Are minorities, race and ethnicity that big a factor in how we cover issues?
There's a story this morning in several newspapers about how campaign volunteers in Detroit to Barack Obama asked one Muslim Arab woman who was wearing a Hijab (head scarf) not to be on the stage when the candidate was to speak, and another was told she could appear ont he stage if she removed her Hijab.
Obama's camp quickly said they did not instruct the volunteers to engage in that discrimination. And the incident got some media coverage. Nobody seemed angry and everyone seems to have accepted Obama's campaign's explanation.
But I wonder how different it might have been covered had this happened to John McCain? I think there is a double standard.If I were McCain, I would be screaming. But then, how many in the news media owuld be listening?
Now, in addition to what I think would be the clear difference between how it would be treated between McCain and Obama, imagine if the person's removed were not Arab Muslim women wearing Hijabs, but Jewish supporters wearing Yamulkes, or a Christian priest. "Listen, you can be on stage, but do you mind removing your collar."
Here's one of the news stories:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama19jun19,0,887788.story
And here's my column on the Arab American Writers Syndicate:
http://arabwritersgroup.wordpress.com/
Ray Hanania
www.TheMediaOasis.com