Race, Religion, Women, Economic Privilege Are the Issues, So Let’s Talk About Them

Last updated on: August 20, 2012 at 8:59 pm by Andre E. Johnson

Race, Religion, Women, Economic Privilege Are the Issues, So Let’s Talk About Them 2012-08-20T20:59:00-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

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The line was long, but it kept moving, and although the sun was warm, the air was finally cooler than it had been for so many hot weeks. Thousands of us were entering the outdoor arena by the Mississippi River to hear the president and the first lady. We passed a small group from the opposing political party with their banners. Well enough. But one sign bothered me: “Mr. Obama, this is a Christian nation.” You see, I am a Christian, and I was headed in the opposite direction. And the president and first lady are Christians, as were many of the thousands being protested.

And “I am a Sikh,” I say, since the August 5 shooting at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, a suburb of Milwaukee, WI, where six were murdered and three more wounded.

Howard Fineman, editorial director of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group, in his blog, “Why Obama-Romney Debate Will (Continue to) Be Vicious,” gave a list of some of the reasons this has become the most abrasive, personally accusatory presidential campaign in modern times. He said that “Race and religion are sure to surface as corrosive forces.” That is so true!

While campaign strategists daily try to get back “on message,” I find the issues have a very basic core. Whatever surfaces, underneath are systemic, interconnected issues of domination and oppression. We need not label or avoid, but talk about them. For example, these mid-August days:

A Pennsylvania judge upholds voter suppression laws: Keep the right to vote in the hands of a few and exclude mostly people of color, the aged, and those with disabilities.

A man is named to be a candidate for vice president with extreme repressive views on women’s rights and women’s bodies: Keep power, or return power, to male leadership (a position held by some segments of Christianity).
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