Religion, Race, and Barack Obama's New Democratic Pluralism by Gastón Espinosa

Author:Gastón Espinosa [Espinosa, Gastón]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136209666
Goodreads: 17535533
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

Springfield Muslim Perceptions of Barack Obama

Though the focus-group interviews were conducted after the 2008 election, all fifteen respondents had vivid recollections of their impression of then-candidate Obama. The impression was favorable and appears connected to a sense of shared religious heritage. As one stated, “It was hard not to think that Obama was like us because of his name.” Indeed, Obama himself facetiously noted at the Al Smith Dinner in October 2008 (a Catholic fund raiser named after the former governor of New York) that his parents must have thought he was destined to become president because of the name they bestowed him.

The almost immediate identification of Obama’s religious affiliation as Muslim by members of the Islamic community is understandable, but it proved problematic for Obama’s outreach to other segments of the electorate. Opinion surveys noted as late as summer 2008 that more than 10 percent of the general public believed Obama was a Muslim.13 This required a firm response from the then-Illinois Senator. Speaking to Jewish leaders, Obama attempted to distance himself from Islam:

My grandfather, who was Kenyan, converted to Christianity, then converted to Islam. My father never practiced; he was basically agnostic. So, other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for four years when I was a child, I have very little connection to the Islamic religion.14

Interestingly, when read this quote, none of the respondents felt differently toward Obama or even suspicious about his ties to Islam. When pressed for why this was the case, the replies were varied. One suggested that “Obama was just trying to make nice with others. He wasn’t offending us. He was showing the world that Islam is a religion of peace and acceptance.” Another stated that “Obama is in a hard place. He doesn’t know how to go about stopping suspicions about his faith in God, so he has to make people see him as less Muslim and more Christian.” These sentiments were more or less held by the entire group.

One might counter the group sentiment by pointing out that, empirically, Obama is not a Muslim. He has said as much. Unless people can consider themselves both a Christian and a Muslim, a choice in one’s religious affiliation must be made and presumably acknowledged by others. In listening to the responses of the focus group participants, it became clear that though Obama downplayed his past ties to Islam and forcefully asserted his personal Christian identity on several occasions, the group was not perturbed. In the words of one participant, “We saw Obama as telling the rest of the world something, and winking to us at the same time.”

However, if Obama says he is a Christian, can he seriously be considered a Muslim? In putting this question to the group, we were careful to ensure that the respondents understood that we wanted them to assess Obama’s faith in his own words, not according to a perception they may have of him. The overall group response was still one of denying that Obama’s ties to Islam were severable.

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