Quote Of The Day

"I’m tired of the insinuations about Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) because his dead father was a Muslim. I’m tired of the insinuations about his middle name—Hussein—and the racist/bigoted insinuations that I’ve seen on the Right that flow from there. I’m even tired of the assertion that the senator isn’t even really a black American (whatever that means to a group of people who are demonstrably of mixed-race for the most part) because he has a white mother and a non-American black—i.e. African—father and, yes, since his father and my [atheist] father were/are of the same tribe and nationality, I take that last bit of information quite personally. Like me, Senator Obama wasn’t even raised by his biological father and, though he had an Indonesian step-father who was probably a Muslim, he says that he is a Christian. And, like me, Obama has been long interested in knowing more about his heritage--probably since, like me, Obama was born and raised here in our beloved USA with a zero amount of it, outside of our middle and surnames. And, unlike most black Americans, the senator and I are blessed enough to know at least some part of our African heritage--something that is very prized among the mostly slave-descended black American population.....Well, guess what. I was raised as a Muslim also. My mother and (black American) step-father subscribed to the creed of the Nation of Islam back in the day. And like Obama, I went to a Muslim school—for longer than he did.....But things change. Both my mom and my step-dad are now Bible-believing Christians, as am I. Dad is now even a Methodist pastor. However, I wonder whether our conversions will be questioned as Senator Obama’s is being even now by [Debbie] Schlussel, who calls the senator’s middle name 'a Muslim name.'" — Juliette Ochieng, conservative Republican blogger of partial Kenyan descent, on bigotry by conservatives