and its archives came into public scrutiny, it was proven
that the Commies had, indeed, infiltrated all levels of the Federal government and had intended
to upend our country through sabotage in high places. Presidents from FDR to JFK were
surrounded by Soviet agents, so continuing to pretend that the "Red Scare" was merely an
artifice for wild-eyed American fascist, rightists to control the country is an idea long shown
to be but leftist trope. It was not just paranoia. The Reds really were out to destroy us from
within.

Z does cut Barack Hussein Obama some slack. He says it's "understandable" that Obama feels a
bit wary about Islam because "Political woodpeckers hammer falsehoods from the right." But,
Jackson still feels that Obama is somehow going too far in his desire set his religious record
straight.

...Obama's "Fight the Smears" part of his website has some Muslims feeling betrayed by an
over-the-top effort to denounce every Obama-is-a-Muslim claim as a "lie" and saying, "Senator
Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." How
about something like, "Senator Obama is a Christian who, having lived in the world's largest
Muslim country [Indonesia], having traveled in Pakistan and having many Muslim friends,
appreciates American pluralism like no other candidate in US history"?

What, exactly, is wrong with a candidate trying to make clear where he stands on something? In
fact, this is the ONLY issue that Obama has not nuanced his way through to date. This is the
only issue that Obama has stood firm on. The man does not want to be considered a Muslim. PERIOD!

Of course, it doesn't seem to matter to Derrick Z. Jackson that there is not one shred of
evidence that Obama ever really embraced his Father's religion. I have to stick up for Barack
on this one. All evidence says that he was an indifferent student of Islam as a child and once
he turned away from Islam he never really looked back, embracing Christianity instead. Now, one
can doubt Obama's sincerity on any religion, of course. It is easy to imagine that Obama only
turned to Christianity to help along his political ambitions... but who can truly say what's in
a man's heart?

The facts, the evidence, the history, though, say that Barack Obama never seriously considered
accepting Islam into his life. So, for columnists like Z to get all upset that Obama has
insisted that people understand where he stands on religion is a bit contrived to say the least.

But, Jackson's real message here is not Obama. He may be a bit miffed at him, yes, but
Jackson's main point is that we eeeevil Americans are too mean to Muslims.

A lot of Muslims are waiting because, seven years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an
undercurrent of suspicion remains. In the 2007 Pew survey, a third of Muslim Americans said
that within the last year, they had either been treated with suspicion, called offensive names,
profiled by police, or even attacked. Kaleem, a graduate of MIT, said he sometimes is asked
during grant proposals how radical his group is.

Actually, this part is sort of humorous in the sense of Jackson’s lack of introspection. He
says that we should get over 9/11 because it was 7 year ago? I see. Well, civil rights was
passed 44 years ago and slavery was ended over 140 years ago, yet Mr. Jackson is still all
upset over those little things. Can’t you just get over it, Mr. Jackson?

Now, it might help us to get over it and to feel that American Muslims belong standing beside
the rest of us if Muslims in America would speak out loudly and continuously against their
radical brethren. But all too often they remain silent against the radicalism of their own as
they point fingers at Americans. It’s a bit hard for us to get over it when it doesn’t seem
like too many of them even feel that their fellows did anything wrong that fateful day.

In any case, what we have here is just one more excuse for Derrick Z. Jackson to inform us all
that white Americans are racists.

(Photo credit: Boston.com)

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/06/28/boston-globe-obama-afraid-muslims-because-new-red-scare
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