Obama’s Little Asian Sister
July 9, 2008
The Chicago Sun Times featured Barack Obama’s younger half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, who the Obama campaign hopes will help bring votes from the Asian American community. Her mother is Ann Dunham, who grew up in Kansas and later moved to Seattle and Hawai‘i, but her father was Indonesian businessman Lolo Soetoro. Maya is married to Chinese Canadian Konrad Ng. Though her father was a Muslim, she is Buddhist, and she would be the first Asian relation to the first family if Obama is elected.
According to the story, the Obama campaign downplayed race at first and made more efforts to win over Hispanics. They glossed over Obama’s years in Jakarta, living with his stepfather between 1967 and 1971, and growing up in the predominantly Asian state of Hawai‘i. Soetoro-Ng is nine years younger than Obama, and she looked up to him after her mother divorced and moved away from her father. She followed Barack into the same elite Punahou School that Barack’s grandfather got him into. She said that he “has a lot of affection for Asian cultures.” It was noted that Asian American voters are about 5 percent of the population, but my figures show Asians should be 2 or 3 percent of voters, as 56 percent of Asians favored Democrat John Kerry in 2004.
Is Barack Obama a … Liar?
Obama’s campaign states that he is not, and has never been, a communist, er, Muslim. His campaign even apologized for chasing away Muslims who were visible on camera at a campaign event. When Fox’s Bonney Kapp interviewed Obama, he stated that his mother was a Christian, “so I’ve always been a Christian. I’ve never practiced Islam.”
Yet according to his book Dreams From My Father, he wasn’t baptized until 1988. He attended “the Muslim school” where he “made faces during Quranic studies.” Worldnet Daily notes a friend who says that he went with Obama to play and prayed in a mosque, though “not really seriously.” Sister Maya stated they attended mosque for big communal events, though not every Friday. High school friend Maxine Box remembers that Dunham touted herself as an atheist, not a Christian.
In January 1968, Obama was registered as a Muslim even at Jakarta’s Roman Catholic Franciscus Assisi Primary School. Obama’s father was buried as a Muslim, and all of his Kenyan family were Muslim. It’s just as significant for America to elect a president of Muslim heritage - why would he run away from that?
Wesley Clark says McCain’s getting shot down has nothing to do with being a president. Yet George Bush Sr. was shot down in his TBF Avenger, and John F. Kennedy’s PT 109 got run over by a destroyer. Thank goodness “Obamania” still hasn’t pulled Obama more than a few points ahead of McCain. At least McCain and his friends don’t say outrageously stupid things every week, or promise the U.S. will hand over Iraq to the insurgency within 16 months of entering the White House.
Related articles:
Obama’s Sister a Second Face of Diversity: Maya Soetoro-Ng greets Obama supporters during S.F. visit
Comments
7 Responses to “Obama’s Little Asian Sister”
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Arthur, you’re a horrible columnist,but AsianWeek must keep you for the web hits.
People can learn the truth about Barack Obama’s faith here: http://tinyurl.com/39obvt
You didn’t even come close to supporting the subheadline attacking Sen. Obama.
Finally, on the Wesley Clark statement, you misquoted Gen. Clark. What he said was: “I don’t think that riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”
That is not the same as “nothing to do” with being President.
And McCain says something stupid all the time. Just today:
Talking to reporters at Primanti Bros. in the Strip District, McCain was asked for his reaction to an Associated Press report that $158 million in cigarettes had been shipped from the United States to Iran during President Bush’s years in office, despite restrictions on U.S. exports there.
“Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” McCain joked, drawing laughs from the crowd of journalists. A poke in the back from Cindy McCain preceeded his quick clarification: “I meant that as a joke — as a person who hasn’t had a cigarette in 28 years.”
You’re going to be AsianWeek’s next Kenneth Eng.
Obama makes the most careless comments:
http://www.angryasianman.com/2008/06/obama-talks-about-basketball-and-short.html
So a “typical white person” has unreasonable fear of blacks, small town folks are bitter, and Asians are short.
I wonder if Obama, once elected, would routinely make Asian jokes on national TV.
I don’t care what Obama’s religion is, I’m secular myself.
I do, however, refuse to pay reparations for slavery which I played no part of. Apparently, Obama’s supporters believe that immigrants, such as Asian-Americans, owe blacks reparations checks:
http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur44959.cfm
Not another Asian - You just pointed to the ridiculous lying official Obama page. The guy in his own book says he went to a muslim school, he has a muslim name, he had two muslim fathers, everyone else in his father’s family was a muslim, his friends and his sister says they went to mosque, his mother and father told two schools he was muslim, he give zero evidence he ever practiced christianty before joined the church that teaches that all whites (and some Asians) oppress all blacks (and some Asians) The guy has zero integrity to not only state that he has never been a muslim, it’s even worse to claim that he’s always been a Christian. On the other hand he DOES have communist connections, in his book he states he sought out marxist professors, and “frank” was known to have contacts with Communist party peoplel. Not that it will matter to Obama supporters, but it sure matters to the rest of us if Obama hangs out with people who blew up government buildings for laughs, believe in kooky black liberation / conspiracy theories, and got busted for drugs.
McCain on the other hand says exactly what he believes, no matter how much conservatives or liberals hate him for it, and I DO think he’s funy. McCain never called his father or grandfather, both admirals a “bitter drunk”. Read Obama’s book and compare what drives him, a journey in search a caricature of blackness with what drives McCain, a tradition of service to county and military tradition. Which will most Americans view as presidential material?
I personally don’t care if Obama’s Muslim. He’s most likely an agnostic/atheist, but simply downplaying any Muslim connection because Muslims are generally disliked in the U.S.
I do, think, though, that he should watch his mouth. His remark about Asians being short is an indication of his hostility towards Asians. Some Asians, like Ramey Ko at Asian-Americans for Obama, see nothing wrong with such “factual statements”:
“I’ll take jokes about being short over being called a gook by John McCain any day.
Besides, Obama was stating a fact; many folks I know from Hawaii have mentioned numerous times that AAPIs in Hawaii are shorter on average and that was even more the case in the 70s when Obama was in high school. While I would never condone going around mentioning this for no reason, it does make a very real difference when you play competitive basketball. Obama’s fellow athletes in high school have also noted that he was only able to dunk regularly because he usually played against a smaller group of opponents; he’s tall, but not THAT tall.
Posted by: Ramey Ko | July 10, 2008 at 11:28 AM”
What if an Asian-American politician made a “factual statement” that he was a top student at a predominantly black school because blacks, as everyone knows, are unintelligent and lazy, and offered little competition? I bet that would end his political career.
Speaking of McCain’s “gook” comment back in 2000, McCain was referring to those who tortured and tormented him for six years in Hanoi Hilton. I have read McCain’s FAITH OF MY FATHERS, and I think I would hate those “gooks” all my life too, if I were McCain. Nonetheless, McCain aplogized for his remark. Would the Asian supporters of Obama demand apology from Obama for his casual slight of Asians? They better, because if Obama doesn’t apologize, there will be riots in Chinatowns all over the U.S.
McCain has an adopted Asian daughter… so I doubt he has any ill feelings towards Asians.
Guys:
The “good” news here is that Michael Moore has promulgated an “Obama/Kennedy,” Caroline, that is, ticket.
The “bad” news is that some Republican posts are worried about a possible? “McCain/Lieberman” ticket.
And “no” news is awarthur’s latest from Beijing. Forced to make a choice, I prefer his latterday “reviews” of old old movies.
Frank Eng
P.S.: Please note that Info Clearing House online also admits of the likes of Joel Hirshhorn, who, today, urges one and all to vote either McKinney OR Nader, just so’s Billary can have another shot at it come 2012. Under McCain and whoever, he prognosticates, things can only get worse, worse enough to spark a genuine “change” in American politics. Meanwhile, note well the diminishing responses from the Beltway, INCLUDING the Pentagon, in re that other “Georgia” on our minds. Will “history” eventually prove another “Cold War” the savior of humankind on this globe? With or without pastel nooses in place of Olympics rings? And could Afghanistan prove a muckier/murkier morass than Iraq? Other than Pakistan already promises, that is.