There’s been a lot of heat over at More.com  about the October issue of MORE magazine with Michelle Obama on the cover. The majority of posts have been pretty nasty, prompting me to give an  encouraging "atta-girl" to the editor for her decision...in a post of what I felt was a cooler head prevailing.  Alas, my "cool head" produced even more (no pun intended) heat...which prompted me to respond with a second post.

Then a friend e-mailed the Salon.com article by Margriet Oostveen on her experience as a “fake letter ghostwriter” for John McCain -- which led me to believe that perhaps a lot of these posts were fakes...and to my third and final post (feeling neither the need nor inclination to respond further because I'd either be "preaching to the choir" or it would just be "falling on deaf ears" [yeah, I hate cliches, too, but hey, sometimes they just seem to fit]) which included a link to that Salon.com article.  In the best interest of “cross-pollinating” readership, here are my posts...with a link to the editor's explanation of why she chose Obama for the cover, where you can also read ALL of the posts.

To Lesley Jane Seymour, Editor of MORE Magazine:

As shocked as you probably were by the vitriolic backlash (or maybe blacklash might be more to the point) you received about your Michelle Obama cover, take heart...you’ve done a wonderful thing. 

As Dr. Phil might say, “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge;” and  inadvertently, you’ve shed a much-needed light on the insidiousness of racism....which is difficult for anyone with an expansive mind and an open heart (which yours obviously is) to understand.

That certainly has been the case with my white girlfriends who’ve often had a difficult time wrapping their brains around covert racism whenever I’ve tried to explain it to them.  It’s hard for them to understand that anyone could harbor such hatred in 2008. But with the ugliness that’s come “out of the closet” during this presidential election, a lot of them are now starting to get it. Sadly, these posts are just the tip of the iceberg (sigh) ...welcome to my world.  

I not only applaud MORE for putting Mrs. Obama on the cover...but more importantly,  I salute the reasons you’ve stated for doing so. Usually, I just pick up a copy on the news-stand whenever there’s an article that interests me; but as a show of support, I will now become a subscriber...and will be encouraging all my friends to do so, as well. 

My hope is that for every subscription that was cancelled in “punishment,” of your decision to put Michelle Obama on your October cover, you will be rewarded by DOUBLE that number in NEW subscriptions. In these anxious and difficult times, it is important to all of us – whether we agree with you or not – that your voice is not allowed to be silenced.

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MY RESPONSE TO POSTS CITING MORE’S (AND MY)“UNFAIRNESS”

If, in truth, your outrage stems from the “unfairness” at Obama’s cover so close to the election, then logically there should be equal outrage at the recent McCain family photo on the cover of People and Sarah Palin’s myriad of oh-so-close-to-the-election magazine covers and photo ops, with, no doubt, more sure to come even closer to the election.

After all, “fair is fair,” right? 

I would like to draw your attention to two critical words used in my previous post, along with  their definitions:

COVERT -- “CONCEALMENT OR DISGUISE”

As, for example, in the fear of something “different” or “other” -- which is concealed in the subconscious mind and disguises itself as "righteous indignation."

INSIDIOUS -- “PRODUCING SERIOUS HARM  IN A STEALTHY, OFTEN GRADUAL MANNER.”

The example of which I gave in my post: the “insidiousness” of racism.

The not-so-thinly-disguised hostility in your response to my post has gone a long way toward proving my point to anyone with the open heart and clarity of mind to see it. Thank you for that...and I pray that some day you will be able to see it too. 

Namaste, Mariann

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MY RESPONSE TO POSTS CALLING ME A “RACIST” --

I, too, am of mixed race, and am equally proud of my Anglo, Afro and Latino heritage. (There’s no Asian ancestry that I’m aware of, but I do have Asian relatives by marriage whom I love dearly...as I do all my many “multi-culti” relatives and friends.)  

Sadly, to be personally attacked as a “racist” for offering what I had hoped to be an enlightening observation about the overlay of fear which undermines racial harmony in our country – a comment which I honestly (and perhaps, naively) believed might be helpful in putting the “moral outrage” over a simple magazine cover into a psychological and humanistic context  (I’m a trained Clinical Hypnotherapist and Certified NLP Practitioner) – only goes further in proving my point.

But putting all of this into a POLITICAL context --  to quote David Letterman, “I smell a rat!”

Hmmm???? Could it be that...MANY OF THESE POSTS ARE FAKES?!!!!

 This article written by “fake letter ghost-writer,” Margriet Oostveen, --http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/24/mccain_letters/ -- got me wondering. And upon a more clinical review, the truncated logic, globalization, diversion, distortion and emotional hi-jacking used in many of these posts are most certainly typical in the tools of propaganda.

While the idea of this as a possibility is distasteful, it at least allows me to optimistically continue in my faith that while we may not always agree, WE CAN – and hopefully sometime soon, WE WILL -- find a way to all get along.

That’s all I wanted to say; with this as my intent:

“Let there be peace on earth...and let it begin with me.”

Love to all, Mariann

P.S.  In the interest of truth and full disclosure, however, I will admit that if there's one thing that upsets me about the Obama cover it's this...damn, I wish I had her arms!

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