Disappointment with the Obama campaign: Muslims barred from picture at Obama Detriot event

[TeamJordan23]

I don't place the blame on Barack himself, but some of his campaign staff needs to quit acting over zealous about public perception and need to match his message for new politics. Nonetheless, I was very disappointed in reading this. I hope he fires who ever decided to do this.

Muslims barred from picture at Obama event
By: Ben Smith
June 18, 2008

Two Muslim women at Barack Obama's rally in Detroit Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women's headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.

The campaign has apologized to the women, all Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally.

"This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama's commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers."

Building a human backdrop to a political candidate, a set of faces to appear on television and in photographs, is always a delicate exercise in demographics and political correctness. Advance staffers typically pick supporters out of a crowd to reflect the candidate's message.

When Obama won North Carolina amid questions about his ability to connect with white voters, for instance, he stood in front of a group of middle-aged white women waving small American flags. Across the aisle, a Hispanic New Hampshire Democrat, Roberto Fuentes, told Politico that he was recently asked, and declined, to contribute to the "diversity" of the crowd behind Senator John McCain at a Nashua event.

But for Obama, the old-fashioned image-making contrasts with his promise to transcend identity politics, and to embrace all elements of America. The incidents in Michigan, which has one of the largest Arab and Muslim populations in the country, also raise an aspect of his campaign that sometimes rubs Muslims the wrong way: The candidate has vigorously denied a false, viral rumor that he himself is Muslim. But the denials seem to some at times to imply that there something wrong with the faith, though Obama occasionally adds that he means no disrespect to Islam.

Continue Reading: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11168.html

[slinkerwink]

1. The Obama campaign already issued an apology for the actions of

these unpaid volunteers.

[IndyOp]

2. Photo taken on June 17 shows a young woman with hijab...

[Fluffdaddy]

3. Smart move, The right wing media would have killed us with that photo

The campaign got busted so they had to apologized.

BO's campaign is learning how the games is played......And that's a good thing

[BobbyVan]

6. Ugh, SOME of Obama's staffers are letting racists dictate who gets to sit behind him at a rally

That's gross. I'm glad the campaign publicly apologized.

[Fluffdaddy]

9. You are living in a dream world.

The only bad thing about this is the campaign got caught doing it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. I politely disagree

the bad thing is that America is a country that is easily duped into believing that Muslims are bogeymen.

[Fluffdaddy]

26. True. But remember The GOP won the last election because of that fear

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

30. No, they won by rigging voting machines in Ohio n/t

[Roxy66]

34. Enough Americans voted for Bush in 2004 without fraud, to prove that argument worked.

[Fluffdaddy]

40. Thank you .........for not trying to spin the 2004 election. We lost

Lets fight fire with fire this time and win back the WH

[totodeinhere]

16. I wouldn't necessarily assume that those volunteers are racists.

They were probably overzealous but just because they thought that people with head scarves in the picture would be bad politically that doesn't make them racists.

[BobbyVan]

18. The volunteers aren't the racists, but they're allowing fear of offending bigots to dominate

[totodeinhere]

24. Here is a technical point. Since Islam is a religion, not a race, is...

discrimination against Muslims a form of racism or not? After all, Muslims are represented by many races, not just one. So discrimination against Muslims is surely blatant bigotry, but is it racism? I'm not sure.

[BobbyVan]

25. I agree with you - notice that I said that the volunteers were not racists...

...but that they were letting their fear of bigots to prevail.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. Uhhh, yeah, it pretty much does.

Sorry.

[1Hippiechick]

4. WHY was it necessary for them to insist on being seated behind the podium? Were they denied seats

elsewhere?

[malik flavors]

14. they didn't insist. It was offered to their friends, then rejected when they learned of the scarves.

[1Hippiechick]

27. Then my response to that is this: Are they not aware of the Muslim-connection problems? Why flaunt

a red flag on television? If they are truly interested in his becoming President, why would they want to do something that is only going to bring his campaign more grief?

[Fluffdaddy]

41. GOP paid moles.............maybe?

Remember this is the way the GOP and the 512's play the game

[napi21]

5. I suspect the volunteers were only thinking about the PUBs using pics

like that to promote their "he's a Muslim" agenda! It may be wrong, but I can understand their thinking! Pictures can destroy a campaign. Remember Kerry windsurfing, or looking out of place in his camo hunding suit? Before you slam the volunteers, try to think about the opposition's tactics!

[Fluffdaddy]

10. Thank you...........You get it. . The GOP 512's would have killed us with that photo op

This is going to be a dirty dirty rotten dirty campaign.

[1Hippiechick]

28. You got that right - I agree 1000%!!!

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

7. Hi TeamJordan23,

Please be aware that DU copyright rules require that excerpts of copyrighted material be limited to four paragraphs.

best,
wakemeupwhenitsover
DU Moderator

[dkf]

8. A person may be Muslim whether they have something on their head or not.

I bet there were several Muslims in the background...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

12. Amin to that

If you saw me walking down the street, you wouldn't know my religious affiliation. Not all Muslim women wear hijab. I don't because the Qur'an says to dress modestly so as not to attract attention to yourself. That means in my town I don't wear it. But I do dress modestly and wear a hat on my head. Don't get a second look.

But I do think this whole problem points out the obvious fact that Muslims in this country are being vilified and are often being treated with the same prejudice and disdain that African Americans had to endure in this nation for so long.

[1Hippiechick]

29. Then wearing the head scarf is optional? And if that is the case, couldn't these Muslims have

removed the head scarves out of consideration for the potential problem that they could have caused?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

32. Indeed it is optional

In Islam, we don't bow down to the edict of anyone--our connection is to God, and we are responsible for our own actions--can't blame what we do on a priest or Pope or imam or Mullah. I know of Muslim immigrants to this country who don't even wear a head covering of any kind--and they were Sunni, the mainstream branch of Islam.

My guess is that the women dress this way because their family expects it.

[1Hippiechick]

33. Thank you for the brief education on this topic of Muslim clothing - maybe others here will read it

[crankychatter]

11. I should start a thread "Predict how many DU posts will there be RE Muslim women at Obama Rally" nt

[blondeatlast]

17. Considering the trolls have to overcome the national pnchline, Giuliani,

being the RNC's terrorism go-to guy, I'll take a stab and say seven before 3PM ET--then another 5 when the East Coast gets home from work.

[crankychatter]

19. "ghouliani" ... gawud... I'm laughing at the punchline and there was NO joke - nt

[blondeatlast]

31. I was thinking "noun/verb/9/11" courtesy of Joe Biden. nt

[Barack_America]

15. Bullshit.

AND




Feel free to bring this to Ben's attention. I'm not going over there.


ETA: These are both from the Wayne County Community College event on 6-17-08.

[LisaM]

20. I don't like how ANY of the candidates try to tweak their image

with the people they put behind him on the stage. For example, at the RNC, you'd think that about fifty percent of the crowd was African-American - judging by whom is on the stage! In reality, I think they look for representatives of groups they supposedly need to court, and stick those up on the stage. It doesn't matter which candidate it is. They all do it. It's so manipulative.

[demokatgurrl]

22. It's a sad commentary on the country

that this even has to enter the minds of campaign staffers.


And I HOPE this isn't true- I didn't see any of the photos, but good Lord!
"When Obama won North Carolina amid questions about his ability to connect with white voters, for instance, he stood in front of a group of middle-aged white women waving small American flags. "

[mystieus]

23. Are you sure.. I have a pic here from Michigan yesterday with a Muslim woman

[RamboLiberal]

35. Campaign staff try to balance out audiences for the photo op

Remember this "outrage" when reported in April from Carnegie Mellon student paper on a Michelle Obama appearance?

While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”

“I didn’t know they would say, ‘We need a white person here,’ ” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.”


http://www.thetartan.org/2008/4/7/news/obama

I want Obama to win this election. He is fighting to get the vote of some dumbass voters who can be swayed by seeing too many blacks/Muslims/minorities or even the weird distracting person(s) etc behind the Obama or Michelle. There were times I was saying to myself that his staff needed to balance out the audience more. That's just the uncomfortable truth about getting him elected to the White House. The campaign staff have to be subtle though about doing this so they do not slight audience members and cause a media story.

But of course the damn media did a piss poor job of reporting on the hand-picked audiences and who were excluded from even attending a Bush/Cheney event. Remember they even had friggin' loyalty oaths they needed to sign to attend. I don't even know if McCain's people are handpicking his audiences cause I've heard no reporting on it. They're probably saying we need more people period.

[onenote]

36. should Obama cancel his planned trip to the Mideast?

After all, he's almost certain to be photographed with...Muslims. And heaven knows how those photos could be used.

This is and should be a non-issue. The staffers fucked up. Yes, they are supposed to follow a set of guidelines for picking who sits behind the candidate. No, those guidelines should not bar someone from being selected simply because they wear a head scarf. Or because they "look Arab."
What would the reaction be if next time some volunteer decided to rescind an invitation to sit behind Obama to an African-American because the group sitting behind him was "too black."

That being said, the goal, if there is to be one, should be to have a diverse, representative crowd behind Obama. I'd love it the volunteers managed to get both a headscarf-wearing Muslim and a yamulke-wearing Jew sitting behind Obama for a speech. (Or someone with a Red Sox shirt next to someone with a Yankees shirt).

[RamboLiberal]

38. I'm talking about audiences in the U.S.

Hopefully even the dumbass voters know that if he's in the Mideast Muslim countries then the audiences will be Muslim!

When a volunteer has to rescind an invitation then the volunteer screwed up by ever extending the invitation.

[onenote]

39. but what exactly was the "screw up" by the staffer?

I don't think it was offering the invitation, it was rescinding it.

Is the screw up is that a photo of Obama with obviously muslim women in attendance behind him could be abused? Well, so could a picture taken while Obama visits a foreign country and is photographed with Muslims. After all, the photo wouldn't necessarily on its face reflect whether it was taken in the US or somewhere else.

Again, the screw up was in over-sensitivity by the staffers in rescinding the invitation not in making it. The reason its not a big deal is that Obama and his campaign has made clear that its not the campaign's policy to hide the campaign's Muslim supporters.

[RamboLiberal]

42. It's perception and campaigns have to manage perception

Sad truth unfortunately. Hell I've had dumbass voters I work with tell me even though they don't like Bush or McCain they are hesitating voting for Obama because they fear he will give too much to blacks or blacks will feel superior or they can't vote for someone with the name of Hussein.

They start seeing appearance after appearance at campaign events in the U.S. and the people behind Obama don't look like them, are darker skinned, and horrors of horrors they are predominantly minorities and/or look Muslim the dumbasses will either not vote or vote for McCain even though its against their best interests.

Sadly the Obama campaign if it hopes to win is walking a delicate line.

The Repukes of course have the opposite problem - they have to try to get minorities on the stage with McCain. Remember how about the only diversity at the last 2 Repuke conventions were on the stage and not in the audience?

I'm talking strictly the campaign here and not the visit overseas. Hell he'll have a different problem overseas. Muslims Bush or McCain could cozy up to will be turned around by some in the media especially Faux to make it look like Obama is cozying up to terrorists.

[Overseas]

37. Gee we have only had three threads on this topic already. Let's put up four more. /nt

[Hippo_Tron]

43. Those volunteers are idiots

I understand that they want to try and diversify the crowd for the photo op and may choose who sits behind the candidate for that reason. But specifically denying somebody because they are wearing a headscarf is stupid. Nobody who wasn't already convinced of the secret Muslim bullshit is going to be swayed by women in head scarves in his audience.

Now people will read this process story instead of reading about offshore drilling and other important issues that made news today.

[Colobo]

44. It's the volunteers fault. It was not correct to do this to those ladies.

[barack the house]

45. As a black person I perfectly understood when he wanted to show representation in his audience...

Obama has muslim heritage and has been brought up to respect that heritage I would hope most would understand why it was done. As long as there was at least one or 2 within shot which I imagine was the case.