19 October 2008

Hey, Hussein!

A number of my friends on Facebook have changed their official name to include 'Hussein' as a middle name. First, I noticed Phil Thompson become Phil Hussein Thompson. I followed suit with Vincent Hussein Olivieri. Now, just a day later, I count four additional friends who have done it. I changed mine out of solidarity with Obama, who catches a lot of flack from the right because of his middle name. The theory being, of course, that 'Hussein' catches flack because it's a Muslim name (and unusual in the USA), and that the more people who adopt it, the more we can point out how insignificant a name actually is.

On the other hand, the mere fact that a bunch of us are changing our Facebook names is proving the point that 'Hussein' is an unusual name, and drawing attention to it. I doubt that we're going to change anyone's mind.

Today, I went googling and found this article about other Obama supporters changing their name to Hussein. The article was written in June, which just goes to show that I'm officially out of touch with the youth. Oh well.

Gobama!

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