True story:

I had a student one semester, in his second year at the college. He was a great guy who worked hard in my class. He mentioned to me once that another professor had made fun of him for his name, asked him if anyone in his family was a terrorist, and told him that maybe he should change his name so he could get along better in the U.S. This student, the professor never bothered to find out, was third generation American. He was raised in the States, as were his parents.

His middle name happened to be Hussein. And until about the mid-nineties, he was pretty proud of it. Now he hid his name because of reactions like this other teacher’s. I told him, without a beat, that hundreds of thousands of people with his name throughout the world and throughout history had been fine, decent, honorable people. That one really famous a–hole and his family couldn’t erase all the other history of the name. That there are probably thousands of kind, loving, thoughtful people named McVay and Nichols and Bundy and Manson. That it’s not fair to judge people by their name any more than it’s okay to judge them by their skin or sexuality or political affiliation.

Then I told him to report the professor who acted so unprofessionally.

His look told me I had no idea what it was like to be judged by a racist, narrow minded society. Reporting it might not have hurt his opportunities at the college, but then again it might have. And it clearly had before.

End of true story. Beginning of rant:

Barack Hussein Obama is President of these United States. He’s not a terrorist, he’s not a fundamentalist, he is not a bad person. He’s fine and decent person who might just help us come together to make this country what we believe it can be. And he is not the only fine and decent person with this name. Those of you who say that we should focus on the name Hussein instead of on his actions, shame on you. You’re giving your own family a bad name.