I did have to be honest with myself and my sister and ask her what we call them when we talk about them—Barack, Hillary, and McCain. Let’s examine why we do this. We don’t call John McCain “John” because the name is too common, so to avoid confusion, we just call him McCain. We don’t call Hillary Clinton “Clinton” because we would have to distinguish between her and Bill. We don’t call Barack Obama “Obama” because we feel familiar with him, and as the media reminds us every now and then, Obama sounds too much like Osama.
Something about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama makes us feel like we can connect with them, but regardless of whatever it is that makes us more familiar with them and less familiar with John McCain, we need to show them the same level of respect. The media has the responsibility to show all of the candidates the same amount of respect regardless of how easy or hard it is to pronounce their names, right?
Wrong! The media can obviously call people whatever they want, as Fox News demonstrated when they referred to Michelle Obama as “Barack’s baby mama.” Talk about offensive!
Growing up, my husband and I were taught to respect adults and people in general. We learned to say “Yes sir” and “Yes ma’am.” Somehow, the younger generation missed the memo on this. And I don’t feel like this has anything to do with race. I blame it on pop culture. Cultural lines are being openly crossed now more than ever before—from relationships to clothes to music. People are more comfortable with each other now and are less fearful people who are different—great, right? Why is it that my husband (a wonderful black man) can go into a store or restaurant and be greeted by some youngster with, “Hey man” or “Wassup man, what you need?” But when a white man walks into that same restaurant or store, he is greeted with a “Hello sir, how may I help you?”
It is a total lack of respect, and I must say my husband handles it well. He normally attempts to lead by example by referring to the youngsters as “sir,” or he will even calmly confront them about the inappropriateness of the way they address him. The young people feel like they are relating in some way by addressing him this in this manner, and yes I’m assuming it’s because he’s black, so in turn they automatically assume he is the media’s stereotypical hip-hopping black man. Some people even seem to be offended if you call them sir or ma’am because it makes them sound “old.” Does a person have to be a white man or as old as John McCain to get some respect?
The only way that I can apply this to the presidential race is that our society has gotten way too comfortable with disrespecting certain groups of people. I almost feel like we’re going backwards. If a white man doesn’t end up in the White House after this election, we will really see this country’s true colors (no pun intended). Hopefully whoever ends up in the White House will be called by his proper name—Mr. President.
