Racism

The cover of the recent New Yorker illuminates and exposes the racial undertones of this election. What's probably most interesting about the whole thing is that it's not even Obama's political opponents who were responsible. For some reason, the self-righteous people at the New Yorker thought that the cover was a brilliant satire of the common misconceptions leveled against the Obamas.

Unfortunately, since the cover has no words and only contains these striking images, many uninformed and uneducated people will walk by the magazine in their local grocery store and will form misguided opinions about them.

The most common misconception about Obama is that he's Muslim. While most people would disagree with this especially after the whole issue with the reverend showed that he was a devout member of his church, there's some people (my mom and her elders included) that believe you inherit the religion of your father.

At first, I thought it was only my mother who held these beliefs. But later I found out that other people, like her aunt and uncle and some of their friends, expressed the same feelings. I suppose it has a lot to do with how they were brought up, but I still think it's unfortunate that in their view, one can never truly escape their roots.