he first of the United States Presidential debates took place at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi. It was the University where James Meredith, the first black student made an attempt to enrol in October 1, 1962. The facts and place of Mississippi in the race struggle is not lost on viewers of the debate. The behaviour of Presidential candidate John McCain of the Republican Party at that debate showed a lack of integrity and poor judgement and understanding of the simple requirements relating to how not to be rude to an opponent. It is never wise to be impolite, deliberately rude, off-handish, or disrespectful.
I know McCain was not familiar with Ethics 101 since he never attended University, but I expect that John McCain must have gone through Mannerism 101 - what we are taught at home, the moulding and grooming, the home training we got from our parents about respect, truth, honesty, integrity, dignity for self and for others, and basic codes of mannerism and attitude. Senator John McCain's mother is alive and she must have watched both debates. I am told she is downright assertive and direct, feisty and highly opinionated. I would like to ask her one question: Do you approve of the disrespect your son showed to Senator Barak Obama during the first presidential debate and his overtly over-friendly effort to undo that poor behaviour and judgement during the second debate? I would like to know what Mrs. John McCain has to say.
Senator John McCain never looked at Obama during the first debate. The Internet was besieged by commentators and observers wondering and asking why. Clawson from Michigan asked, "Did anyone notice that McCain never looked at Obama? What's up with that? How does this bode for being leader of the US when dealing with someone else he doesn't necessarily agree with?" Robert G. Kaiser also observed: "I noticed this too; no idea how people may react to it…." Comments like the above from Washingtonpost.com and several other online discussion groups showed the poor judgement and attitude of John McCain.
Facts emerged recently that the McCains were slave owners and part of a group of rich slave owning, human rights abusers of America's past, a group that consider blacks less than human and felt a lot superior to other races and colours. Even after being shown the evidence of that inhuman and shameful past of his family, John McCain just laughed. He did not say much. He is yet to issue an apology and a condemnation of what his family did back them, prove that he is not proud of it and he was sorry they did that to fellow human beings, their colour notwithstanding. McCain is yet to ostracize the ghost of that damning and condemnable family shame and inhuman behaviour. Could be that he thinks what his grandfather and great grandfather did was right?
Why did Senator John McCain ignore his opponent, the only person who stood between him and his presidential ambition, and who is seven, eight points ahead of him in all polls? What message was John McCain sending to his (or some of his) viewers? Is the message that of racial superiority, the "we are pure, white and superior to his ilk" type? Or is Senator John McCain just unwilling to come down to the low level of a Blackman, an African American? Did McCain did it to gain the support of the people in the Middle Belt of America, people often referred to as rednecks - just to let them know and see that he will not and he is not about to do business with a Blackman? I thought I was not seeing properly or that I was reading too much meaning to things when I first came to the conclusion that Senator John McCain was snobbish and rude, condescending and aloof, saucy and insulting to his opponent.
In this modern day and age when inclusion is the vogue rather than an aberration, it was unpalatable and unbelievable what Senator McCain did. How will McCain respond as President if a group of white men hang a noose around the necks of a few black and Latino boys? Will he award them medals, condemn their act as irresponsible and punishable, or will he just go into the inner recess of his home to have a good laugh and reek of cackles? In the second debate McCain tried to play the Maverick, nearly and rudely standing over his opponent, encroaching into his space and almost standing on his head. Whatever happened to good manners and decency, I wonder.
What John McCain did during the first debate simply dragged mainstream America back to the early nineteen-sixties. I see it as an attempt to divide the United States along colour lines; it was to create a division between us, the white landowners and them, the blacks, our former and inferior slaves. But things have changed in the United States beyond what John McCain and his advisers can comprehend. One of the major change in attitude resulted in the birth of Barack Obama. His mother fell in love with a Blackman at a time when blacks cannot even share the same toilet, house and restaurant with whites; that was the time when it was a taboo for a young man and particularly a young woman to bring a person of colour to the dinner table of his/her parents/family. The film Guess Who is coming to Dinner did a good job of that theme. This was long before Martin Luther King and Malcolm X came to challenge the disparity and segregation in America, along with some white men who knew better.
Obama's mother did more than look a Blackman in the eye; she recognized him, acknowledged him, fell in love with him and married him. She became the bridge between intolerance and intimacy, between discrimination and recognition, and between narrow and myopic attitude and broad, bold mien. McCain insulted every man and woman who crossed colour line and dared to look someone other than people of his/her colour in the face, and these are people we should all be celebrating today, for daring to do what many ran from, the very complex and stressful life of mixed colour marriage.
It is good that Obama is neither black nor white; he is standing in-between the two. He cannot claim to be white and can neither declare himself as black. He is the weapon of change the United States created and he will be able to challenge both sides, relate to both sides, work with both sides, and demystify the wrong notions and dogmas about colour, creed and race in the United States and around the world. But until that time when John McCain will be bold enough to openly play the race card and use the "n" word to refer to Barack Obama, we must assume that what he did was a vote-grabbing tactic, and nothing more. The Presidential Debate sure brought out the ghost of the past in Senator John McCain. I wonder what his mother has to say about this.
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John McCain insults Barack Obama in second debate, refers to him as ''THAT ONE''
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