Obama running from Muslims?

Or, as Glamour of all outlets put it, between a hijab and a hard place.  Barack Obama has had to deal with a rather persistent smear that he is a crypto-Muslim for most of the time he ran in the Democratic primaries.  His main opponent, Hillary Clinton, didn’t make his life any easier with her “as far as I know” denials of Obama’s Muslim bona fides, nor with her campaign’s distribution of Obama in African garb on his trip to the continent.

So Obama has a reason to be sensitive to this smear, but that doesn’t really excuse his campaign’s treatment of its Muslim supporters, either:

When Mr. Obama began his presidential campaign, Muslim Americans from California to Virginia responded with enthusiasm, seeing him as a long-awaited champion of civil liberties, religious tolerance and diplomacy in foreign affairs. But more than a year later, many say, he has not returned their embrace.

While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque. Muslim and Arab-American organizations have tried repeatedly to arrange meetings with Mr. Obama, but officials with those groups say their invitations — unlike those of their Jewish and Christian counterparts — have been ignored. Last week, two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit.

In interviews, Muslim political and civic leaders said they understood that their support for Mr. Obama could be a problem for him at a time when some Americans are deeply suspicious of Muslims. Yet those leaders nonetheless expressed disappointment and even anger at the distance that Mr. Obama has kept from them.

And as Asma Hasan notes in Glamour, the cold shoulder extended to the optics of their rallies:

Yesterday, many of you posted comments to my blog saying that I should consider becoming a Democrat or Independent as my Muslim heritage would be better respected there. In a pure coincidence, two of my fellow Muslim sisters (not related by blood but by our faith) were dissed by the Obama campaign. In two separate incidents at the same Detroit event, two Muslim women wearing hijab were not permitted to sit behind Obama at the rally, although other members of their respective groups were invited to sit.

Asma’s also getting put off by Obama’s repudiations, which she says have begun to sound a little Nixonian:

Not to mention Obama’s continual denials of being Muslim. It’s getting up there with “I am not a crook.” Until Obama acknowledges his Muslim heritage, the rumors will persist.

Isaac Chotiner at The New Republic blog The Plank says that if Obama had treated any other religious minority this badly, people would be screaming:

Now try and picture this occurring with, say, a Jewish or Catholic Congressman–the outcry would be absolutely enormous. However, the article makes clear that this sort of passive bigotry is all too common.

Fear lies at the heart of all bigotry, even the passive kind, and it’s clear that the Muslim rumor has Obama spooked.  However, we should be clear: there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim in America.  Just as with being Jewish, Christian, Ba’hai, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist, personal faith doesn’t matter as long as one isn’t seeking the overthrow of the government.  It’s a matter of personal choice.  In America, all but the fringe understand this.

Maybe Obama is afraid that an acknowledgment of his tenuous Muslim heritage will cost him votes.  At this point, that seems silly.  Anyone who won’t vote for Obama because his father and stepfather were Muslims has already departed the bandwagon.  Anyone who thinks that his childhood education in Indonesia somehow overrules the twenty-plus years he spent at Trinity United won’t vote for Obama simply because a hijab can’t be seen in campaign photos.

In fact, he has a lot more to explain about his adult choice to join and remain at Trinity through its marginally Christian rantings on race and conspiracy theories than he ever does about the choices his parents made for him when he was eight years old.

A courageous candidate would have embraced Asma’s Muslim sisters, especially as Obama managed to smear McCain with the bigotry brush last week while Obama himself tried to hide Muslims from the cameras at his campaign events.   Someone who claims that he can be an agent of change doesn’t prove it through what Chotiner calls “passive bigotry”.  Going along with the crowd doesn’t take any courage at all, and produces no worthwhile change.  A leader stands for his principles even when it may prove unpopular — especially when it will prove unpopular.  And Obama continues to show that he really is no leader at all.