He's Not White Or Black

All the recent media coverage celebrating our “first black president” makes me recall an interesting article in the Washington Post entitled He's Not Black.

Being in a interracial marriage and raising an interracial son, debates on ethnic identity sparked by Obama's election have a sense of urgency to me. How do I raise my son to be himself when society cannot decide what he is?

Barack Obama calls himself “Black” although his mother was a white woman from Kansas. He has brown skin and coarse hair. He identifies himself as what he looks like rather than what he is. Obama was raised during a time of racial tension in America when those with mixed heritage were often stuck in a cultural no-man's-land. In a sense he was forced to pick a side. In his book “Dreams From My Father” he says that he felt as a young man that people that identified themselves as interracial were betraying their fellow blacks as just “ordinary niggers.” (His words)

That young man eventually got his bearings and achieved greatness. The America that elected him president is very different than the one into which he was born. The political tensions surrounding race have dissipated, something America seems to have only fully realized once a brown-skinned man became president. Cultural assumptions based on ethnicity, however, are as prevalent as ever. Jamie Foxx commented at an inaugural ball that Obama's dance moves were proof “we definitely have a black president.” We are right to assume that culture and upbringing have an effect on a person, but it is absurd when we assign cultural identities to a people just because of their skin. Obama was raised by a white Kansan mother in Indonesia, but that doesn't matter. He is just “black.” You are what you appear to be.

It is this racial destiny assigned by looks that gave me anxiety when my wife was pregnant. I wondered how I a white man would raise a son that was identified by everyone as a black man. An unusual genetic shuffle, however, produced the opposite of what I anticipated. If Barack Obama is black, then my son is certainly white. His skin is lighter than mine and his hair is very straight. Even thought he looks just her, people seem to assume his beautiful, black mother is his babysitter. Throughout his life people will think he is white and make assumptions about him based on assigning him to this racial group.

My son may be light-skinned but he is not white nor do I want him to be. Obama may be dark-skinned but he is not black even though he calls himself that. Even the American categories of “white” and “black” are imprecise groupings of people of many ethnicities that where artificially created to justify slavery and segregation. It is true that culture and family affect an individual, but assigning culture based on skin tone is backward. Perhaps eons ago when humans rarely moved one could make accurate judgments about lineage and culture just by looking at a person's features, but in our interconnected world assumptions based on skin are more likely to mislead than inform.

Obama described his first innocent encounters with the world when “I was too young to realize I needed a race.” He doesn't need a race, nor does my son. Nor does anyone. A person's physical description doesn't necessitate a cultural classification. My son will probably always be fair-skinned, but that doesn't make him white and it definitely doesn't make him less his mother's child. He is who he is, and he can be proud of all of his heritage without having to pick or have one assigned to him.

The Washington Post wrote “We are racially sophisticated enough to elect a non-white president, and we are so racially backward that we insist on calling him black. Progress has outpaced vocabulary.” Racism may be nearly eradicated but Race with all its presumptions and misjudgments is alive and well. We can discuss our cultures and bodies without needing to draw these artificial lines between us. I hope my son is proud of all of his family and his heritage. He doesn't need to claim a color in order to have identity. He is himself and that should be enough.

Hope and Politics

It is with mixed emotions that I congratulate Barack Obama on becoming the president of the United States. It is an historic landmark for America to choose a man with brown skin to be our leader. After listening to my wife's grandfather, the grandson of a slave, tell stories of all the discrimination he received as a soldier fighting for his country, I understand why America needed this—and why my African American wife was excited to vote for Obama. Obama really is a great man, and having a president capable of articulating a vision for America will be a welcome change after 8 years of a president who seemed incapable of explaining his ideas or decisions.

As proud as I am to have a president with a similar interracial makeup to my son, I am also dismayed that this president would have wholeheartedly supported us in killing our son 6 months ago if we had decided he was inconvenient—even offering government funds to help terminate him.

My wife says that I am foolish to hope for leaders that always guide us toward what is better. America will never choose a president like Joe Schriner. Politicians (at least the ones capable of being elected) won't or can't save America from itself. Perhaps trying to stop evils committed by our nation through voting is misguided. After all politicians only enable us to do the injustices to our fellow man that we have already decided as a society that we wish to allow.

This election cycle has me discouraged about the willingness of American to vote for any real improvement in this nation. Several state ballot measures to limit abortion lost badly. It seems that the much touted “values voters” are only really energized to ban gays from getting marriage licenses, but aren't willing to stop the murder of unwanted infants (just as most “pro-life” politicians haven't done a thing to limit abortions). The unpopularity of the war in the campaign was only rivaled by Obama, who opposed the war, falling all over himself to assure us that he is very willing to strike other countries. It seems voters don't have the stomach to accept the sacrifices required either for war or sustained peace. American voters seem to expect war to be convenient, easy, and bloodless—things war will never be. Obama had to repeatedly reassure voters that he will not “spread around wealth,” because Americans would not tolerate being required to share their means with the needy. In the end this election was about the economy. The results imply that Americans vote for their money and convenience; right and wrong doesn't factor into most voters decisions at all.

After spending a great deal of time on politics here at the Gridbook Blog I wonder if I have fallen into the pitfall of imagining that real change can be effected through government. This election has been touted as a reemergence of “hope” in the political process. As much as I admire Obama personally and what he symbolizes as an interracial president, I have very low hopes for him. Just as our nation gets beyond the horrors of racism, we only more deeply ingrain our policy of infanticide. Having seen first-hand the devastation of abortion, the fragility of human life, and knowing that Obama supports this atrocity makes me skeptical of all the other good intentions he has.

But perhaps this is the problem of hope in politics—we hope for too much. I had high hopes for Bush 8 years ago too, and he has been a sore disappointment. The problem isn't politicians. It is ourselves. Humans are naturally a violent and selfish species, and no law or government will undo this tendency. It can only be changed from the inside, supernaturally.

So I have learned to vote my conscience, but without as much hopefulness that the political process can cure the ills of our society. Rather than hoping for the law to enforce social justice, non-violence, equality, and treatment of all with dignity, perhaps I must work harder to live out these values in my daily interactions. I may not change the world, but if I change the lives of a few people it will likely be worth more than every vote I ever cast.

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Presidential Endorsement: A Wasted Vote?

The Gridbook Blog proudly endorses Joe Schriner for President of the United States. Most of you are probably asking "Who?"

Out of all the people running for president this election (there are options other than the two you always hear about) Mr. Schriner is the only candidate who espouses Consistent Life positions. His political stances are consistently compassionate. His unyielding focus on human dignity and social justice is to be applauded. Although both major party candidates are honest and likable people, they both have serious defects in their positions on basic human rights. Schriner is usually right where the Obama and McCain are wrong.

The next question everyone asks is, "Why waste your vote writing in a candidate no one has even heard of?" I admit that Schriner will not win the election this year. I suppose if I choose the lesser of two evils and pick the Democrat or Republican ticket I would perhaps get to vote for the one who will become president. I would also ensure that every 4 years we would continue to get nothing but liberals and conservatives from which to select our leaders.

When I was 2 years old my parents got to vote for either Carter or Regan. Every election since with all the different names on the ballot the basic stances haven't changed. Americans are weary of both parties and their morally bankrupt conservative and liberal ideologies, but if we keep voting for Democrats and Republicans that have a chance to win no other party or ideology will ever have gain enough traction to be noticed. I don't want my infant son to grow up and have to pick the lesser of two evils from two candidates with different names but the same ideas as McCain and Obama.

Are you bold enough to waste your vote so our children don't have to waste theirs? Read up on Joe Schriner. You might find yourself excited about writing in a name Republicans and Democrats have never heard of.

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Genocide Reflects Poorly On Us

I'm watching the debate:

Barack Obama just said, “When genocide is happening... and we stand idly by, that reflects poorly on us.”

He was talking about genocide in foreign countries, but his words demonstrate how poorly his own indifference toward the systemic killing of unborn children in his own country reflects on him. Obama's commitment to justice is only matched by his callous blindness towards his own hand in horrible injustice.

It really is a shame. He could have been so much better than this.

Human Rights and Gut Reactions

I recently read a fascinating post by Frank Schaeffer on Huffington Post on political compromise in abortion. His approach is interesting and compelling enough that it deserves some response:

First of all I don't want to minimize the significance of the biggest liberal site on the net arguing that late abortions are brutal murders and that Democrats should overturn Roe v. Wade. I hope this this realization will be an important step in the gradual political progress that will hopefully lead us away from the violence of abortion.

The ethics of the post, however, are so problematic that they must be pointed out:

"To most Americans--including me--it is gut-check self-evident that a fertilized egg is not a person, because personhood is a lot more than a collection of chromosomes in a Petri dish or in the womb. To most Americans--including me--it is also gut-check self-evident that an unborn baby is mighty like one of us, and that a lot of fast talking about reproductive rights and choice or a woman's mental well being, doesn't answer the horror of a three-pound child with her head deliberately caved in lying in a medical waste receptacle. Perception is reality in politics, maybe in ethics too."

Human Rights should not be based on emotional gut reactions! Emotional reaction doesn't always lead to right ethics. A European 200 years ago would have said it was gut-check self-evident that people of color couldn't live without white supervision. It sometimes seems obvious that people who cut me off in traffic deserve to die. It seems gut-check obvious that torturing one terrorist would be alright if it might prevent attacks. Gut feelings sometimes lead to good deeds and sometimes lead to enslavement and genocide. We debate human rights because gut reactions aren't enough.

Schaeffer calls “absolutists” who would either permit or ban all abortions “stupid” and claims that they are ruining our hope for political progress in America. I disagree, absolutists are the only ones actually thinking about abortion. Schaffer believes most people could agree on First Trimester as a place to draw the legal line for terminating a pregnancy. But any line in the middle of a pregnancy would be arbitrary. What would make an 11-week 6-day fetus a piece of tissue that can be removed, and a 12-week fetus a person deserving of protection? Almost nothing. The development from one-cell to infant is gradual.

There are only two monumental changes that could be logical candidates for conferring human rights: conception and birth. If you deserve rights from conception then all abortion is murder—and we should not compromise on murder. If before birth no one deserving of rights exists in the uterus then shackling a woman for 9 months to a fetus she doesn't want is unjust imprisonment—and we should not compromise on imprisonment of the innocent. While these are extremes, they strike me as the only thoughtful approaches to abortion. We may compromise on all sorts of politics (economics, healthcare, taxes, immigration) but we shouldn't compromise on human rights.

Schaffer's idea might offer a workable political compromise. Drawing an arbitrary line at the end of the first trimester could let some voters rid themselves of the nagging gut reactions that unsettle them now. Such a compromise would work like the “moderate” policy of whites in America between the Civil War and Civil Rights. Whites wanted to acknowledge the humanity of blacks while denying them legal equality or political power. Human rights compromises may work politically for a time but they are inherent contradictions that struggle under the weight of their own absurdity. Only one side can be right. Only one idea will win in the end. I can only hope that eventually a great human rights movement like the one lead by Martin Luther King will bring our divided culture to agree on the moral bankruptcy of killing unborn humans at any stage.

Schaffer is both insightful and correct on one assertion: If Obama loses this election it will be because of the voters like me who would have happily voted for him except for his unwavering support for abortion.

An Open Letter to Senator Obama

Dear Senator Obama,

I hope that out of the many letters your receive every day you have an opportunity to read this and consider my words. First I must say that I admire your dedication to social justice, equality, and peaceableness, as well as your deep sincerity. On a personal level as part of an interracial marriage and the father of a biracial son I would feel deeply proud to see a man such as yourself in the presidency. I will not, however, be able to support you in your run for the presidency due to your support for legalized abortion, which contradicts all the ideals that you espouse in your speeches.

In your book “The Audacity of Hope” you imply that opposition to abortion is a primarily theologic concern, and thus while it must be respected it is foreign to the realm of politics. Nothing could be further from the truth! Claiming that opposing abortion requires a faith inaccessible to the uninitiated ignores the universality of human rights. To segregate basic respect for our fellow human beings to the church does a disservice to the rest of the nation. If people of faith were the first to oppose injustices such as slavery, inequality, and mistreatment of women it is not because these issues were only theological, but because religious people sometimes have a heightened sensitivity to real wrongs.

My personal awareness that this is more than some “political issue” was when I was fifteen years old and my mother told me that I was scheduled to be aborted myself and I had two older siblings who had been killed by abortion. Then I understood that abortion is not some abstract issue but a real violence destroying real humans. When I became a physician my mother asked that I use my influence as a doctor to help prevent abortions and help other women and families avoid the devastation that legalized abortion had on us.

In your explanation of your abortion position you said you support unrestricted access to abortion because the act is never done without the woman “wrestling with her conscience.” While this certainly should change our perspective on women who terminate their fetuses (compassion instead of judgement) the difficulty of the decision doesn't make the outcome (killing a fellow human) any less wrong. If you read in a history book that a slave owner or participant in genocide had deep misgivings about their actions this should elicit your sympathy, but the result for their victims (death and enslavement) becomes no less wrong because it was hard for their oppressors to do it. Nor should empathy for those who feel they have no choice but to act violently prevent their fellow citizens from restraining this violence and demonstrating a more peaceable way.

Senator Obama, as someone who champions human dignity and recognizes that our rights as individuals should not allow us to trample our weaker neighbors I would expect that you would be pro-life or at least more neutral on abortion. As someone who has been moved by your writings and speeches, I hope that your unwavering support for abortion is a blind spot you have carelessly inherited from the Democratic Party platform, rather than any true hypocrisy of the humane values you claim to espouse. Having read your books I really believe the sincerity of your values. I also believe it is not mere rhetoric when you say that you deeply respect me as a pro-life American. But your respect for me and your pronouncements of sympathy towards pro-life values are no comfort when the outcome for the victims is the same. Unborn Americans are being killed by the thousands everyday and as president you would do nothing to defend them.

Were it not for your position on this single issue I could have wholeheartedly supported your run for president, but instead I must vote against you and invest all my political energies into opposing your election.

Despite my opposition, however, I believe that you will become the next president of the United States. So as you enter your presidency I beg you to reflect on your values and reconsider your duties to human beings not yet born. You could use the “historic moment” of your presidency to lead America towards a more compassionate way that protects all the weak from violence. Like you, I am optimistic that the recognition of human dignity by political power will someday make our nation and world a better place. Future generations will judge our lack of action. If you do not realize that human rights apply to all humans another reformer one day will, and I fear that history will judge you harshly for your blind spot—like the early American leaders who spoke boldly about liberty and kept fellow humans as slaves.

Thank your for taking the time to read this letter and consider its contents. I pray that you exceed all my expectations and prove all my concerns wrong, and become the sort of leader America so desperately needs.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Davis