Scrupuli

Obama Because He Is Black

by Scrvpvlvs
Nov 4, 2008 3:05 PM–I voted this morning to make Sen. Barack Hussein Obama our next President. I have been endorsing him because:

He is not white.

He has an “Arab sounding” name.

He is otherwise qualified to serve as President.

I want to write today about racism. And if Sen. Obama had not won a very close primary race, I would have endorsed Sen. Clinton because she is a woman. So I want to write about sexism, too—about prejudice.

People keep telling me that age, ethnicity, religion, parentage, sex, and sexual preference are not what qualify someone to be President, therefore I should not consider them.

I have been told that voting for Sen. Clinton or Gov. Palin as women is sexist (as much as voting against them as women would be). That voting for Sen. Obama as a black is racist. That voting against Sen. McCain as a senior is ageist.

In short, I have been told that I should vote without prejudice. But I cannot, and pretty much nobody else can.

Almost all people have prejudice and believe that they don’t. America prefers whites, men, Protestants, straights, and tall, pretty, young people. We prefer them in daily, practical ways that matter: acts of friendship, trust, pay, and performance evaluation. And we act this way not realizing that we do. These facts have been so well proven that even a habitual skeptic like myself cannot really doubt it.

There is a test for automatic bias, developed at Harvard, called the Implicit Association Test. You can go to <https://implicit.harvard.edu/> and measure your own automatic bias for race, skin lightness, sex, sexual preference, age, weight, and political party. Even if you are black, your test will probably show an automatic bias for whites, and if so, the smart money says you have been giving whites preferential treatment, whether or not you believe it.

But it has also been proven that we are not born with these biases. We take them from our culture, and we can relearn them pretty easily once we know the trick. You cannot beat the Harvard race test by mere will power or wishful thinking. Even the authors of the test cannot beat it that way. But they learned, it turns out, that you can beat the race test by thinking about black heroes—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, or Olympic athletes—black people who achieved great things.

Here is another example. The proportion of women hired to play in orchestras is steadily rising. It was 10% in the 1970’s, and more than 35% in the 1990’s. The cause was a screen put up between the judges and the performer during the audition. Judges no longer knew if women were auditioning. But the screen itself is responsible for only a third of the difference. The other two thirds is due to a change in bias. The experience enlightened judges. Now, when they audition women, they are not made deaf by their bias. They can see greatness.

There is no screen hiding the candidates from us. We cannot pretend we do not know that Sen. Obama is black, Sen. Clinton is a woman, and Sen. McCain is a senior. It is too late. Our biases are already in play. But like the orchestra judges, our biases are shifting. Every time we gain a new hero who contradicts our culture’s automatic bias, we change. Every time a schoolteacher introduces a new generation to one of these heroes, we change.

A President is more than an executive officer and a diplomat. A President is a hero.

So, thanks to courageous activists who blazed a trail, and thanks to our teachers who preserved it for us, we are at the point of recognizing a new hero. A hero who will challenge our false implicit biases about people with dark skin and “Arab sounding” names. Who will help us see more clearly the greatness of all people. Who will help us to act more like we mean it when we say that we are created equal.

I am grateful for my small role in this as a voter, but I do not take any credit. It was the American thing to do.

I just wish he weren’t a lawyer.

Labels: ageism, arab, association, barack, black, clinton, hero, hillary, hussein, implicit, john, mccain, obama, politics, prejudice, president, racism, sexism, vote, woman

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The Epistle of Thomas

by Scrvpvlvs
Jun 14, 2003 2:52 AM–

¹ Thomas, a doubter, To the secret church of Jesus, our Lord and Savior: Love, and freedom from tyranny imposed from without or within.

² Let there be no more dispute among you about the Good News declared by our brother Mark. Some of you say that Mark wrote falsely, and Jesus is yet buried. Some say that Jesus rose from the dead and pushed the stone aside, although Mark wrote only that the stone was moved and the body gone.^a

³ Some even believe in a corruption which testifies to Jesus’ reanimation, makes our sister Mary to be a witness, and has Jesus command us, his disciples, to take our own lives with poisonous snakes and deadly potions, promising that we too will be saved.^b ⁴ Do not test God. I tell you plainly, that not Mark but our enemies wrote this, tempting the faithful to their deaths. Shun it, that you may live. I do not lie about this.

⁵ It is well said that the Good News cannot end in a tomb, for Mark titled his declaration the beginning of the Good News.^c There is much that Mark did not write plainly, and much after the crucifixion that Mark did not write, for fear of the Council and of Pilate. The danger being less, I can make plain some things that were hidden.

⁶ I remind you that our brother Joseph of Arimathea concealed his faith because he was a prominent member of the Council. He begged Pilate for the body of Jesus on the same day of his crucifixion. Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead, for he was expected to suffer several days. Pilate questioned the centurion who saw to the crucifixion, and, assured of Jesus’ death, gave the body to Joseph.^d

⁷ As Mark declared, this centurion was one of us, and testified to his faith at the moment of Jesus’ outcry and death, as was supposed. For are you still “ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding?” Have you not understood the Good News that Mark proclaimed to you as plainly as he was able? ⁸ Jesus is not dead; he is alive! For our brothers deceived Pilate; Joseph took Jesus, and hid him in the cave, and brought him bread and wine; and he was saved, and taken to a place of refuge. He speaks to the faithful through Peter and his companions until he returns in power.^e

⁹ I dare not reveal more by letter. Be patient until I shall come and tell you all things. Meanwhile, I beg you, sisters and brothers, to shun wishful thinking, and love uncertainty. Tell Matthew, Luke, and John also to elaborate less on the Good News in the retelling, lest the truth be obscured by fish stories.^f ¹⁰ Love and freedom be with you all. Amen.

a. Mark 16:4.

b. Mark 16:18 (Longer Ending). This so-called Longer Ending, of which there is also a variation, the Freer Logion, begins after verse 8, and was not written by Mark, but added later in a different style. The Shorter Ending also begins after verse 8, and reads merely: “And they reported all the instructions briefly to Peter’s companions. Afterwards Jesus himself, through them, sent forth from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Amen.”

c. Mark 1:1.

d. Mark 15:42–45.

e. Mark 16:6–8, and Shorter Ending.

f. The Gospel of Mark is widely believed by Bible scholars to be the earliest Gospel, and to be the source of much of the material in the other Gospels.

Labels: Bible, corruption, crucifixion, epistle, God, Good News, Gospel, Jesus, john, Joseph of Arimathea, Luke, Mark Zuckerberg, Matthew, Pilate, poison, potions, snakes, Thomas