New Yorker Obama Cover: Fanning the Fire

By Eboo Patel - ABC News, Opinion
Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - Web Link
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July 16, 2008

My wife called as I was staring at the cover of this week's New Yorker, trying to decide whether the depiction of Barack Obama dressed in traditional Muslim garb giving his machine-gun-toting wife a fist tap in the Oval Office was "tasteless and offensive" (as both the Obama and McCain camps stated) or mere humorous satire.

I am a loyal New Yorker reader and not easily offended, but something she said gave me pause.

Driving through central Illinois on a business trip, my wife could not believe what she was hearing on right-wing radio talk shows:

"Do you know what they're saying about Muslims on the station I'm listening to now?" she asked. "Basically, that we're a bunch of fundamentalists intent on suffocating people of other religions, and the only way to stop us is to get us all to convert to Christianity."

And that is what concerns me: The New Yorker cover is not so much offensive as it is dangerous, precisely because of the prevalence of negative stereotypes of Muslims (not to mention the resurrection of the ghost of black militancy), stereotypes now further cemented in much of America.

As the progressive Huffington Post blog said: "Anyone who's tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who's tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism -- well, here's your image."