For those who use Barack "Hussein" Obama's full name as a way to slam him. Educate yourself.

I find that people who hate President Obama seem to relish calling him by his full name, like it's some sort of cut or something he should be ashamed of. Not only is his name common, it is also just as "American" as McCain or any other American name. When people use it in a nasty way it just shows their deep hatred and bigotry of people from different cultures. I'm tired of the racists undertones of it. And it seems especially popular in the south. I'm from the south and it hurts me because so many times people look at me because of where I am from and automatically believe I am one of those ignorant bigots who flies the stars and bars in my pick up truck back window, etc. It's downright embarrassing. The civil war was a long time ago and the south DID NOT win. This country is made up of all kinds of people from all sorts of religions and backgrounds. The majority of us came from immigrants from other lands with "weird" names. I wonder what the native americans thought of our names the first time they heard them?
Here is an interesting article about President Obama's name. Maybe instead of using it as some sort of racial slur, we should try to open our minds a little and examine our own names and our own ancestry. You might be surprised what you find. I'm a huge ancestry buff and have traced my family and my husbands family back many, many generations. And there are all sorts of cool names to be found. I'm sure the same goes for all of us.

Quote :

3/1/08 Chi. Sun-Times 11

In Cincinnati, Bill Cunningham, according to the Los Angeles Times, introducing presidential candidate John McCain at a rally Tuesday, "ridiculed Democratic contender Barack Obama for his intention to meet with 'world leaders who want to kill us' and pointedly referred to the Illinois senator as 'Barack Hussein Obama.' " John McCain repudiated Cunningham's low tactics and said that using the middle name like that three times was "inappropriate" and would never happen again at one of his rallies.

I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages.

Christian, Western heroes have often been bequeathed Middle Eastern names. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the medieval Spanish hero, carried the name El Cid, from the Arabic al-Sayyid, "the Lord."

Barack and Hussein are Semitic words. Americans have been named with Semitic names since the founding of the republic. Fourteen of our 43 presidents have had Semitic names. And American English contains many Arabic-derived words that we use every day and without which we would be much impoverished. America is a world civilization with a world heritage, something Cunningham will never understand.

Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun. In its Hebrew form, barak, it is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22 -- "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

"Barak" appears in the Bible many times.

Now let us take the name "Hussein." It is from the Semitic word hasan, meaning "good" or "handsome." Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form.

Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi, Kenya. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America's most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini.

But in Obama's case, it is just a reference to his grandfather.

It is worth pointing out that John McCain's adopted daughter, Bridget, is originally from Bangladesh. Because Hussein is a very common name in Bangladesh, it is entirely possible that her birth father or grandfather was named Hussein. McCain certainly has Muslim relatives via adoption in his family. If Muslim relatives are a disqualification from high office in the United States, then McCain himself is in trouble.

The other thing to say about grandfathers named Hussein is that very large numbers of African-Americans probably have an ancestor 10 or 11 generations ago with that name, in what is now Mali or Senegal or Nigeria. And since so many thousands of Arab Muslims were made to convert to Catholicism in Spain after 1501, many Latinos have distant ancestors named Hussein, too. In fact, since there was a lot of Arab-Spanish intermarriage, and since there was subsequent Spanish intermarriage with other European Catholics, more European Americans are descended from a Hussein than they realize. The British royal family is quite forthright about the Arab line in its ancestry going back to Andalusia.

Obama, being a cousin of Dick Cheney on one side and having relatives in Kenya on the other, is just more and more typical of the 21st century United States.

So Obama's first two names mean "blessing, the good." If we are lucky enough to get him for president, we can only hope that his names are prophetic for us.

Which brings me to Omar Bradley. Omar is an alternative spelling of Umar, i.e., Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Sunni Islam.

Presumably Gen. Bradley was named for the poet Omar Khayyam, who bore the caliph's name. Omar Khayyam's "Rubaiyat," in the "translation" of Edward FitzGerald, became enormously popular in Victorian America.

Gen. Omar Bradley, who bore a Semitic, Muslim first name, and shared it with the second caliph of Sunni Islam, was the hero of D-day and Normandy, of the Battle of the Bulge and the Ruhr.

Would Cunningham see Omar Bradley as un-American, as an enemy because of his name?

What about other American heroes, such as Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO supreme allied commander of Europe? "Joulwan" is an Arabic name. Or there is Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander. Abizaid is an Arabic name. Abi means Abu or "father of," and Zaid is a common Arab first name. Is Cunningham good enough to wipe their shoes? Is he going to call them traitors because they have Arabic names?

What about Rep. Darrell Issa of California? ("Isa" means Jesus in Arabic). Former Cabinet secretary Donna Shalala? (Shalala means "waterfall" in Arabic.)

I won't go into all the great Americans with Arabic names in sports, entertainment and business, against whom Cunningham would apparently discriminate on that basis. Does he want to take citizenship away from Kareem Abdul Jabbar (meaning "noble the servant of the Mighty") and Ahmad Jamal (meaning "the most praised, beauty")? What about Rihanna ("sweet basil," "aromatic")? And Tony Shalhoub (i.e., Mr. Monk)?

Let us take Benjamin Franklin. His first name is from the Hebrew Bin Yamin, the son of the Right (hand), or the son of strength, or the son of the South (yamin or right has lots of connotations). The "Bin" means "son of," just as in modern colloquial Arabic. Bin Yamin Franklin is not a dishonorable name because of its Semitic root. By the way, there are lots of Muslims named Bin Yamin.

As for an American president bearing a name derived from a Semitic language, that is hardly unprecedented.

John Adams really only had Semitic names. His first name is from the Hebrew Yochanan, or gift of God, which became Johan and then John. (In German and in medieval English, "y" is represented by "j" but was originally pronounced "y.") Adams is from the biblical Adam, which also just means "human being." In Arabic, one way of saying "human being" is "Bani Adam," the children of men.

Thomas Jefferson's first name is from the Aramaic Tuma, meaning "twin." Aramaic is a Semitic language spoken by Jesus, which is related to Hebrew and Arabic. In Arabic, twin is tau'am, so you can see the similarity.

James Madison, James Monroe and James Polk all had a Semitic first name, derived from the Hebrew Ya'aqov or Jacob, which is Ya'qub in Arabic. It became Iacobus in Latin, then was corrupted to Iacomus, and from there became James in English.

Zachary Taylor's first name is from the Hebrew Zachariah, which means "the Lord has remembered."

Abraham Lincoln, of course, is named for the patriarch Abraham, from the Semitic word for father, Ab, and the word for "multitude," raham. Abu, "father of," is a common element in Arab names today.

So, Mr. Cunningham, Barack Hussein Obama fits right in this list of presidents with Semitic names. In fact, we haven't had one for a while. We are due for another one.

A blessed and good one.

Link

Gringa, are you aware that Bill Cunningham has called Presidents by their first, middle and last name for years and years? He called Bush - George Walker Bush, his father - George Herbert Walker Bush. He called Clinton - William Jefferson Clinton, Reagan was always Ronald Wilson Reagan and on and on. It's part of his shtick. In the case of Cunningham, that's nothing more than than the left looking for something that isn't there.

Judge Roy Bean wrote:

Gringa, are you aware that Bill Cunningham has called Presidents by their first, middle and last name for years and years? He called Bush - George Walker Bush, his father - George Herbert Walker Bush. He called Clinton - William Jefferson Clinton, Reagan was always Ronald Wilson Reagan and on and on. It's part of his shtick. In the case of Cunningham, that's nothing more than than the left looking for something that isn't there.

Apparently McCain thought it was rude or he wouldn't have told him to cut it out and we aren't talking about one person here. We are talking about all of those who use it with nasty, racist undertones. It happens all the time and those who deny it happens have their head stuck in the sand.

I wonder why the left is so touchy about his name... Nothing racist about calling a man by his formal name... He's the president.. He deserves to be called by his name..

gringaloca wrote:

Apparently McCain thought it was rude or he wouldn't have told him to cut it out and we aren't talking about one person here. We are talking about all of those who use it with nasty, racist undertones. It happens all the time and those who deny it happens have their head stuck in the sand.

Was it racist when Obama used it as well? How about how he used to use, then quit? Did he quit because he thought it was racist? It's the mans name, who cares? Barack and Hussein both sound Arab, so what? It seems to me the only people getting upset about his name are those who defend him. It seems they feel it necessary to defend him about everything which brings me to my next point. This country still isn't ready for a black president, and I'm talking about those that feel the need to constantly intervene for him about every little thing.

McCain showed how weak he was, as soon as some fool reporter whined about it, he fell apart trying to appease those that wanted to make it seem racist.

I figured that was the response I would get. Denial ain't just a river in Eqypt. Good night all.

gringaloca wrote:

I figured that was the response I would get. Denial ain't just a river in Eqypt. Good night all.

Exactly what I was thinking when I made my last post on the subject. It's true, there are far more on the left not ready for a black president. It's a real shame.

gringaloca wrote:

I find that people who hate President Obama seem to relish calling him by his full name, like it's some sort of cut or something he should be ashamed of. Not only is his name common, it is also just as "American" as McCain or any other American name. When people use it in a nasty way it just shows their deep hatred and bigotry of people from different cultures. I'm tired of the racists undertones of it. And it seems especially popular in the south. I'm from the south and it hurts me because so many times people look at me because of where I am from and automatically believe I am one of those ignorant bigots who flies the stars and bars in my pick up truck back window, etc. It's downright embarrassing. The civil war was a long time ago and the south DID NOT win. This country is made up of all kinds of people from all sorts of religions and backgrounds. The majority of us came from immigrants from other lands with "weird" names. I wonder what the native americans thought of our names the first time they heard them?
Here is an interesting article about President Obama's name. Maybe instead of using it as some sort of racial slur, we should try to open our minds a little and examine our own names and our own ancestry. You might be surprised what you find. I'm a huge ancestry buff and have traced my family and my husbands family back many, many generations. And there are all sorts of cool names to be found. I'm sure the same goes for all of us.

Quote :

3/1/08 Chi. Sun-Times 11

In Cincinnati, Bill Cunningham, according to the Los Angeles Times, introducing presidential candidate John McCain at a rally Tuesday, "ridiculed Democratic contender Barack Obama for his intention to meet with 'world leaders who want to kill us' and pointedly referred to the Illinois senator as 'Barack Hussein Obama.' " John McCain repudiated Cunningham's low tactics and said that using the middle name like that three times was "inappropriate" and would never happen again at one of his rallies.

I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of Gen. Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages.

Christian, Western heroes have often been bequeathed Middle Eastern names. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the medieval Spanish hero, carried the name El Cid, from the Arabic al-Sayyid, "the Lord."

Barack and Hussein are Semitic words. Americans have been named with Semitic names since the founding of the republic. Fourteen of our 43 presidents have had Semitic names. And American English contains many Arabic-derived words that we use every day and without which we would be much impoverished. America is a world civilization with a world heritage, something Cunningham will never understand.

Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun. In its Hebrew form, barak, it is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22 -- "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

"Barak" appears in the Bible many times.

Now let us take the name "Hussein." It is from the Semitic word hasan, meaning "good" or "handsome." Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form.

Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi, Kenya. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America's most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini.

But in Obama's case, it is just a reference to his grandfather.

It is worth pointing out that John McCain's adopted daughter, Bridget, is originally from Bangladesh. Because Hussein is a very common name in Bangladesh, it is entirely possible that her birth father or grandfather was named Hussein. McCain certainly has Muslim relatives via adoption in his family. If Muslim relatives are a disqualification from high office in the United States, then McCain himself is in trouble.

The other thing to say about grandfathers named Hussein is that very large numbers of African-Americans probably have an ancestor 10 or 11 generations ago with that name, in what is now Mali or Senegal or Nigeria. And since so many thousands of Arab Muslims were made to convert to Catholicism in Spain after 1501, many Latinos have distant ancestors named Hussein, too. In fact, since there was a lot of Arab-Spanish intermarriage, and since there was subsequent Spanish intermarriage with other European Catholics, more European Americans are descended from a Hussein than they realize. The British royal family is quite forthright about the Arab line in its ancestry going back to Andalusia.

Obama, being a cousin of Dick Cheney on one side and having relatives in Kenya on the other, is just more and more typical of the 21st century United States.

So Obama's first two names mean "blessing, the good." If we are lucky enough to get him for president, we can only hope that his names are prophetic for us.

Which brings me to Omar Bradley. Omar is an alternative spelling of Umar, i.e., Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Sunni Islam.

Presumably Gen. Bradley was named for the poet Omar Khayyam, who bore the caliph's name. Omar Khayyam's "Rubaiyat," in the "translation" of Edward FitzGerald, became enormously popular in Victorian America.

Gen. Omar Bradley, who bore a Semitic, Muslim first name, and shared it with the second caliph of Sunni Islam, was the hero of D-day and Normandy, of the Battle of the Bulge and the Ruhr.

Would Cunningham see Omar Bradley as un-American, as an enemy because of his name?

What about other American heroes, such as Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO supreme allied commander of Europe? "Joulwan" is an Arabic name. Or there is Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander. Abizaid is an Arabic name. Abi means Abu or "father of," and Zaid is a common Arab first name. Is Cunningham good enough to wipe their shoes? Is he going to call them traitors because they have Arabic names?

What about Rep. Darrell Issa of California? ("Isa" means Jesus in Arabic). Former Cabinet secretary Donna Shalala? (Shalala means "waterfall" in Arabic.)

I won't go into all the great Americans with Arabic names in sports, entertainment and business, against whom Cunningham would apparently discriminate on that basis. Does he want to take citizenship away from Kareem Abdul Jabbar (meaning "noble the servant of the Mighty") and Ahmad Jamal (meaning "the most praised, beauty")? What about Rihanna ("sweet basil," "aromatic")? And Tony Shalhoub (i.e., Mr. Monk)?

Let us take Benjamin Franklin. His first name is from the Hebrew Bin Yamin, the son of the Right (hand), or the son of strength, or the son of the South (yamin or right has lots of connotations). The "Bin" means "son of," just as in modern colloquial Arabic. Bin Yamin Franklin is not a dishonorable name because of its Semitic root. By the way, there are lots of Muslims named Bin Yamin.

As for an American president bearing a name derived from a Semitic language, that is hardly unprecedented.

John Adams really only had Semitic names. His first name is from the Hebrew Yochanan, or gift of God, which became Johan and then John. (In German and in medieval English, "y" is represented by "j" but was originally pronounced "y.") Adams is from the biblical Adam, which also just means "human being." In Arabic, one way of saying "human being" is "Bani Adam," the children of men.

Thomas Jefferson's first name is from the Aramaic Tuma, meaning "twin." Aramaic is a Semitic language spoken by Jesus, which is related to Hebrew and Arabic. In Arabic, twin is tau'am, so you can see the similarity.

James Madison, James Monroe and James Polk all had a Semitic first name, derived from the Hebrew Ya'aqov or Jacob, which is Ya'qub in Arabic. It became Iacobus in Latin, then was corrupted to Iacomus, and from there became James in English.

Zachary Taylor's first name is from the Hebrew Zachariah, which means "the Lord has remembered."

Abraham Lincoln, of course, is named for the patriarch Abraham, from the Semitic word for father, Ab, and the word for "multitude," raham. Abu, "father of," is a common element in Arab names today.

So, Mr. Cunningham, Barack Hussein Obama fits right in this list of presidents with Semitic names. In fact, we haven't had one for a while. We are due for another one.

A blessed and good one.

Link

One comment on this one.......I can see that it gets to some people. and as for this reason/education given...... .

Link[/quote]One comment on this one.......I can see that it gets to some people. and as for this reason/education given...... .[/quote]

Do you have a point in there some where? What do you think about his middle name? You seem to like it since you use it so frequently.

gringaloca wrote:

.

Do you have a point in there some where? What do you think about his middle name? You seem to like it since you use it so frequently.

[/quote]
I could ask you the same question since imo there is no point to this thread other than maybe to cut people that you don't agree with.
Obama's middle name was used when swearing him in as President of the United States of America so I think that would be o.k.. Other presidents middle names have been used when referring to them as well.
I don't see a problem with it since that is his name. Thats just me though .
Maybe you are the one with a problem with that name since you are the one that doesn't like seeing it used or maybe you are looking for something that just isn't there.
Unless that name (Hussien) is against the rules I will use it when I want. Should members check for your approval before using a persons name on here? I don't think so.

Have a nice day.

You can play coy all you like. People, like yourself, use the name because they think it makes him sound bad, like Saddam Hussein or something. It was a big topic on Fixed News for quite a while. People saying, "how can we vote for a man with the middle name Hussein". Blah blah. Personally, I don't mind the name at all. One of my doctors name is Hussein and I love him to pieces. I just wanted to point out that it is a good name and shouldn't be used to scare off uneducated people. I just thought it was funny that people who hate him like to use the full "scary" name.
You have a nice day too!

gringaloca wrote:

You can play coy all you like. People, like yourself, use the name because they think it makes him sound bad, like Saddam Hussein or something. It was a big topic on Fixed News for quite a while. People saying, "how can we vote for a man with the middle name Hussein". Blah blah. Personally, I don't mind the name at all. One of my doctors name is Hussein and I love him to pieces. I just wanted to point out that it is a good name and shouldn't be used to scare off uneducated people. I just thought it was funny that people who hate him like to use the full "scary" name.
You have a nice day too!

That really got to me . I believe that all knows what your agendas are and I will leave it a that..............I will have nice day, thank you.