The President Is Christian By Choice — Muslim By Media

Photos

The President | Photo 02

see larger image

uploaded by Caoimhin1

When President Obama answered the question,  "why are you a Christian, asked of him during a backyard gathering, at a home in Albuquerque, N.M.on Tuesday, September 28, 2010; of 7,620,000 Google indications of the story, more than half, 3,970,000, referred to a poll in which 18 percent of the people polled believe that Obama is Muslim. 

As if including what others think his religion is, isn't prejudicing enough , 434,000 of the articles included the following paragraph:

• "Obama is the son of a Muslim father from Kenya. His mother was from Kansas. As a boy, he lived for several years in predominantly Muslim Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. Some think his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, sounds Muslim."

 
Appealing to the simplistic reasoning of the "looks like a duck, acts like a duck, sounds like a duck," ilk. Namely, if his father's a Muslim, his stepfather's a Muslim, he lived in a Muslim country, and he's got a Muslim name, he must be a Muslim . . .

By contrast, even though 75% of  Americans do not have strong trust in media; and nearly 2/3 of Americans, 63%, believe that news stories are often inaccurate, media doesn't include these statistics when reporting media activities and achievements.

They don't do it to themselves because that's not how they want to be defined, but they do it to this President because major media is resolved to prevent him from defining himself through his words and deeds, and they are accomplishing it by perpetually casting him in racial camouflage, created by "trigger language," which is "spoken" by antics, gestures, stereotypes, images, omissions, admissions, confusion, misstatements, rumors, wrong ideas and inappropriate behavior, all of which are designed to trigger unconscious beliefs, that devalue, sabotage and undermine the target-subject.

In this case, trigger language is used by the press to inspire suspicion about Barack Obama's spiritual beliefs, and his beliefs in general.  Which is not unlike Newt Gingrich's use of trigger language to promote fear regarding Obama's racial loyalty. 

Newt described Obama as having "Kenyan, anti-colonial" views, which triggers the idea that Obama has black "Kenyan," anti-white "anti-colonial," views.  The ridiculousness of the statement is what drives its true meaning. 

Since it is impossible for a person who has grown up in America, and who only visited Kenya twice, as a fully developed adult, to have a Kenyan anything, consequently, Kenyan, in this context, must mean something other than the obvious.  Also, practically everyone is anti-colonial, and it's thought to be a good thing.  Yet, it clearly has negative implications in how it is applied to President Obama. Again, raising the specter of a meaning that is not what is said.  The words, the rhythm, the association and the context drive the meaning.  The result, racially inspired discomfort, respecting the  President.

Another use of trigger language as admission and omission, is the reporting of the BP oil spill.  When it was a crisis, Barack Obama's name was all over it, but when the problem got solved, his name was not mentioned.

So the president was asked why he is a Christian, and most of the media hid his answer in discussions about what his religion is thought to be, and where his father was born, and the religion of his stepfather, when the Nation could have been blessed by his eloquently answer:

"(T)he precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as (I would want them to) treat me,"

"And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God, but what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace."

"That's what I strive to do. That's what I pray to do every day.  I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith."