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Talking Story  by Polo

I didn’t open Sunday Oregonian’s paid ad for Obsession — Islam’s crescent moon for its capitol O, an AK-47 assault rifle for its ending N.

Obsession, a free DVD insert, is about murderous Muslims. Everywhere. Every moment, mad brown men bent on mayhem. Committed to killing you and me. Obsessed.

I didn’t tear out that slim disk. I didn’t power up my DVD machine. I didn’t have the time.

Sundays we drive Buddha temple aunties to Trader Joe’s. Sundays I toothbrush Ultra Tide into my white shirts’ stubborn neck and pit stains and stuff a load of them into our Maytag. Sundays are the only days we have time to dust and vacuum. This Sunday I dug a year of decomposing elm and maple leaves out of our gutters, Oregon rain arrives real soon.

I didn’t watch my machine sip in that DVD. I didn’t punch Play. I didn’t have the heart.

And even if this heart, my heart, wasn’t already committed to those eager grandmas, to my stubborn work shirt stains, to our dirty downspouts — there’s simply no room in there. In my heart. No spare space. Not for fear.

Not for fear. Not for this shrill film’s maker, for reasons I cannot know, for reasons I will not live. I don’t want to be anxious in Trader Joe’s parking lot. We can’t be distracted from Sunday chores. We won’t be scanning October’s azure sky for terrible ideas rather than autumn weather.

Nope. I passed by that odd DVD. I dumped it, same as I tossed two thick inches of pretty entertaining Office Depot, Sports Authority, and Circuit City sales ads. No time, no heart. Not for those obsessed folks, not for their angry commerce. Because, I tell you true: Monday morning I have to go to work.

And at work in Portland, Oregon, we deal all day with Muslims, devout and not, Arab and Asian and American. We toil with Christians, left and right; with Russians and Latinos, some traditional, some evangelical. We rub with white folks; we labor with black ones, some made in America, some straight from Mother Africa.

And at work, obsessing about swarthy strangers’ dark designs on us, does not work for us. Not the city I know. That kind of nuttiness, like steamy Enquirer headline stories, is best left in grocery checkout racks. That ugly DVD, same as internet porning, same as violent video gaming, all trying to take tender humanity out of you and me, are all better left untouched. Not played.

You don’t play with fire. You don’t dance with the devil. And like our Elder Auntie Kris used to say, and say and say: "Don’t you get in the ring with (Iron) Mike Tyson if you’re not as big, as bad, as him.

"And hati-hati, anak aku (watch out, my child), if you get in there, with that man, you don’t come home to me."

* * *

Notas:

1. On September 28, 2008, even with Portland’s mayor urging restraint, The Oregonian’s publisher distributed a paid insert, a one-hour film, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, in his Sunday edition. The publisher’s reasoning, along with several prominent Portlanders’ objections to that rationale and the film were set out in an Oregonian reporter’s Sunday Metro Section article, posted online at <www.oregonlive.com/politics/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1222494903175240.xml&coll=7>.

2. On Monday morning (September 29) many Oregonians demonstrated their disagreement with

the paper’s decision and the film’s premise in front of the newspaper’s downtown offices.

3 .On Tuesday morning (September 30) Oregonian editors included eight letters representing readers’ response to the film’s message and to the paper’s decision to accept payment for distributing the film, posted at <www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2008/ 09/letters_obsession_dvd_divides.html>.

4. Terima kasih to Kayse Jama and Portland’s Center for Intercultural Organizing for gathering

Jews and Muslims and Methodists and Buddhists and Baptists and Catholics and Episcopalians and Unitarians and United Church of Christ believers, and children of every continent’s shamanic

traditions, in front of The Oregonian.

Thank you to Sho Dozono and members of Portland’s Japanese American Citizens League for not letting Oregon forget about the last time obsessing on ethnicity shelved the United States Constitution.

Thank you to Sen. Avel Gordly and to African America for reminding and reminding us of your sorrow and America’s promise.

Thank you Portland Police Bureau for gently herding us out of Monday morning Broadway traffic.

And a big mahalo nui to The Oregonian for playing with fire, for lending your sidewalk to us, so we can celebrate a bigger us.

5. A fact sheet on Obsession (DVD) released by City of Portland, Office of Human Relations, is available at <www.portlandonline.com/ shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=213331>.