The Obama campaign got itself into a crap load (a unit of measure used in politics) of trouble today after a couple of its junior campaign staffers (who no doubt had some guidelines from higher up advisors to Obama) decided that women wearing headscarves should be “discouraged” from being in the background when pictures of the candidate were being taken in Detroit (of all places!):
Two Muslim women at Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women’s headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.
The campaign has apologized to the women, both Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally.
“This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama’s commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. “We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers.”
Building a human backdrop to a political candidate, a set of faces to appear on television and in photographs, is always a delicate exercise in demographics and political correctness. Advance staffers typically pick supporters out of a crowd to reflect the candidate’s message. [Link]
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This incident is D-Punjab all over again. I have no doubt that Obama is disappointed in his staffers over this but the buck has to stop at the top of the ticket. By forcefully refuting rumors that he is a “secret Muslim,” I think he is beginning to overreact and hurt his reputation among the very people who believe in him to bring a change. I mean, how in the world do you expect to campaign in Detroit and NOT be associated with Muslim supporters?
… incident began when the volunteer asked Aref’s friend Ali Koussan and two others, Aref’s brother Sharif and another young lawyer, Brandon Edward Miller, whether they would like to sit behind the stage. The three young men said they would but mentioned they were with friends.
The men said the volunteer, a 20-something African-American woman in a green shirt, asked if their friends looked and were dressed like the young men, who were all light-skinned and wearing suits.
Miller said yes but mentioned that one of their friends was wearing a headscarf with her suit.
The volunteer “explained to me that because of the political climate and what’s going on in the world and what’s going on with Muslim Americans, it’s not good for [Aref] to be seen on TV or associated with Obama,” said Koussan, a law student at Wayne State University. [Link]
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p>Ennis reminds me of the fact that this isn’t the first time that the Obama campaign has “preemptively photoshopped” their pictures. From a Michelle Obama appearance at Carnegie Mellon University in April:
While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”
“I didn’t know they would say, ‘We need a white person here,'” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright…” [Link]
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Yet more proof that the Obama campaign can’t free itself from the race issue. What I really wonder about is what will happen the next time a Sikh male goes to an Obama rally and ends up in the backdrop. Will they move him just in case some ignorant voter confuses religions and thinks the turban-wearer is a Muslim or a supporter of Osama bin Laden? Being a young Obama campaign volunteer seems to me to be a much more difficult job than I first assumed.
“We’re not letting anyone with anything on their heads like baseball [caps] or scarves sit behind the stage,” she paraphrased the volunteer as saying, an account Marino confirmed. “It has nothing to do with your religion!”
In most work and school settings, religious dress — such as Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans and Muslim hijabs — is permitted where secular clothing, such as baseball caps, is not.
“The scarf is not just something she can take off — it’s part of her identity,” said Marino. [Link]
Update: A couple of other things I wanted to add since I wrote this. First, the guy who broke this story was Ben Smith of Politico. Only hardcore political junkies (like me 
) know who Smith is and read his blog entries all day (or send him tips). According to NPR’s interview of Smith this afternoon, a friend of one of the two women emailed him about this incident. That just goes to show how politically attuned some young voters are these days (and that blogs are a great way to spread the word). Smith is one of the few guys you’d want to get this type of info to in order to break it as soon as possible into the mainstream media.
The second thing I want to reiterate is that it is almost unreasonable to believe Obama had any hand in this and set this policy from the top. He had Muslim roommates in college and went to Pakistan with them. He’s also appeared with women in headscarves before. It is also most unreasonable to believe that two unpaid volunteers came up with this idea on their own. No freaking way! It is very reasonable to believe this policy started somewhere in the middle. As some commenters have said, this is what politics does to even the “purest” of candidates.
And, for those of you wondering, John McCain’s campaign does the SAME THING (and the Republicans are known for trotting out minorities from out of nowhere at their conventions). Will the Democrats have to trot out white folks and Christian clergy at their convention this year? I’ll look for them
On the Republican side, a Hispanic New Hampshire Democrat, Roberto Fuentes, told Politico that he was recently asked, and declined, to contribute to the “diversity” of the crowd behind Sen. John McCain at a Nashua event. [Link]
He was kinda stuck either way here… on the one hand, of course having Muslim girls with the headscarf in the background does suggest the kind of unity message he’s been pitching. On the other hand, you can just see the Republicans jumping all over this suggesting the old “he’s one of them… look he’s even got them in his picture!”
Having said that, it was stupid of the volunteer… but we’re going to be seeing a lot more of things like this (as we have in the past) as Americans of all different backgrounds and religions get involved in the political picture.
abhi, this cannot be right. obama is post-racial, so clearly he and his team can’t play race politics. it is hillary who was the racist in this race (ha!) – being a typical white american, and all that. i thought we agreed on that during our national conversation on race, didn’t we?
Obama and his campaign don’t seem to be bringing practicing this “new politics” they keep talking about. Is it just me or is Obama coming off as a shameless panderer, doing everything he can to just win?
He basically dumps his mentor and church of 15 years when they become a liability.
To court the Jewish vote, Obama flip flops and gives a speech to AIPAC that is even more hawkish and uncompromising than the Israeli government’s position.
The Obama campaign determines that images of women with hijabs don’t win votes, so they ban these women from appearing next to Obama.
I can’t wait to hear the Obamaniacs argue that its racist Republicans that forced poor Obama to discriminate against women with hijabs.
i dont wear hijab so i can’t say offended i would be in this situation. still, as a muslim, i’m not offended. (1) i want him in the white house and (2) i hate hearing the Muslim bashing from people who still think he’s Muslim. actually, it’s kind of refreshing to see people rally behind these hijabis, even if it’s merely opportunistic support.
it must be because of all those racist hillary campaign staff he is hiring. i think the only way to solve this problem is to start a national conversation on scarves.
abhi, why the pro obama bias in all your posts?
6 · dark and unbalanced said
I don’t know about all that, but if Abhi hadn’t called dibs on this story, I would have and I wouldn’t have been nearly as nice. An incident like this is what started the Mutiny in the first place. Obama volunteers discriminating against Muslims in Detroit? YES WE CAN!
Whatever happens, you can count on Ennis being nonpartisan enough not to write about it. It’s not as if this is as newsworthy as Drudge gossip on turbans or tealeaf reading on Bill Clinton’s payments at an UK fundraiser.
I was kidding 🙂
Isn’t this more of the fact that the volunteers were hyper-sensitive and made a bad decision. I don’t think this is an official position of the campaign. They have apologized for the incident and pointed out that there are pictures of Muslims seated behind him at other events.
This is getting better by the day. Obama linked to the Weather Man terrorist, the radical preachers, Michelle Obama calling this country mean, Obama calling Americans bitter and clinging to their guns & bible, and his rascist campaign managers. O boy, Hannity has one more thing to add to the list.
3 · JGandhi said
Yes, yes, I’ll buy a pair! Apparently, when you wear them on the beach, they leave only one set of footprints on the sand. Because, you know, Obama‘s carrying you.
This is an easily fixable problem. All that Obama has to do is to make sure his vice president is a Muslim Hillary Southern white male woman, and everybody will be happy.
Oh, and just so you get it right, that’s not a baklava you caught Obama eating. It is a pistachio encrusted flag pin wrapped in airy flakes of phyllo dough.
can anyone find pictures of mccain with hijabi-folk?
My sister was at the rally, she wears a hijab, and the same thing happened to her. She tried to go down on the floor and the staffers stopped her.
I support the campaign staffer. It is perfectly acceptable to refuse to have hijab wearing women as a backdrop. Why? Coz Hijabs are associated with violence. Just as a bikini clad woman is associated with loose morality in certain parts of the world. Yes, next time it could be the Sikhs who are airbrushed. On another note, if the said women are wearing the Hijab for religious reasons does it follow that they also believe in a Jihad and destruction to the western world? Do they also belief in death to an apostate – eg Razib? I presume so since have not heard anything to the contrary. Sucks – yeah sure does. But when extremist Muslims subvert the legal process to suppress free speech in countries like Canada and Australia, it is but natural to marginalize folks who profess belief in such a faith.
Melbourne desi, are you trying out your new parody avatar?
This was a truly outrageous and inappropriate incident, and I think it will be instructive to see how Obama moves forward on this. His volunteers were 100% out of line.
As an aside, I’ve been to several Obama events where Sikh men were integrated into the backdrop for photo ops. This doesn’t mean this kind of stupidity, ignorance, and racism won’t happen at the next event, but I think we can safely condemn this on its own merits. CAIR has issued a press release, and I hope that other communities will speak out against this incident and ask the candidate to offer an acceptable solution/process for ensuring this doesn’t happen again.
I have two thoughts about this episode. First thought: This is how the Dems shoot themselves in the foot. Nobody care about hijabs, least of all the archetypal frothing libertarians of the north Midwest. But the Dems will convince themselves that pandering to this imagined prejudice is a necessary if regrettable political move. And then look like asses per abhi’s post.
My second thought is, if there is actually an anti-hijab vote out there…well, it’s not Obama’s fault and it’s a close election and hijabs will benefit more under an Obama presidency than a McCain, and, sometimes it’s better to trade short-term unpleasantness for long-term greater gains.
Melbourne Desi, tell me your comment was an attempt at sarcasm and not for real?
19 · Camille said
I thought this was truly outrageous.
I think this young lady would like a word with the good Senator from ILLINois.
Current flavour of the month is Andrew Bolt 😉
This was a truly outrageous and inappropriate incident, and I think it will be instructive to see how Obama moves forward on this. His volunteers were 100% out of line.
Agreed. But the real world has to seep in to Obama-land at some point. While it’s outrageous and inappropriate, is anyone really surprised. Political campaigning is one largely of images, Bush riding on horses and with a cowboy hat and walking on aircraft carriers with a big piece of plastic covering his dick.
Hell, with one picture of obama in a turban having half the midwest thinking he’s muslim, what would a headscarf do? Is it really surprising this happened?
O boy, Hannity has one more thing to add to the list.
He can add trying to make sense to his list as well, that seems to have slipped him for many years.
15 · Sheena_Brown said
This leads to my question. Have any ladies/men wearing the traditional Muslim dress tried to get in the front/podium audience for McCain? I would be least surprised if a similar situation (like the one Abhi describes.) took place at a McCain rally.
i think the context of obama being a crypto-muslim can’t be under-emphasized here. george w. bush could do a lot of outreach to conservative muslims in 2000 just as nixon could go to china; no one would question bush’s all-american christian creds. obama can’t do that. additionally, the fact remains that islamic terrorism is a real manifestation of the religion of peace. the way people dress is critical in terms of the optics. you see hasidic jews and you think jews. you see a turbaned sikh, and you think sikhism. you see guys wearing abercombie & fitch t-shirts and you think…. this is politics, obama is a politician, the profession of the pharisee, not the prince of piece come to redeem. the rest is commentary….
yes this is politics. today no hijabs in his pictures tomorrow taking money for oil company lobbyists.
next making speeches about not policing the world and three years later attacking it.
Image is everything these days. That is the way things are presently, like it or not. Perhaps the Obama staff people could have provided little American flags to hold/wave for the more visible audience members.
Or a stars-and-stripes hijab? In any case, real patriots hold BIG American flags.
he better take those slick shoes off and put on some mountain climbing gear because he is sliding down the slippery slope of politics.
yes this is politics. today no hijabs in his pictures tomorrow taking money for oil company lobbyists.
next making speeches about not policing the world and three years later attacking it.
1) does anyone think that the obama campaign is anti-muslim? of course not. they were total morons about the implementation of an overkill policy. that being said, just because it shouldn’t matter doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. i’m sure most here would think it would be totally cool if every obama poster had a hijabi to represent the range of his supporters. and i’m sure then that john sidney mccain would be our next president. the outrage is warranted, but perspective is also important. this the real world; not a college campus where the president can be mau-maued by a protest on the lawn of the administration building. of course obama brings this on himself by being so holier than thou in his rhetoric….
2) discrimination against hijabis leads to attacking the world? that’s one mighty slippery slope!
I wonder why the Obama campaign does not put this up on their anti-smear website as fact to debunk the claim that Michelle Obama is an angry black woman who hates whites.
btw, does anyone know if they can find a photo with JFK hanging with nuns? that’s the proper analogy (seeing as how muslim apologists for their particular modest dress point out the clear historic and intentional connections with the habits of christian clerics).
Melbourne Desi
I’ve seen you on here a lot but I don’t is it Melbourne, Australia or Melbourne a city in the U.S. maybe Florida ?
Anyway that’s not the law here (even though it does obviously and has happened) in the U.S. to “naturally marginalize folks” for something someone that looks like someone else that may or may have not done something to someone else.
(wasn’t sure if you were being sarcastic or not)
17 · melbourne desi said
it wasn’t a direct comparison. More of a comparison to a soon to be former president that said he stood for one thing and campaigned on it and then did a completely different thing once he got elected.
31 · razib said
Of course its all about image and of course it matters even if it shouldn’t because we’re talking about somebody running for the left wing of our country’s single political party and he can’t go too far out of the lines.
I get it he’s got to run a campaign and do whatever it takes. The point is what’s next? So what else will it take?
that being said, just because it shouldn’t matter doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter
31 · razib said
Of course its all about image and of course it matters even if it shouldn’t because we’re talking about somebody running for the left wing of our country’s single political party and he can’t go too far out of the lines.
I get it he’s got to run a campaign and do whatever it takes. The point is what’s next? So what else will it take?
that being said, just because it shouldn’t matter doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter
31 · razib said
More of a comparison to a soon to be former president that said he stood for one thing and campaigned on it and then did a completely different thing once he got elected.
clinton said he would revoke most favored for china. george hw bush said he wouldn’t raise taxes. reagan said he wouldn’t raise taxes. nixon said he had a secret plan to get us out of vietnam with victory. george w bush said he would have a humble foreign policy. blah, blah. the unfortunate aspect of the first-past-the-post two party system is that you get to pick between two liars who have to cobble together a coalition of around 1/2 the population. ergo, you lie to various groups and know that they won’t defect to the alternative because they’re even a worse bet. republican presidential candidates do this on abortion; the big money donors know that nothing will ever get done on this front through the executive bully pulpit. and democrats do it on trade; they always sell out their blue-collar base because they have nowhere else to go on economic issues.
The point is what’s next? So what else will it take?
if muslims want not to be marginalized in this way they better breed or get really rich so they can donate money. they might tip michigan (though operationally it usually ends up dem anyhow), but obama would lose votes all across the country. i don’t think obama has the marginal capital to expend after l’affaire wright.
So, have the form apologies and knuckle rapping happened yet?
“Sen. Obama truly regrets the events of this afternoon. Obviously, such an incident does not reflect the values and beliefs of Sen. Obama himself. imperfect union blah blah blah. Sen. Obama believes that all Americans are equal irrespective of their religion, be it Episcopal, Lutheran, Southern Baptist, or Catholic, and ethnicity, be it white, black. Oh, or Hispanic. Also, Sen. Obama would like to reiterate that he is a True Friend Of Israel.”
yeah, I was pretty disappointed when I read this. one of the things with Obama’s campaign that has bugged me is turning the word, “Muslim” into a smear. I don’t blame Obama for this at all, but I am bothered by it. So I am pretty annoyed that this happened for a couple of reasons. 1. cuz it happened at all. and 2. Because Obama has a stupid, needless negative plotpoint in his campaign. This is third blog i have seen this story in, and it was on CNN. If that moron volunteer had just sitted those girls nobody would have cared except maybe some crazed right-wing wingnut.
This is not the first time. Obama’s had it both ways for a long time now on this kind of issue. He’ll probably teflon his way through this one too, so you shouldn’t worry too much about the “negative plotpoint”.
Melbourne – Australia. It was partly sarcastic but I am also very frustrated at the pseudo-liberal crowd.
really? you’d think that these issues are worth discussing only if you are a right wing fox nutso. but in such a case, bubba, you’ve probably made up your mind about a black secret muslim already, so no additional harm done.
I don’t see anything liberal in finding such an incident outrageous. But maybe I’m too seeped in the green tree-hugging bleeding-heart liberal culture to see clearly…
A true liberal would have been outraged at the ‘Hijab’ – a demeaning garment. A real liberal would be outraged at the suppression of Free speech. A true liberal would support the right of Jyllands Posten. A true liberal believes that religion has only limited role in the political discourse. Pseudo liberals of course dont believe in any of the above. All people are equal, however not all ideas are equal.
Also, a true liberal would support free and fair elections.
What does all this have to do with treating an American Muslim Obama supporter as a second class citizen?
Bigots like you who judge people purely based on their external markings are what keep progressives relevant.
Oh PLEASE.
Banning women wearing hijabs from sitting behind Obama at a nationally publicized and photographed rally is NOT discrimination or a violation of anyone’s due process rights; it’s GOOD MARKETING.
Frankly, I’m more concerned with Obama’s substantive policies and how they will affect all of us, including hijab-wearers, than a campaign strategy that NECESSARILY accounts for the reality that most ignorant (white) American voters WOULD focus on the presence of hijabs (a highly conspicuous religious AND political garb in America, like the yarmulke and the turban) in the audience, and make a number of mental associations with Obama, which would ultimately be to his detriment.
I’d love a leader, and it can be Obama, to BE the change I wish to see in the world, but I can wait a little bit longer to SEE that change when he or she is safely IN the White House (or Black House, or Brown House, or whatever Texan Republicans would rather call it).
Why don’t you wait for a brown guy to win before you tear him down? Until a sepia mutiny blogger breaks a color barrier at the level of winning a major political party presidential nomination, I think your advice on how a brown guy should run a winning presidential campaign shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Me? I’d be straight up with the hijab-wearing ladies. “Ma’ams, evolutionary psychology, not some invisible god, is responsible for both your cultural predilection for covering your hair and for a color prejudice gradient that Obama may have to overcome to be elected President. Let’s reduce our evo psych obstacles by 50% for this photographed event and get your hijabs out of the frame please. Thanks.”