2008 Muslim Women Refused Seat Behind Obama
posted by June 18 at 14:53 PM
onAccording to the San Francisco Chronicle:
A young Muslim woman said she and another woman were refused seats directly behind Barack Obama — and in front of TV cameras — at a Detroit rally because they wear head scarfs.Hebba Aref said Wednesday that she and Shimaa Abdelfadeel were among 20,000 supporters who gathered to see the Democratic presidential hopeful on Monday at the Joe Louis Arena when the groups they were with were separately invited by Obama campaign volunteers to sit behind the podium. But Aref said the volunteers told members of both parties in separate discussions that women wearing hijabs, the traditional Muslim head scarves, weren’t included in the invitation and couldn’t sit behind the podium.
Aref, a 25-year-old lawyer, said a member of her group was told by a volunteer that she could not invite Aref because of “a sensitive political climate.”
Obama spokesman Bill Burton issued a statement saying such actions are “not the policy of the campaign.”
I guess it’s an indication of how ugly things have gotten in America—in a campaign season where the supposedly venerable National Review demands Obama present his birth certificate to prove he’s not a foreigner; where seven percent of Americans falsely believe he is a Muslim; where Fox Fucking News refers to an affectionate fist bump with his wife as a “terrorist fist jab”’ ; where supposedly reputable media outlets repeatedly refer to him (“accidentally,” of course!”) as “Osama” (or Osama bin Laden as “Obama”); where right-wing pundits—from wingnuts to anonymous nutjobs—repeat his middle name like some kind of Republican mantra (Hussein Hussein Hussein!); where mainstream papers literally ask if he is a “Muslim apostate”; and where Obama’s own campaign has to set up a web site called “Fight the Smears” in part to assert, again, that he was never a Muslim—that my first reaction to the news was, well, if the campaign did make them move, can you really blame them?
Comments
No.
Did you not see that Mr. Schmader had already posted on this topic?
Or could you just not resist the chance for yet another post with "women" in the headline?
Erica, you're devaluing your currency lately. What gives?
Hillary sure didn't help in this matter, did she Erica?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHFREDHB-nQ
If these women really are Obama supporters, AND intelligent then they shouldn't have been surprised and they should have been supportive.
It didn't pass through either one of their hijab wearing heads that maybe their hijab wearing presence might not be the best idea for a man already under suspicion of being a closet Muslim, in a country at war with Islam and most intolerant of that religion?
I smell a rat.
bumped for redundancy.
Yeah, and stay off our ferries!
I guess Obama and his change are only applicable to the whiteys and blackeys. No sand negroes need apply. WOW Obama is on shaky ground with me.
FTFY.
Lookout, I hear a woman rode a brakeless direct drive bicycle the other day too.
@7 -- you should invest in some seismic upgrades, then, Cook.
If this (alleged) act by a field surrogate is all it takes to put you off Obama when it comes to his relationship with persons of the Islamic confession, then you best sit out the election.
Obama has had ample opportunity to diss Islamic Americans and he has forgone those opportunities. Think about it -- brother gets shit for his name, his childhood...and he never says, "Oh, yeah, I'm with you. Those Muslims are bad shit!"
If anything, he's done exactly the opposite.
So you go ahead with your tender little seismic needle, Cook, and quiver at every perceived slight. Meanwhile, I'm going to sit back and watch Obama be an amazing role model for how to slam back at his critics without throwing Muslims to the wolves.
@4
Yeah! Muslim Americans should be invisible in their support of the Democrats. Just like the gays... (Someone needs to clue them in.)
No - they live out in the real world, not Seattle.
wait, we're down to only 7% of americans thinking he's muslim? sounds like progress to me.
cook are you fucking kidding me? i think it probably would not have been a big deal if those women were scarved up behind obama, but seriously, why take the risk? if the last eight years has taught us anything it's that the american public has a pronounced bent towards stupidity and over-simplification. obama is already on the defensive about the whole muslim thing because of this. and now you are upset because some campaign organizer made a call in obama's name (the right call in our unfortunate times) and a call that the obama campaign has disavowed publicly? dude, wake the fuck up...
Yes I can.
Errr, I believe the National Review was talking about Obama's birth certificate, not his press release. A press release wouldn't do much to prove he wasn't a foreigner. Heck anyone could present one of those.
For Immediate Release:
Barack Obama is an American Citizen
Who supposes that National Review is venerable? Not me!
Gee we'd sure have the same reaction if McCain did it, right?
Meanwhile, back to the free trade issue, he's backing off the stance that he'll just tell the Canadians and Mexicans where to put their Nafta:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/18/magazines/fortune/easton_obama.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008061810
It's not like that those women were going to be the ONLY people behind barack at his speech; given what tradition dictates there would be around fifty people within camera shot for the close in, more for the entire behind-the-podium crowd, and only a chosen few for the insane close up. If the campaign staff had chosen to seat the women, they could've easily put them into the general behind-the-podium seats, so they would still be part of the rally. Detroit has a large population of Muslims, and ignoring them does not make them just go away.
Also, maybe it's just me, but just because this is "alleged" doesn't mean I'm not going to take it seriously. Why would these women claim that they were persecuted by Obama's campaign? Doesn't that seem kind of outrageous to accuse?
And I've never been for Obama. It doesn't matter if I vote for him or not though, because whichever state I vote in he will win by a large majority (California and Washington? come on.) My vote is his to gain, and if he comes back and fires the staffer who carried this out and speaks against this racist act, then I'll certainly like him a lot more. But since I'm a Middle Easterner, I guess I should just shut up and hope for change, huh?
In other news: McCain supporters dressed as circus clowns denied a seat behind the candidate at a televised rally, demand explanation.
"Why are we being singled out?" asked prominent New Jersey-area party clown Dr. Guffawsalot, tying a balloon animal as he spoke to reporters at a children's birthday party in Great Neck. "Is McCain saying that his precious image is more important than our right to show our support for the only candidate who shares our values and speaks for people like us?"
Repeated questions to the McCain campaign over whether campaign "branding" considerations might dictate seating arrangements behind the podium at televised events remained unanswered at press time.
The McCain campaign has for months been dogged by persistent rumors that the candidate is secretly a red-nosed, big-shoed, horn-honking clown, with some polls indicating that as much as 27% of the population believes this to be the case. There is widespread speculation that this may have made his campaign staff unusually sensitive to anything that might encourage such associations in the public eye.
yes we would have a different reaction if mccain did it, but then again no one has accused mccain of being muslim or said repeatedly on national television "senator john osama-i mean, mccain". i think the whole state of this issue sucks but it's the america we have and it's politics season, so learn to deal with it...
Note that such actions are "not the policy of the campaign." It was just a couple of renegade "campaign volunteers" who forgot the teachings of the Obama: Suffer the muslims and forbid them not to come unto me...
Let's just say, as a gay man and one determined to get an intelligent Democratic back in the White House, I would have enough sense to not try and sit behind Obama at a rally in my Tom of Finland t-shirt, rainbow afro wig, Elton John glasses while drinking a Cosmo and French Kissing my new California husband. And I wouldn't be shocked and horrified if an Obama minion politely asked me to move if I tried.
I can still be out and proud and sitting out of camera range until we get our man elected.
The public, especially the American public, is a fickle bastard/bitch. Obama might be ahead in the polls in mid-June, but it's a long haul until November and the Republicans have successfully used flim-flammery in the past to distract the ignorant masses.
My favorite part is where one of the women says she wants a personal phone call from Obama apologizing. Hey, Obama didn't ask you to move - a staffer did! So stop whining. There are plenty of other rallies (like the one right here in Seattle) where he had women behind him in Muslim headscarves, so the problem is NOT with Obama - it's some well-intentioned but kinda dumb staffers!
i was wondering where i can find sexism (#8) & bigotry (#4) in one place, in seattle? welcome to the slog!
i don't think this means obama is over, but everyone needs to admit that this scenario ("hijab-gate," if you will) is f-ed up on many levels.
i hope obama wins over mccain, but first, a few points:
1) obama's stance on israel/palestine is THE SAME as bush's (and clinton's for that matter) (As in, only one side is allowed to have bombs, and we'll (taxpayers) buy them!)
2) his stance on gay marriage is that he was to "protect the sanctity of marriage, that it is between a man and a woman." WTF?
ok at least he wants civil unions, but come on seattle..
so where's the liberal candidate in this election?? the US political scene blows - we're given a fake choice, just like last time around (two skull n' bones frat bros battling for prez).
ugh.
Clinton feminists love McCain, being called cunts, no abortions and burkas.
All I know is John McSame welcomes Muslims and encourages them to move here from their country of Antarctica every chance he gets, since they do important work translating for our troops as they torture the inhabitants of Iceland.
سوف نهزم NO-Bama في تشرين ثاني.
clintonsarmy is a white lady who can use babelfish. Spanish and Arabic so far. It's not working-- most of us multicultural ladies are smarter than she, and know that McCain does not represent our interests.
@28
Didn't you get the prime directive? A vote for McCain in 2008 equals a vote for Hillary in 2012.
Gah - changed press release to birth certificate. Although it would've been funnier if they'd demanded a press release.
ECB @ 30
So this post was an attempt at humor?
#8 is sexist?
Anyone want to tackle that one? I'm not sure where to begin.
yes you can.
I don't blame the campaign one bit. If John McCain's campaign had asked a row of rednecks wearing Confederate flag shirts to (politely) not have seat directly behind the candidate on camera, I wouldn't blame them either. Its not like they were kicked out of the rally entirely or told they weren't wanted....
What happened to those women was outrageous. #34 I hope you were being ironic. Comparing women in headdress to confederate rednecks: real nice.
See, this gaffe is actually a good thing.
1. We can end this "Obama is a muslim, muslim-lover, etc." bullshit.
2. Obama can apologize and blame it on Islamophobic Detroitites.
3. Michigan gets egg on its face as payback for their Hillary backing.
On a related note. You also mention someone demanding his birth certificate. Did they maybe think to go to his website?
http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/birthcert
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