Acting White: Is Religion The New Race?

First, I will apologize for any rambling in this post, but all this recent transcending of race has me discombobulated.

Muslim terrorists in Mumbai, India kill at least 200 people, injuring many more, in the name of religious angst, and in this country Bobby Jindal, son of Indian immigrants and Republican governor of Louisiana, lands in Iowa, in a visit clearly calculated to test the 2012 presidential waters. First Obama wins, and now (perhaps) an ethnic Indian and Republican running for president? Ok, we have my attention.

Mumbai is a clear-on symbol of western influence in the second largest country on earth, and a growing battle-front between Muslims and everybody else, in this case Hindus. Rest assured that what disturbs the Muslims the most is the westernization, normally associated with Christianity and capitalism. This progress looks like fancy hotels, clothes, cars, dining, and unbridled consumption, all in a country many hundreds of millions deep in desperate poor - sounds like home minus the volume.

In the US, on Obama’s heels, the Hindu-turned-Catholic Jindal and white Republican power-brokers are considering if the remaining red-states are ready to put up a Piyush “Bobby” Jindal for higher office. Is Jindal, a Rhodes Scholar no-less, the remedy for beaten conservatives, rather than the good-old American whiteness of "Miss Incoherent" Sarah Palin? I’m wondering.

Now just as I was considering if the good old boys were finally going to have their American race war, this religious bloodshed leaps off the front-page, not only in Mumbai, but also Manila, Paris, Nigeria, Kenya, and more Muslim enclaves to come. In California, the Mormon and Black Church have become strange bedfellows in the fight against gay marriage. The Supreme Court girds for a new round of justices and more Roe v. Wade religious sparring.

The kicker for me was recalling how McCain practically handed Obama the election when he told a voter, and America, that Barack is NOT a Muslim. So its not just about Israel anymore. Does religion matter more than race?

UP NEXT: Is Poor The New Black?

James C. Collier

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