Subway Partners with Michelle Obama, Sincerely Ignorant Respond with Hate

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."--Martin Luther King Jr.

Conservatives have gone rabid yet again and focused their animus on Michelle Obama. So what has them foaming at the mouth this time?

Last week, the Subway Restaurant chain announced on its Facebook page that it was joining First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, and teaming up with the Partnership for a Healthier America. Nothing shocking in this partnership; Subway has offered healthy alternatives to fries and burgers for years. 

We've been bemoaning the fattening of America for at least the last decade, with a particular focus on the increasing obesity of America's children and adolescents. According to the CDC, childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years. So the addition of Subway's support to an initiative to provide information about eating healthy and to encourage all of us to make healthier food choices seems like a great idea unless you're a mad dog conservative. They're out in full force on Subway's Facebook page, decrying Subway's joining the First Lady's campaign against childhood obesity and vowing to take their business elsewhere. 

It's their right to do so, and I'd be the last person to insist that anyone is obligated to support any business. What I have a problem with is their racist insults directed at the First Lady and the President. The comments comparing Mrs. Obama to cows and apes, the comments denigrating her intelligence, the comments calling her a traitor to her country. Then there's Regine Wilson who calls the First Lady "ghetto trash," and Judy Stewart who can't seem to recall how to spell the First Lady's given name and calls her "Mooshell." (public comments, no expectation of privacy, ladies). Of course, Regine and Judy aren't the only ones using disparaging terms to refer to Mrs. Obama. They are joined by a chorus of the radically hateful. Hate feeds off hate.

I can only assume that the loony bin conservatives who are having conniption fits at the idea of the First Lady advocating for a healthier America felt that the Subway Facebook was too limited a forum, so they created their own page: "I Reject Michelle Obama and Subway." Read at your own risk; it's vile, contemptible, racist, and filled with stupidity.

What truly disgusts and offends me is that these lunatic, ignorant fools who are too worthless to even shine her shoes don't give a damn that they are not only insulting the First Lady but every African-American in this country. I have heard this type of crap my entire life. I'm long past childhood and I'm immune to words of ignorance causing me personal hurt any more, but it still pisses me off that black children in this country are regularly exposed to this type of sh*t. 

I grew up in an era where racial epithets and denigration of black people was common. Those who dared object risked being taught a lesson, from losing a job, to being dragged out of your house and beaten, to being killed. I learned as a child to keep my mouth shut and my eyes down because even a glance at a white person could be interpreted as being insolent.  

I had hoped that this country, my country, was beyond overt racism, but since Obama's election the ignorant have risen and feel free to to insult both the President and the First Lady with the most vile of racial insults and it's as if we have stepped back into an era that should have long been dead and buried. I have no patience for such people and quite frankly they're not worthy to shine my shoes either.

I vent here, using my words as a weapon, so that I can resist the impulse to slap the first white person that pisses me off on any given day with nonsensical talk of how they are victims of reverse racism and how President Obama has divided this country when it comes to race. I try to keep my anger and disgust down to a simmer rather than letting it come to a full, rolling boil. I work hard to ensure that my Aunt Dorothy's prediction fails to come true and my head doesn't explode one day because I think too much.

Satire, the Obamas, and the New Yorker

I've been reading comments again. I mention them because what I've read in comments on blogs, AOL journals, and news stories on the Internet, influences my take on the cover of the upcoming issue of New Yorker magazine, due to be released on July 21, 2008.

People whom I like, with whom I exchange comments and e-mails, continue to write things like, "I'm frightened by Barack Obama," "Isn't he a Muslim?," "Michelle Obama is a racist," "She hates white people," "His middle name is Hussein," (true, but I think that the comment is meant to suggest something more sinister), etc.

I try to understand what motivates these comments. Don't worry, I haven't labeled anyone a racist; I don't toss that label about lightly. I've personally experienced enough racism in my lifetime to recognize it clearly, and I don't believe in crying wolf. Besides, a true racist doesn't need anyone to tell him or her that he/ she is a racist.

I really mean it when I say that these comments or variations thereof are written by people with whom I enjoy exchanging ideas and who I think come from a place of sincerity in expressing their concerns. Please don't misunderstand. I don't share their concerns and I don't understand them. They don't have any basis in fact, but nonetheless, I do get that they weigh heavily on people's minds. I've even sent private emails to a few, asking them to explain to me, in detail, the basis of their fears and beliefs. So far, no one has done so.

By the way, I don't question anyone's right to select the candidate of their choice, I'm just dismayed by the persistence in clinging to beliefs that are grounded in misinformation and blatant lies. Dislike any candidate because you don't support his/her politics or beliefs but for heaven's sakes, don't base your decision on some emotional belief that a candidate represents some dark, evil force. Hell, I'm not even afraid of GWB, and he's done some pretty scary stuff in the last eight years.

Just for the record: Barack Obama is not now, nor has he ever been a Muslim; you may not like his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but he was the pastor of the Christian Church to which the Obama family belonged for 20 years. Michelle Obama did not make a racist comment about hating white people or white America, what she said was "...for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback." I've said the same thing and I meant it from the bottom of my 53-year-old heart. I'm proud of how far this country has come in my lifetime. Having grown up with legal restrictions on where I could sit, eat, go to the bathroom and get a drink of water in a public place, I am awed that a man with African heritage may possibly become president of these United States, and that he has gotten where he is by appealing to a diverse cross section of the American people. I don't even know what to say about Barack Hussein Obama's given name. I confess that I find it hard to believe that anyone could seriously fear anyone based on the person's name. My first name, Sheria, is an alternative spelling for the Sharia, which is the name of the body of Islamic religious law. Anyone trembling in their shoes yet?

Which brings me to the New Yorker cover, (bet you thought that I would never get there). The magazine has released a statement about the controversial cover,

'In a statement Monday, the magazine said the cover "combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are....The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall? All of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover," the New Yorker statement said.'

I believe the statement; the New Yorker is known for its use of satire and for its liberal leanings, two of the things that I like about the magazine (surely, by now you know that I am a flaming liberal and proud of it). However, I wish that they had thought about it a bit more. As a former English teacher, I'm pretty certain that satire is not a form of literary expression that most people get. When Jonathan Swift's satirical essay, "A Modest Proposal," was first published in 1729, it was met with great outrage by many who didn't perceive the satirical tone of the piece in which Swift proposes that the Irish poor ease their economic woes by selling their young children to the wealthy to be eaten as a great delicacy. Swift writes: "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout."

Before you get all excited, he didn't mean it; he was using his writing to comment on the hypocrisy of the government in blaming the poor for their own plight. He wanted to point out the inhumanity of allowing families to starve while the wealthy had an excess of food, goods, and luxuries. Swift wanted the reader to find his position appalling enough to act, to call for reform, to do something about the problem. This tradition of satire dates back to the great tradition of Roman satire, and echoes the writings of Horace and Juvenal.

However, I digress. The problem that I have with the New Yorker cover is quite simple, far too many people will miss the magazine's stated intent entirely. They won't read the accompanying stories. The cover will merely reinforce the misinformation that they already believe. Most people's familiarity with satire is limited; the unit that I did on satire was always the most confusing for my students. In particular, visual satire often leaves many people totally confused.

I also find the cover insulting to Michelle Obama. I really can't recall any presidential candidate's wife being subjected to this type of depiction in the past. Maybe I'm just a touchy black woman, but in every hierarchical ranking in this country, whether it is regarding wages earned or marriage potential, black women always come in dead last. If you're a black woman who speaks your mind, you are labeled difficult or the really big one--intimidating. Early in my teaching career, I had the following exchange with a colleague.

"Sheria, I just find you intimidating."

Me: "Have I ever threatened to slap you?"

"No, I didn't say that, just that I find you intimidating."

Me: "Tell you what, when I threatened to slap you, that's when I'm trying to intimidate you, otherwise, you have nothing to worry about."

Sometimes a woman gets tired of being called intimidating.

Alas, the cat is already out of the bag and and the cover cannot be undone. I have to decide if I want to read the comments that are already being generated by the news coverage about the cover. I should know better but I can't resist. Intimidating? No. Inquisitive? Yes.