Bad Postings

Recently in my Facebook postings, I have seen the same picture collage with various Presidents standing in front of the American Flag and Barack Obama standing in what is purportedly an Islamic backdrop.  It is obvious an attempt to depict Barack Obama as anti-American and pro-Muslim, as if these two things are mutually exclusive which they are not.

What I do not know:

  1. Is it an accurate picture – or Photoshop?
  2. Is it even a Muslim backdrop?
  3. What was the context of the picture?

What I do know:

  1. Barack Obama is a loyal American.
  2. I could find thousands of pictures of Barack Obama in front of an American flag.
  3. I could find thousands of pictures (or fabricate them) of the other presidents in front of questionable backdrops.
  4. Barack Obama is not a Muslim.
  5. Being a Muslim is not a crime.

In fact, the two most important issues I have with this are:

  1. Even after Barack Obama being out of office for over three years, these people want to alienate and marginalize him in any way they can.  They question his place of birth when he was running against a person who WAS born in Panama.  They have accused him of being a Muslim on more than one occasion, including this one when he is decidedly a Christian.  The one thing that they are really pointing to but are too afraid to say, because of the wrath that would come down on them, it that he is Black.  Guess what, we know that.  Guess what, the majority of people voted for him.
  2. Being Muslim is not a crime.  No more than being a Jew, Catholic, Seventh Day Advocate, Presbyterian, Hindi, Shinto, Baptist, Sun Worshiper, you name it.  I know I have missed a whole lot of them but you get my drift.  It is easy to demonize the Muslims, especially now, with what is going on in the world.  People have always done this in times of stress or war; whether it was the Japs and Krauts of WWII or the Dirty Redskins of the American West.  Intelligent people know this was really not the case and was a way to incite the masses. 

We really should be better than this kind of crap.  The problem is that there is a large, large minority of people who are not.  I know that some of the people who posted this either thought it was funny or did not think it through, but it should stop.  You do not have to like Barack Obama to realize this is wrong.  You do not have to be a Muslim to know this is wrong.

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