Who is John McCain?

The political junkie in me can't resist writing about the presidential elections--especially because both candidates are more than relevant to the topic of race in America--especially the idea of a mixed-race America (Obama, we already know about--but many people don't realize that John and Cindy McCain adopted a daughter from Bangladesh--which makes his an Asian American family of sorts).

So lets spend some time talking about Senator John McCain.

And the first thing I want to note, is that McCain is almost untouchable in terms of mainstream media criticism. There are some severe inconsistencies in his voting record that don't get noted, his legendary foul temper and language that doesn't get reported, and his use of the racial slur "gook" (which, apparently he hasn't used in public since 2000) that never gets discussed. Oh, and most disconcertingly, the issue of his emotional and mental fitness to be President of the United States based on his five-plus years as a POW in a North Vietnamese prison.

Let me say first off, I hope that John McCain has an on-going relationship with a therapist. A really good one. And a psychiatrist who can offer him meds. I think there is a stigma about mental health--and it'd be GREAT if McCain could go public with his own mental health issues (if he has been seeing someone that is) in order to discuss publicly and candidly what it's like to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Of course, I have no idea whether he does suffer from PTSD. But you have to ask yourself this question: What is worse, the idea that a man was held captive for over five years and tortured and walked away without developing PTSD or a man who is still grappling with the demons from that period by undergoing psychotherapy and medicating himself appropriately.

I'd have ENORMOUS respect if McCain were on meds and seeing someone for PTSD. It would make SO MUCH SENSE. And if he's not getting help (or hasn't gotten help in the past?). Well, I think that says volumes about the stigma of mental health. But here's the real crux of the problem: we can't talk about this. Certainly not on NPR or The New York Times or CNN. No one is going to dare insinuate anything about his mental fitness connected with his time at the Hanoi Hilton. This is what I mean about McCain being untouchable.

So this is why his "gook" comments don't get reported on (see this former post and this post by Angry Asian Man).

And this is why his infamous "c---" slur against his own wife, which I reported about back in this post, doesn't get mainstream coverage. The exact quote, as reported in Cliff Schecter's book The Real McCain: Why Conservative's Don't Trust Him--and Why Independents Shouldn't is as follows:

"In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there.' McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.'"

[For a review of Schecter's book, along with a few other recent tomes on McCain, see this review by the New York Review of Books, which lists some major inconsistencies in McCain's voting record]

A Baptist minister tried to ask McCain if this really happened during one of McCain's town hall meetings--McCain refused to answer because the minister used "bad language" and the minister was escorted out of the building (for more details click here).

Finally, for a humorous take on all of this, see the clip below:

Calling on McCain to talk about race

Calling all journalists in cyberspace: can you please start asking John McCain to talk about race? I know that there has been scrutiny placed on both Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama over the topic of "race" during this presidential election season. But has anyone asked John McCain about his views on race in America? Don't we think that he HAS opinions about race in America?

The other day a friend and I were talking about the remarkable speech on race delivered by Barack Obama last Tuesday. And she said that he was the only person qualified to talk about race in the way he did--honestly, openly, directly--among the presidential contenders. I agreed, but then I pointed out that there was one other person. I pointed out that John McCain was in a unique position to also talk about his experiences with race in America--most specifically, his relationship with the Vietnamese American community, in particular, and Asian Americans, in general, regarding his use of the slur "gook" back in the run-up to the 2000 presidential elections, when McCain's "Straight Talk Express" took him to use the racial slur, unabashedly--telling reporters that:

"I hate the gooks. And I will hate them as long as I live. You can quote me on this."

I have to say this for McCain--he is a "Straight Talker," if by straight talk you are unabashed in your use of hate-speech.

He immediately issued an apology as the Straight Talk Express headed into the multiracial (and heavily Vietnamese American populated) state of California. And eight years later, very few people (except for some random blog sites and chat boards) seem to have remembered this flap, which also received very little press eight years ago. For more on the original incident back in 2000, you can read about it in The Nation (which also details the free "pass" that McCain seems to have gotten from the news media back in 2000, and which seems to echo the treatment he's getting now), an Orange County article about a small protest by Asian American students, and a San Jose Mercury News piece that also has an excellent op-ed by William Wong at the bottom.

[Aside: if you click on the link for the chat board--the discussion (which began a month ago) is VERY DISTURBING and points to the ways in which anti-Asian sentiment doesn't seem to disturb very many people. In addition to using the phrase "gook" continually, other people have added the full list of racial slurs against Asians, and others recount stories of harassing and beating up Asian American kids they grew up with. Apparently, this is a source of humor, and yet I can't find anything funny about violence and racial profiling]

So why am I bringing it up now?

Because lets imagine that his apology was sincere--that he only meant to refer to the "gooks" he hated as his North Vietnamese torturers (the Asian American studies professor in me has to switch off the critical thinking/skeptical part of my brain here). Lets imagine that he really hasn't used that racial epithet again (or at least in public) and that he has truly worked with the Vietnamese American community in their anti-communist agenda. [aside: these are all things included in his apology--that when he used the phrase "gook" it was meant to refer to his captors rather than to all Vietnamese people or to Asians in general, and McCain is often popular among Vietnamese (specifically South Vietnamese Americans) living in the U.S. for his anti-communist positions--with some leaders going so far as to say that if you are anti-McCain you are pro-communist.]

This places McCain in a unique position to talk openly and honestly about race. To talk about the challenges of being able to distinguish between an enemy abroad during a time of war and a community of people living in the U.S. It would also give him the opportunity to descry anti-Asian violence, since much of anti-Asian violence starts with mistaken ethnic identity (like that enacted against Vincent Chin and others--like Ming Hai "Jim" Loo--a Chinese American man attacked in Raleigh, NC by two brothers who stated that they "hate all Vietnamese").

So why aren't we asking McCain how to have a clear dialogue on race in this country? Shouldn't the man riding (and running) the Straight Talk Express bus be the ideal person to talk, openly, honestly, and directly, about race in America?