TOW #23 "Multicultural President Should Be Celebrated, Not Investigated"

Reading goal: read for the purpose
Writing goal: use effective organization

   Since the presidential campaign of 2008, some people have challenged the fact that President Obama was born in the US. A poll from 2011 showed that one in four Americans believed that he was born outside the United States. So that year President Obama addressed these rumors by releasing his full birth certificate, proving that he was in fact born in Hawaii. Denizen, an online magazine for Third Culture Kids, or kids who spend a significant number of their developmental years outside their parents culture, presented their views on the issue in the article "Multicultural President Should Be Celebrated, Not Investigated". Denizen writers Steph Yiu and Suzanne Leung argue that whether Obama was or wasn't born in the US should not be a big deal and that a president who does have experience of other cultures and countries should be valued as one who  is better equipped to lead a country in our increasingly globalized world.
   A lot of this post's argument rests on the assumption that the audience shares most of the writers' points of view. Yiu and Leung write that this controversy "reveals a disappointingly narrow-minded way of thinking and, in our opinion, veiled racism. To us, one’s birthplace is really just that — a geographic location, and one of many that one will live in throughout life. True allegiance and love for a country is so much more sophisticated and complicated than a birth certificate." Denizen magazine is created and consumed by a community of people who have spent parts of their lives living in multiple different countries. They presumably feel the same way about a birthplace and understand that you can love a country (or multiple countries) no matter where you are born.
   Obama is a Third Culture Kid himself, as he lived for some time in Indonesia. Denizen argues that even if Obama hadn't been born in the US, it should not be such a point of controversy. Instead of challenged, international experience like Obama had in Indonesia should be valued in a leader. As Yiu and Leung state "We do not live in an one-culture world, and neither should our political leaders who must make decisions that have a global impact." This argument again is held up by their assumption that those reading this post have had their own experiences in other countries and understand that it is important in our globalized world to have contact with and understand other cultures.
   Finally, Yiu and Leung support their argument that Obama's birth certificate should not matter by asserting that the challenges to his birth place are not questions of legitimacy for the presidency but are rather attacks born of racism and xenophobism. They cite how Obama's birth was questioned while the fact that John McCain was born in Panama never came up in the 2008 election, and how John Kerry is not examined for spending part of his childhood in France while Obama is for his time in Indonesia. Through this they imply that Obama's US birthplace is questioned because he is African American, and that this is a disturbing and petty prejudice.
   Were Yiu and Leung writing to a wider audience, they would need to more strongly support their argument. However, as their post is targeted at a community of Third Culture Kids who relate to the experiences of both the authors and President Obama and to the argument that is expressed, their simple denouncement and call for a greater acceptance of multiculturalism is enough to be effective.

Here is the post from Denizen magazine: http://www.denizenmag.com/2011/05/multicultural-president-should-be-celebrated-not-investigated/