Desi Obama’s New Race Cards

By: Emil Guillermo, Aug 21, 2008

Tags: Columns, Emil Amok |

White and South Asian

At his $8 million San Francisco fund-raiser on Aug. 17, Barack Obama proclaimed to South Indian high donors, “I’m a desi.”

So who’s his running mate — Lucy? Nothing like a generational joke about a pioneering, very public mixed marriage couple (Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz who was not a desi but a Cubano) to get this week’s column started.

B.O., an agent for change, has done a little Lucy-like (as in Australopithecus) digging from among the bones of ancient Democratic presidential aspirants to unearth the most hyped vice-presidential possibility thus far: Sen. Joe Biden. Now that the liberal Delaware dinosaur’s hair plugs look more natural, he’s ready for his close-up!

Biden came on the scene 17 years ago as the chair of the Senate Judiciary committee presiding over the infamous Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings. Biden could have been a bit harder on Thomas, Bush One’s affirmative action pick to the High Court. He certainly could have done more to prevent Hill from being a victim of a GOP race-card ploy.

But now the senator finds himself as the front-runner to become Obama’s “white race card,” the person who could bridge white fears and multi-colored hopes.

If Biden is the choice for second banana this weekend, view it as Obama’s level best at what I call “Clinton avoidance.”

To win it all, Obama needs the appeal of his former rival Hillary Clinton or a reasonable facsimile — quick. His star is fading faster than the paint on an aging Nader Corvair. A new Reuters/Zogby poll showed John McCain taking a five-point lead among likely voters—46 percent to 41 percent. The McCain resurgence gives him the lead for the first time and wipes out a 7-point advantage Obama held in some polls back in July.

But is it enough to make B.O. choose Hillary as his mate? Hmm, are there enough legs in the pantsuit?

Enter Biden, with a set of Hillary-like traits. He’s strong in foreign policy and plays to blue-collar whites. And if you can forgive him for letting Thomas onto the Supreme Court, then he may be acceptable to most people of color.

Obama may do anything he needs to win—except tap Hillary as his homegirl. Barring that, Biden appears to be a quick fix for what Obama needs: the best available male version of Hillary.

Obama’s preferred Asian-race card
A Biden pick might appease those 80-20 types, but it may not work for everyone. Believe it or not, there are still some die-hard Clinton loyalists among Asian Americans, hoping for a miracle at the Democratic convention next week in Denver.

Perhaps that’s why the Asian American presence at the San Francisco fund-raiser last Sunday was a tad different. Obama played an Asian race card. But it wasn’t what you’d expect in the city that’s about 30 percent Chinese.

At a time when unity among Asian Americans should be key, Obama differentiated South Asians and Pacific Islanders from the broader group and then told a South Asian crowd, “I am a desi.”

Desi, of course, refers to South Asian immigrants, who were plentiful at the big Fairmont Hotel gathering.
What was Obama doing? Showing us he’s Piyush “Bobby” Jindal’s evil twin?

That the South Asians and Pacific Islanders got special treatment possibly is the work of San Francisco DA Kamala Harris, of South Asian descent herself, and a key B.O. point person. The more obvious reason is that South Asians are writing out campaign checks with zeal.

Hey, you want me to say “I’m a desi?” That will be $2,300, please!

Why else would Obama shine a light on the South Asian and Pacific Islanders from the bulk in our group—Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Southeast Asian?

The South Asian community has grown to more than 3 million in the U.S. Last month Democrats tapped key South Asian capitalists like Yahoo’s Dilawar Syed to milk it.

That’s great. But if Obama’s goal is to instill a sense of unity, it would have been to group us all together as Democrats have in the past, so that the diversity within the broader APIA moniker could shine (Obama did hold an APIA fund-raiser in July in D.C.; but when he comes to the most Asian city in the nation, South Asians are highlighted?)

What will he say before a group of Chinese who remain on the fence right up to the convention? Or to Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese,et al? Will he lead them in a Bollywood rendition of “God Bless America”?

In campaign mode, Obama just appears to be too glib and chameleon-like for his own good (you didn’t see many direct answers during that “purpose-filled” interview with Rick Warren the other day). And when B.O.’s in fund-raising mode, he’s incorrigible, saying anything for a buck, shunning public financing so that he can raise and spend donations at an historic rate. This is the candidate of change? Or the candidate of calculated ambition?

The convention in Denver is billed as “Americans coming together for change.” B.O. will get his chance to convince us again why he’s the one who can redirect us to a new path toward peace and prosperity. His dipping poll numbers set him up well for an oratorical lift. Will he deliver? Will it sustain him to November? We shall see.

KNBR’s Tolbert says ‘Chinaman,’ then apologizes.
Racist blurting is second nature for KNBR Radio’s Tom Tolbert. But did he really apologize for saying “Chinaman” the first time he said it? Read the blog at

E-mail: emil@amok.com

Comments

Emil:
Who’s playing the intrarace card here?
And does B.O. stand for body odor?
Wanna bet the Billarites will play the “unity” card come the Denver dance?
P.S.: “Hair plugs”? C’mon. And maybe Michael Moore knows more than his “Obama/Kennedy” ticket evinces.

–Frank Eng on Aug 22, 2008
That column was one of the best analyses of Obama that I have read in a long time. I am an older WASP who has travelled and done business in Asia but I wasn’t aware of the term “desi”. Didn’t Obama grow up in Indonesia? How can he not be aware of the vast differences in cultures and peoples in Asia - even within each county’s borders?

–Ellen Dunthorne on Aug 22, 2008
I’m a “desi” ?
or “Ich bin ein Berliner” ?
B.O. has spent a few years in Indonesia as elementary student, is that what he calls his “international” expertise?
Does he know that there are other major Asian ethnic groups in the US ? Many also with deep pockets,
but not just the Indians ?
Probably he resents the fact that most of the ethnic-Asians harbour some kinds of distrust of the blacks, so far, according to polls.
Something for pondering, seriously.

–MOCKBA on Aug 22, 2008
Barack Obama has eyes/ears only to people he is sucking for money, his god. He is a phony.
America deserves the BEST !
NOOBAMA !
Hillary or McCain ‘08

–IndayHill on Aug 22, 2008
It’s Barack O’Biden.
Check out the blog at http://www.amok.asianweek.com for the latest.

–Emil Guillermo on Aug 23, 2008
Dear Ellen Dunthorne:
May I suggest that you read today’s online piece by Alex Cockburn on CounterPunch?
That should gladden your heart.
But, Emil, you too should read same, for it puts your pretensions to punditry to shame. Well, at least it makes yours pale by comparison.
That said, in light of today’s Joe Biden blusterings, on both sides, please pay a bit of attention to the Norman G. Lisnoff contrib to Info Clearing House on “the long silence” of Jewish-Americans in re Palestine?
Point is that the “real” “Jew” is finally emerging in his/her true colors, that of Tevya and not of -yahu.
As with ALL nations, ALL peoples, ALL creeds, it’s not state, nor ethnicity, nor “religion” that factors. It’s the rich and the powerful vis-a-vis the dispossessed and powerless.
Whilst the “media,” such as they are, insist that the Putins “invaded” “Georgia,” and we continue to “smart” bomb, willy-nilly Afghani “targets” of reference, in the process MURDERING 76 civilians, 50 of them children, I ask you, WHERE have you placed your conscience?
But. to get back to matters that matter, at least in these here benighted states of Amurrika, the upcoming “election” come November, once more repeats the cycle.
Of JFK/Johnson, of realpolitiking ever so delicately, between the “hopes” and “fears” of the electorate.
Today;s gaggle of cable, “networks” too, pundits of puny resources and punnier employers nosh on and on, as always, on the chewy irrelevances of surface perceptions, as with residual and smouldering Clintonista complications.
No, folks, the complications for Obama have little to do with Billary and everything to do with RACISM.
Which, as always, is alive and not all that well today in America.
An America that, childishly and blindly, insists that WE are the sole messengers and purveyors of civilization, barring an opening Olympics ceremony, a child-”gymnast” (”acrobat” would serve better), a putative “invasion” of a “sovereign nation” other than our own such, this one a verity, in Iraq — both “hist6ry” and the world at large will beg to differ.
What we did in “Georgia,” and every nation has its own Saakashvilis, like our Dubyous one, and the one in Tehran, tieless and as innocent of culture and civilization as any yahu ANYwhere, we appear to be doing as well today in Bolivia.
One of the poorest of colonial satrapies that has suffered some four? centuries of colonial largesse and which has. finally, risen up to challenge their tormentors.
Are YOU, as an “American,” PROUD of this administration and this nation’s historic bullyings of EVERYone else?
Had we the sense and the smarts to have simply rested on the laurels of the promulgated and hyped “dream” of that glittering city on the hill that promised humanity both its validation AND its realization, then we would have, indeed, fulfilled the America of Whitman, of the American Friends Society, of the “America,” I, for one, would “salute,” withou nary a “redneck” “patriot” standing behind me. I would never let one reach said position.
Folks, it’s not Gotterdaemerung yet. Maybe not even that “final” confrontation between “good” and “evil,” nor Apocalypse, albeit the last obtains in far too many places, and that, largely, because “we” have been stupidly fomenting and promulgating mischief and insurrection where reason and MORALITY would dictate communication, commiseration, and, then, one would hope, accommodation. One to the other,
“Jews” today, and I am not referring to the “settlers,” the Likud, the IDF, OR, particularly, Mossad, are not so much a “race” or a “religion” or even a “creed” so much as they are, in fact, the victims of their own “success” in the realm of spin and hype and promo.
The Jews I knew and love are NOT the “Jews” who are the antithesis of THE Holocaust, who are, in fact and in action, the new Nazis.
What an irony!
Martin Buber would well spin in his grave.
And, may I?, remind one and all of the ever-classic
The Prophet,” by fellow Levantine, one Kahlil Gibran, an “author” eminently to be emulated. At least, try.
For the rest, at the very very least, try NOT to land the first blow, even as you dodge the one coming your way. Like a nation of fearful, selfish serfs of hubristic lords of neverneverlands of “hegemony.”
Frank Eng
P.S.: Emil, being clever ain’t nearly enough. You gotta get NEAR the “truth,” whatever that is, or may be. But you have to make the effort.

–Frank Eng on Aug 24, 2008
Frank Eng, thank you.
And Emil, I am saddened that you claim to represent “the voice of Asian America”. I can’t see any of my voice in your articles.
I have been seeing a strong anti-Obama sentiment in the Asian community, and to me it seems that much of it is tied to an inherent anti-blackness that all of us- Indians, Chinese, Filipinos and everything in between- have in our cultures. As hard as it is to admit, we, too, are racist.

–Smee on Aug 24, 2008
Dear Smee:
Thank you. I hope, but believe not, that I deserve your approbation.
But that is irrelevant.
Folks, please, allow me, permit me, to vent and rant and let it all hang out here, as no properly raised “Chinese,” American or not, would even contemplate.
But . . .
That I should live so long . . .
in such “interesting times” . . .
and still hold my glass of box-red in hand to toast and salute and embrace EVERYone, who lays claim to “good will” towards others.
My parents taught me NEVER to “crow.” For myself, that is. But, perhaps, it may be meet and proper to “crow” for the likes of the so-called “Beijing Olympics”?
When I watched the telly version of the “opening” ceremenoines, I thought, dear God!, how hubristic.
How could they ever hope to top same with the “closing” ceremenoiers?
Well, tnnight, for what I could glean of it, what with my failing vision and nonhearing, those huckster DID it.
And they did so not merely by c0otinuing and developing and resolving the opening “theme,” the deux ex machina here was the “free” flow and mingling of ALL the athletes and competitors, now brothers and sisters whatever the color or creed or persuasion.
Was Phelps absent? If so, it was his “loss” here. For the rest, underaged or no, my message to the haters and baziters, yes, you, you self-styled “Human Rights” gang of “the West.”
Why have you not trumpeted, alongside Tibet and Darfur, the UNholy inhumanities extant in Palestine?
Or, for that matter, almost anywhere else on this globe, including our own “inner cities” and the institutionalized “legal” oppressions thereof.
Huang Fong, more “American” than most of you, generously credits the authentic American sense of both “fair play” and honesty, in that Americans are no worse than any other tribe or tribulation.
But, to date, and especially in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where we are STUPIDLY following in the footsteps of the Russkis, are we ANY “better”?
I say we are NOT. In caps. Until we begin to fathom the juvey, self-serving, and hateful likes of our global behavior.
If our CIA were reined in, and out young people sent out to help, not hinder, the best possibilities of people all over this globe, of every race, creed, and “color,” then, then would be America’s sanctity and sainthood.
But, until the day we can begin to address our own faults and shortcomings, so l0ng shall we rue the day. And the seeming night of our irrevocably “joined” existences.
And, by the way, note ye well that the i ncredibly staged, conceoved as well, Zhang?, Spielberg?, whoever, is/was, in these eyes, NOT “Chinese.”
Themes and execution may have been, but, at heart, the strikingly beautiful and incredibly evocative stagings and settings and performance were strictly “international,” contemporary and all-embracive.
Finally, I have “news” for those naysayers who attempt to ring in the likes of the Berlin Olympics, OR the mass stagings of North Korea — you are so wrong, you may well be “right” of the center, the core, the heart, of humanity, the last a concept you, at best, address only by half, and that, likely, the lesser.Half, that is.
Frank Eng
P.S.: Smee, please, do NOT, I repeat, NOT, sweat the fact that Asians are every bit as “racist” as anyone else. The trick here is to RISE above same, something each and very one of us can and MUST do, if we even have a “Chinaman’s chance” to reach the “gold” of justice and simple, “common” human decency.

–Frank Eng on Aug 24, 2008
Oh, and I must apologize for my typos.
Maria?, and whoever wondered what “iotending” meant, sorry, sad fingers, and poor eyes in the copy reading, and far too tired of a late-night to reconsider.
Whatever, YOUR “English” is far better than my “Spanish,” and, besides, only the idea, the thought counts. And, on that count, “slanted eyes” can ONLY be construed as jeering. And, I wonder about the Catalan and the Basque. Are you familiar, beyond Gaudi, with the incomparable “Songs of the Auvergne” They must rank with the best of your flamencfo.

–Frank Eng on Aug 24, 2008
Once more, into the breach . . .
Apologies to Huang Fong.
In my first quick scan of his observations, I noted only the surface, neglecting to savor the subtext of irony and satire, richly deserved.
All the screaming, AND “whining” notwithstanding, does anyone adult enough to comprehend, much less come to grips with, ADULT problems and everyday conundrums give much more than the time of day to “medals” and “records” and passing “accomplishments” like the Olympics?
Albeit I am more than aware of the effort, the discipline, the “training,” AND “dedication” involved.
But none of it is worth one single life sacrificed in the eight years past especially, since most would have been “saved” had we not followed the idiocies prescribed by our theoneocons and that Dubyous crowd in the Beltway and Pentagon.
Which we appear to be returning to a “third term” come November.
That is, unloess the “majority,” who “vote,” that is, come to their senses and recognize idiocies when they smell it.

–Frank Eng on Aug 25, 2008

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