"Exoticism"
I had made a prediction in the past that I was appalled to see come true tonight, and I feel compelled to write about it immediately. After watching Michelle Obama's speech and its subsequent nauseating over-analysis on CNN, I flipped over the to the good folks at Fox News.
As if the moment had been scripted, Brit Hume called on Charles Krauthammer for his take, and the man uttered some derivation of the word "exotic" about six times in 30 seconds.
Michelle Obama's speech was designed to counteract her husband's "exoticism." I knew... effing KNEW that the right would choose this word as their euphemism of choice. What better way to play the subliminal race card than to conflate Obama's ethnicity with the shocking fact that he has lived in Hawaii and Indonesia?
This offends on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. Besides its insidious bigotry, it also adds a nice dose of xenophobic anti-intellectual ignorance to the mix (part of the reason I love the neocons so much)... as if the fact that a person running for the president has (gasp!) lived abroad is a bad and dangerous thing instead of something that maybe gives him a better perspective. The fact that the right is trying to rebrand Hawai'i (a state, people) into something "exotic" and scary would be hysterical if it wasn't so pathetic.
Watch out for this, people. "Exotic." Obama's "exotic past." His campaign's "exoticism problem." Make no mistake, with its strained anti-intellectualism, the right is far closer to the dreaded Communists than a thousand tweed-wearing college professors in Madison.
Go Obama.
As if the moment had been scripted, Brit Hume called on Charles Krauthammer for his take, and the man uttered some derivation of the word "exotic" about six times in 30 seconds.
Michelle Obama's speech was designed to counteract her husband's "exoticism." I knew... effing KNEW that the right would choose this word as their euphemism of choice. What better way to play the subliminal race card than to conflate Obama's ethnicity with the shocking fact that he has lived in Hawaii and Indonesia?
This offends on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. Besides its insidious bigotry, it also adds a nice dose of xenophobic anti-intellectual ignorance to the mix (part of the reason I love the neocons so much)... as if the fact that a person running for the president has (gasp!) lived abroad is a bad and dangerous thing instead of something that maybe gives him a better perspective. The fact that the right is trying to rebrand Hawai'i (a state, people) into something "exotic" and scary would be hysterical if it wasn't so pathetic.
Watch out for this, people. "Exotic." Obama's "exotic past." His campaign's "exoticism problem." Make no mistake, with its strained anti-intellectualism, the right is far closer to the dreaded Communists than a thousand tweed-wearing college professors in Madison.
Go Obama.
Comments
The American Taliban. There, I said it. Arm these wingnuts and it's Civil War Part Deux.