I like Barack Obama. I voted for him and watched the entire inauguration with tears in my eyes and hope within my heart: like millions of other Americans. But recently, I've become concerned about a reoccurring tendency of Obama to lecture other countries about human rights violations, injustice, and torture despite the fact that these vices are common and sanctioned within contemporary American politics. Normally, this wouldn't concern me because this is common political propaganda. But--somehow, all of this self-righteous posturing feels more problematic when coming from the mouth of Barack: a man whose idealistic underpinnings seem sincere. Honestly, before we start criticizing other countries for their intolerance, their injustice, their human rights violations we need to do some serious soul-searching right here at home.
All of this has arisen from the recent Presidential trip to Ghana and the resulting plethora of speech transcripts available on the Internet. I read the following which got my brain shifted into overdrive:
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/07/11/barack-obamas-speech-to-africa/
Although Barack was his usual articulate and pragmatic self, I feel there was one particular section that struck me as particularly vexing:
"You have the power to hold your leaders accountable, and to build institutions that serve the people."
Wow! How about holding our leaders accountable for their actions and start building institutions that serve the people here in the United States rather than intricate bureaucracies that pander to wealthy corporations? Once we have a handle on those noble aspirations then we can rightfully preach to other countries.
Additionally, our former high ideals and priorities as an egalitarian American "democracy" have been lost. Hope and empathy have been replaced by fear and hatred. This can be seen in the recent change in the allotment of national capital. Money that used to be spent on public services: including rehabilitation programs, education and training, financial assistance for low income individuals, and various social programs too numerous to mention, have now been redistributed into programs centered around militarization, security concerns, retribution and punishment. These programs include the ever expanding and profit-centered industrial prison complex, the immigration system that has abandoned any of the previous humanitarian concerns it once had in favor of the criminalization and the deportation of immigrants by the millions, and the oppressive, inefficient and secretive Department of Homeland Security.
How does the "possible" threat of public welfare via terrorism trump the "existing" threats of poverty, disease and marginalization that are a reality for a large percentage of the overall population?
In regards to injustice, I read the following article at the suggestion of one of my friends on Facebook. It is the most obvious example of American injustice I have recently come across. Coincidentally, the victim of this story is Eric Frimpong, a Ghana immigrant and former soccer star who has been accused and convicted of rape. Interestingly enough, he was convicted without ANY physical evidence. How is this possible? The most likely explanation involves the current wave of racism and xenophobia that has gripped the nation. Please read the following ESPN article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?
One of the most poignant sections of the article were contained in the following quote:
“If his supporters could chime in now, they'd say that the kid in the prison garb has never spoken an unkind word or acted aggressively toward anyone. They would remind the court of the points made at trial: that his accuser was a woman with little memory of what happened that night because of a near-toxic blood alcohol level; that Frimpong's DNA wasn't found on the victim; that semen found on her underwear belonged to a jealous boyfriend, a white student who was never a suspect. They would argue that overzealous law enforcement was determined to nail a high-profile athlete, facts be damned, and that this was the Duke lacrosse case all over again -- except that the defendants in the Duke case were white men from affluent families with the means to navigate America's justice system, unlike Frimpong, who is poor and an immigrant.”
Injustice, torture and human rights violations happen right here in America. We cannot have an authentic dialogue with other nations about injustice, torture or human rights violations unless we actively seek to illuminate and correct transgressions within our own borders or jurisdiction. Until we acknowledge and stop the torture tactics we have used on prisoner's overseas, or immigrants housed unconstitutionally in detention centers across the nation we cannot lecture other nations on their brutalization. Until we identify injustice and racism within our own judicial system we have no right to condemn other culture's for their injustice. We cannot in good conscience express disdain for another nation's human rights violations until we cease militarized aggressions overseas or the systematic marginalization, torture or the denial of basic constitutional rights to immigrants on our shores.
Here is another quote from the article on Eric Frimpong. The speaker is the Caucasian surrogate mother who was sponsoring Eric's stay in America:
"Eric believed in our system," she says. "He believed justice would prevail."
My husband said exactly the same thing to me just before his 2nd circuit court hearing
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