AlterNet: Rep. Keith Ellison on the Ugly Attacks Obama Has Faced in the Election

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Rep. Keith Ellison on the Ugly Attacks Obama Has Faced in the Election

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted November 2, 2008.

The first Muslim in Congress, no stranger to the prejudice and fearmongering leveled at Obama, explains why these attacks ultimately fail.



On November 7, 2006, Rep. Keith Ellison became the first Muslim to be elected to the U.S. Congress. Running on an antiwar platform and with a strong progressive voice on civil rights, unions, and health care, Ellison won the seat vacated by Democrat Martin Sabo, who announced his retirement after 28 years. Representative of Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District, which covers Minneapolis, Ellison is also the state's first African American congressman.

As an (actual) American Muslim, Ellison is no stranger to the kind of prejudice and fearmongering that has been leveled at Barack Obama since he began his run for the White House, particularly, being maligned for being a Muslim (as if that in itself were proof of moral turpitude), and including claims that he is in cahoots with terrorists. But neither has it defined his political career. "You know what's funny," he says, "I was in the state house for four years. I converted to Islam when I was 19, and I'm 45 now. I was elected to the state house at the age of 39 -- and nobody cared. It was not a big deal. It was pretty well known , but it just wasn't an issue."

"And," he adds, "I got elected post-9/11."

Things changed when Ellison decided to seek national office. "When I ran for Congress, that's when it sort of exploded," he says. "That's when it was a big deal; it was a huge issue -- and I was somewhat surprised." During the primaries, he had been criticized for things like unpaid parking tickets. But once he won the Democratic nomination, the attacks got uglier. Among the propaganda was a leaflet produced by his Republican opponent, who as Ellison recalls, "sent out 110,000 pieces of literature saying that I cavorted with terrorist sympathizers."

"One of my opponents accused me of anti-Semitism for no other reason other than because I'm a Muslim," he says. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/election08/105740/rep._keith_ellison_on_the_ugly_attacks_obama_has_faced_in_the_election/