Community Magazine November 2008

12 Community magazine OBAMA IS NOT OSAMA As a community member and a registered Democratic voter, I was outraged at the cover of your October 2008 issue. Your pairing of Osama bin Laden and Barak Obama was very disturbing. Despite the blurb: “Does the frontrunner for president have what it takes to win the war on terror and tackle other issues important to our community,” the underlying impression of “Osama behind Obama” is clearly illuminating and unfair. I see that you did not pair a photo of John McCain and Osama bin Laden on your cover or anywhere else in the magazine. You did a disservice to Democrats and community members alike by using this cover imagery. Regina Sultan Elo CELEBRATING A CRIMINAL Ed Cohen has written an informative, unbiased article that cogently examines all of the issues leading to the election. Then…I look at the front cover and what do I see? Photographs of Senator Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden, side by side! It is a juxtaposition given only to the most sinister insinuation of a connection that will never happen. Bin Laden, the planet’s most sought after criminal, on the cover of Community Magazine, next to the man who may very well be the next president of the United States of America! You celebrate his existence by gracing him on the front cover, right next to a candidate for President. This is outrageous! You have a wonderful publication that excels in all its content from A to Z. It is beautifully formatted and enjoyable to read, and I consider it one of the treasures of the Syrian community. I look forward to the magazine each and every month. But I suggest that you stay with what you do best… faith… social and community affairs and probably a host of other topics. But please, keep away from ethics and politics. R ich Rahmey ARE OBAMA’S DEFENDERS PREJUDICE? Your October cover “Obama vs Osama” has obviously generated much controversy, becoming the topic of conversation at every table. But while I don’t agree with your article’s suggestion that there is even a remote possibility that Senator Obama could be good for our community, I am most disappointed by the reaction of many people in our community to the cover itself. A number of people I spoke with felt that putting Obama opposite Osama bin Laden was somehow implying a comparison between the two. Anyone literate enough to actually read the cover would realize that this was not the case and I personally did not get that impression even without reading the cover. (It’s not as though Obama was dressed in an Arab headdress, as in the recent cover of The New Yorker). At first I wondered why others did get this impression, but, after investigating further, I found the troubling answer. The people who saw Obama being compared to Osama were the same people who were either misinformed about Obama being an Arab and/or a Muslim, or those who were on some level bigoted against Obama. I proved this to everyone I spoke with by asking them if they would have felt the same way if it was McCain’s picture there instead of Obama’s. No one said they would think that such a cover was comparing McCain to Osama or implying that the US Senator was a terrorist. I then asked rhetorically, if Obama was next to McCain on the cover, would that mean that Obama was a Republican? Most of them got the message. The fact that a number of individuals saw the cover as a comparison demonstrates that our community still needs to work further to eliminate bigotry. Our schools need to do more to fight racial stereotypes, and we need to teach our kids that bigotry is not acceptable. E. Esses NO COVER FOR EVIL MEN What possible justification could you have for putting that bearded murderer, a sworn enemy of Israel and the United States, on the front cover of your magazine? That image should not be anywhere, least of all on the cover of a magazine that extols the words of Hashem and dispenses the wisdom of our rabbis. I always considered the Community as a guide along the road to righteousness. Hopefully, that guide has not lost its way. Molly Cohen EDITOR’S REPLY: It was wonderful to see so many com- munity members coming to defend what they perceived to be an unfair portrayal of a minority candidate. What was even more encouraging was the fact that most of the people who came to criticize what they saw as an association of Sen- ator Obama with arch terrorist Osama bin Laden, had no political motives for doing so. The vast majority expressed no intention of actually voting for Obama. Rather, the outcry seemed to be rooted in the concern that a presidential can- didate who has previously been the tar- get of racial slander and bigotry in other circles, should be treated with fairness and respect by our community – despite the fact that many of his policies run counter to our interests. With this notion in mind, our office was quite pleased to field scores of comments from readers concerned about the perception that the L E T T E R S