Is racism the only thing that could stop Obama?

Lately Barack Obama has made me rather wary. Looking closely at his policies, it's clear that his administration would not be a every progressive's dream. Obama's pretty conservative economically and his plan for Afghanistan doesn't differ much from McCain's. The United States would still have military bases across the world under his presidency and even Guantanamo is unlikely to close. Yet despite these flaws, he's still light-years ahead of John McCain, who's platform is argubly Bush 2.0 if not worse. The lesser-of-two-evils situation has become exasperating to say the least but that's the reality of American politics today.

An article by Jacob Weisberg in Slate confronts an unsettling idea: racism might really keep Obama out of office. Weisberg examines the statistics and comes to the conclusion that a sizable proportion of white voters are uncomfortable about Obama's presidency principally because of his skin color (or because of some ridiculous idea that he's secretly a radical Muslim). I recall a Daily Show segment during the primaries in which an older woman voter basically said she didn't vote for Obama because his middle name is Hussain. Will this election go down in history as the one where voters made their decision on the basis of a candidate's middle name?!

Maybe African heritage really is a bigger burden in politics than a vagina. I thought it was the opposite while Clinton was still in play, but who can really say? If Hillary was the Democratic nominee, we might be having this same conversation, except the polls would be saying that men felt uncomfortable voting for a woman.

Regardless, I agree with Weisberg's statement that choosing McCain over Obama will not just be a misstep for the American people. It will signal to the world that we're still just as backward as we've always been with regards to race.

Major feminist blog off the air over plagiarism issues

I almost feel like I shouldn't comment on this at all given my relative unfamiliarity with the feminist blogosphere. From what I've been able to piece together (Thanks Bitch, Feministe, and Alas! among others), feminist powerhouse Brownfemipower (BFP) has pulled her blog off the web. Apparently BFP's extensive work on racism and sexism in immigration was blatantly plagiarized in an article by Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon. As Marcotte is white and BFP a woman of color, the incident raises plenty of questions beyond 'why didn't you cite your sources?'

Even without all the racist implications of a white woman writing about racial and sexual oppression but ignoring the work of a fellow feminist blogger and woman of color, you gotta cite your sources. It's not ok to exclude the hard work of others. No one is isolated from the influence of other writers, no idea is completely original, and you've gotta give credit where credit is due. This is basic research paper stuff and Marcotte should know that. At the same time, I think Holly and Amp are right, playing the blame game won't solve anything. We live in a racist society and we're not immune to its influence. We can never really quantitate how it effects us the same way we don't always now what influences our ideas.

My apologies, this is a bit of a fluff post without much original content. But I would like to say that this incident has taught me a lot, as a student journalist and writer. Also, I really hope to see BFP come back. Everyone who has written about her obviously has a great amount of respect for her and naturally I'm itching to see her work now. Hopefully she'll see how many people are behind her and revive the blog but that's a decision only she can make.