The Root of All Evil

Last Spring on Saturday Night Live, which has become our ignorant nation’s primary source of news, Tina Fey was doing a commentary on the SNL News about how the then media darling, Hillary Clinton, was being treated by some media. It was a brilliant piece of political humor that ended with “Woman is now the nigger of the world!”. I know it’s a line stolen from a John Lennon song, but the crowd roared and people talked about it for weeks, yet here we are just a few short days away from electing a new President and we are proving that piece of political humor to be true over and over again with one really big target named Sarah Palin.

Look at the picture above. I’ve seen this picture in blogs and on sites across the Internet for weeks. Now let’s imagine ourselves back sixteen years ago when the Reverend Jesse Jackson was running for President. Imagine a picture exactly like this, but with Jackson’s face replacing Palin’s. Oh dear God in Heaven, there would have been such an out cry. Not just from the Black community, but from the media as well. In fact, the person who would have put such a picture together could have been subject to punishment under laws governing Hate Crimes.

Yet these photos and much, much worse continue to not only float about the Internet, but also make it onto television. Yet, where is the out cry? I don’t hear or read anything from women’s groups or the media about the blatant discrimination constantly directed towards someone simply because she lacks a penis. What happen to civil rights? What happened to equality? Does tip-toeing around Obama’s skin color make it okay to bash Palin’s femininity?

So why? Her running mate, the man the Republicans nominated for President is a man of impeccable nature. John McCain is a man that uses his highest sense of right, owes up to his mistakes and never allows the dreaded RNC to ever tell him what to do. This is a guy who spent five and half years in a POW camp in Vietnam, turning down the opportunity to go home during a prisoner exchange to stay with his men. This guy has more character in him than any Republican since Lincoln. He can’t be the reason.

Oh yeah, there’s all those little skeletons and controversies up in Alaska revolving around Palin. That must be the reason she deserves to be belittled 24/7 in ways we would never dream of treating a Black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American male like. If we dared, somebody would rightly pop us in the nose for being a racist, but bigotry directed at Sarah Palin is okay because some questions linger in Alaska. I get it now.

Wait! Wait, I don’t get it. Representative William Jefferson of Louisiana, a long standing black member of Congress, is so corrupt that he should be Louisiana’s Governor instead. The FBI raided his offices in 2006. Later they found $90,000 in cash tucked away in his freezer at home. So it must be okay to call him “Sambo” and  draw pictures of him dancin’ for the FBI, right? Wrong. He is still a man. He may be a black man, but by the laws of our nation he is a man who is due respect, due process and dignity.

How about Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia? Now here’s a guy who really deserves zero respect. Saxby beat Max Cleland for the Senate seat in 2002 by claiming that Cleland was “soft on defense” and “unpatriotic”. By the way, Cleland is a Vietnam War Veteran who lost both of his legs and an arm in service of his country. No, not just shame on ol’ Saxby, but shame on the people in Georgia who bought his crap and voted for him. So we can call him . . . Hell, we could call Saxby anything, but it’s not happening.

So John McCain, the most maverick Republican since Barry Goldwater, ignored the RNC’s list of old Republican Party farts and chose a spunky Governor from Alaska who is not afraid of change and happens to be a women. Then the dogs are unleashed and everything from her character to her shoes is torn and rebutted night and day, and SNL’s ratings sky rocket as the women on their show join in the attack.

Sarah Palin is a woman, a mother and a political figure, but the media and the American public have turned her into a clown . I don’t even know if I agree with her political views, but the circus that has been spun around her simply because she is a woman makes me sick. Hey Blacks, do you remember what it was like? Then why not stand up now and say this is wrong? Hey women, Latinos, Native Americans, gays, the handicapped and Jews! Why can’t I hear your voices fighting against this discrimination?

Obama or McCain, they are both good men, and the country will benefit from either one’s leadership. History however, when it remembers this historical and critical election will not forget the blemish a “free” nation allowed, encouraged and was entertained by be forgotten. So come January I will celebrate the end of the worst presidency in history, but will realize we have a longer way to go than we thought. For discrimination is not dead as long as a woman is the nigger of the world.

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