A human for president!
By Debby Tewes
When the current Presidential race kicked off a year ago, I remember heaving a sigh of relief as change was imminent and I hoped that it would be for the
good. I also hoped that it meant we could once again say that we were Americans and not wonder if it inspired anger or interest on the part of others from
around the world. While I have not had a chance to travel abroad in recent years, I have talked to friends who have. Several told me that the countries they
visited, such as Jordan and Greece, were less than welcoming. Our foreign policy has not endeared us to other nations as of late. It is clear that we are long
overdue for a change in government and foreign policy. With luck and clear understanding of the issues, the person we elect will be able to effect that change
and restore America to the position of respect that made this a country that people looked to for inspiration and leadership.
It was also encouraging to see the mix of candidates. I was pleased to see that I live in a time where a woman and a man of mixed ethnic heritage were
candidates. Even in the lesser elections, men and women of diverse backgrounds are running for office. A man of Indian heritage, Bobby Jindal, has been
elected governor of Louisiana and is rumored to be a possible running mate for John McCain. An Austrian body builder and actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the
governor of California. In our own state, women and men of color are holding more elected offices with more entering various races on a regular basis. Many
more people of color are serving in administrative positions, advisory positions and in judiciary areas at all levels of government. Here in Wisconsin, a Hmong
man, Peng Her, is running for Wis. Assembly District 81.
Why is it that running for the highest office in the land is now becoming a flashpoint for the concept of race? I was especially intrigued because Senator
Barack Obama’s mother was an anthropologist by training and a child of my generation. She was also someone whose life was cut short by a disease that has
touched my family: breast cancer. Obama’s mother was twice married to men of other cultures and much has been made of the fact that Obama’s father was a
Muslim. Her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, was also Muslim (but many Indonesians are). During his childhood in Indonesia, Obama was educated in a
multicultural school that included children of many religious backgrounds. Obama has described his mother, Ann Dunham, as a secular humanist but others
have also described her as an atheist. At the same time, she felt it was important for her children to know the wisdom of all religions, as each contained truths.
To me, all religions share a common thread and hopefully, provide a moral compass to make our way through a confusing world. Too often these threads are
unraveled by people who hate and hide behind the words to which they have applied their own interpretations.
Anthropologists tend to take a world view by virtue of what they study, the human race (not races). We learn that the DNA that makes us human is common to
all of us with subtle adaptations based on the environments in which our ancestors developed. Skin color, body shape and even eye shape are adaptations that
allowed our ancient ancestors to adapt to the climates in which they lived. White skin tends to favor people in cold climates since they must absorb the
maximum amount of sunlight and vitamin D during the short time it is available from the summer sun. They also tend to be shorter limbed to maximize heat
retention. Dark skin provides protection from the dangerous effects of the sun for people who are exposed to it constantly. Thus, people who live in warmer, sunny
climates tend to have darker skin. But underneath the superficial exteriors, we are exactly the same species, Homo Sapiens. And until the time we finally meet
that “one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater” from somewhere out beyond, we all share common ancestors if we look back far enough. (And according
to recent discoveries, our DNA and RNA may have been mixed with alien space dust from a meteor!)
It is my fervent hope that people will view Barack Obama as a candidate who could bring wisdom and thoughtfulness to the highest office in our land. He is
not an African American; he is not defined by a religion or its fringe elements; he is not too young to do the job and yet he is shaped by all of those things. He is
also someone who is willing to take on one of the toughest jobs in our country, a job that has been made that much more difficult by the policies of his
predecessors. It is time for Americans to move past the silly “racial” notions of our parents and grandparents. While there may be cultural nuances to a person’s
heritage, one thing I’ve learned is that all of us care about the future and the future of our children. We all come into this world in the same way and we all
leave it in the same state sooner or later and what matters is how we use the time between, as wiser men have said.
This election has proved that we are making progress, in that one of the candidates was a woman (and I don’t know if we should count her completely out
yet in some form). Just a generation ago, a female candidate for President was unthinkable. Why, even women voting had to be legislated, as if we were too
fragile to make such a weighty decision. As I pointed out in an earlier article, women got the vote even later than African American men.
So, let us try to make this election about the person whom we trust to lead our country out of the quagmire we find ourselves in. I hold no illusions that the
concept of race, and the bigotry that goes hand in hand with racial stereotypes, will be erased any time soon. Hopefully, in the near future, the only true person
of another race will be that being who steps out of the first UFO to make actual contact with us and utters the clichéd phrase “take me to your leader” and we can
point to the man or woman of color in the Oval Office and let them deal with it!
When the current Presidential race kicked off a year ago, I remember heaving a sigh of relief as change was imminent and I hoped that it would be for the
good. I also hoped that it meant we could once again say that we were Americans and not wonder if it inspired anger or interest on the part of others from
around the world. While I have not had a chance to travel abroad in recent years, I have talked to friends who have. Several told me that the countries they
visited, such as Jordan and Greece, were less than welcoming. Our foreign policy has not endeared us to other nations as of late. It is clear that we are long
overdue for a change in government and foreign policy. With luck and clear understanding of the issues, the person we elect will be able to effect that change
and restore America to the position of respect that made this a country that people looked to for inspiration and leadership.
It was also encouraging to see the mix of candidates. I was pleased to see that I live in a time where a woman and a man of mixed ethnic heritage were
candidates. Even in the lesser elections, men and women of diverse backgrounds are running for office. A man of Indian heritage, Bobby Jindal, has been
elected governor of Louisiana and is rumored to be a possible running mate for John McCain. An Austrian body builder and actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the
governor of California. In our own state, women and men of color are holding more elected offices with more entering various races on a regular basis. Many
more people of color are serving in administrative positions, advisory positions and in judiciary areas at all levels of government. Here in Wisconsin, a Hmong
man, Peng Her, is running for Wis. Assembly District 81.
Why is it that running for the highest office in the land is now becoming a flashpoint for the concept of race? I was especially intrigued because Senator
Barack Obama’s mother was an anthropologist by training and a child of my generation. She was also someone whose life was cut short by a disease that has
touched my family: breast cancer. Obama’s mother was twice married to men of other cultures and much has been made of the fact that Obama’s father was a
Muslim. Her second husband, Lolo Soetoro, was also Muslim (but many Indonesians are). During his childhood in Indonesia, Obama was educated in a
multicultural school that included children of many religious backgrounds. Obama has described his mother, Ann Dunham, as a secular humanist but others
have also described her as an atheist. At the same time, she felt it was important for her children to know the wisdom of all religions, as each contained truths.
To me, all religions share a common thread and hopefully, provide a moral compass to make our way through a confusing world. Too often these threads are
unraveled by people who hate and hide behind the words to which they have applied their own interpretations.
Anthropologists tend to take a world view by virtue of what they study, the human race (not races). We learn that the DNA that makes us human is common to
all of us with subtle adaptations based on the environments in which our ancestors developed. Skin color, body shape and even eye shape are adaptations that
allowed our ancient ancestors to adapt to the climates in which they lived. White skin tends to favor people in cold climates since they must absorb the
maximum amount of sunlight and vitamin D during the short time it is available from the summer sun. They also tend to be shorter limbed to maximize heat
retention. Dark skin provides protection from the dangerous effects of the sun for people who are exposed to it constantly. Thus, people who live in warmer, sunny
climates tend to have darker skin. But underneath the superficial exteriors, we are exactly the same species, Homo Sapiens. And until the time we finally meet
that “one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater” from somewhere out beyond, we all share common ancestors if we look back far enough. (And according
to recent discoveries, our DNA and RNA may have been mixed with alien space dust from a meteor!)
It is my fervent hope that people will view Barack Obama as a candidate who could bring wisdom and thoughtfulness to the highest office in our land. He is
not an African American; he is not defined by a religion or its fringe elements; he is not too young to do the job and yet he is shaped by all of those things. He is
also someone who is willing to take on one of the toughest jobs in our country, a job that has been made that much more difficult by the policies of his
predecessors. It is time for Americans to move past the silly “racial” notions of our parents and grandparents. While there may be cultural nuances to a person’s
heritage, one thing I’ve learned is that all of us care about the future and the future of our children. We all come into this world in the same way and we all
leave it in the same state sooner or later and what matters is how we use the time between, as wiser men have said.
This election has proved that we are making progress, in that one of the candidates was a woman (and I don’t know if we should count her completely out
yet in some form). Just a generation ago, a female candidate for President was unthinkable. Why, even women voting had to be legislated, as if we were too
fragile to make such a weighty decision. As I pointed out in an earlier article, women got the vote even later than African American men.
So, let us try to make this election about the person whom we trust to lead our country out of the quagmire we find ourselves in. I hold no illusions that the
concept of race, and the bigotry that goes hand in hand with racial stereotypes, will be erased any time soon. Hopefully, in the near future, the only true person
of another race will be that being who steps out of the first UFO to make actual contact with us and utters the clichéd phrase “take me to your leader” and we can
point to the man or woman of color in the Oval Office and let them deal with it!
Debby Tewes is Asian Wisconzine's
correspondent in the Milwaukee
area.
correspondent in the Milwaukee
area.