Biracial black/Bangladeshi-American Michigan state Sen. Hansen Clarke, who defeated incumbent Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick in yesterday's Democratic Party primary in Michigan's 13th Congressional District, seems ripe for some right-wing conspiracy theorizing. If you think Barack Obama or Keith Ellison got the conspiracy mills humming, check out Clarke's family biography:
Hansen had a Muslim father from Bangladesh and a mother who grew up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Detroit. Hansen was raised Muslim, then converted to Roman Catholicism.
His wife, Choi Palmer-Cohen, was born in South Korea and was adopted by a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. What is she today? By day, a staffer at the Center for Continuing Legal Education in Ann Arbor.
Choi Palmer-Cohen is an awesome name. As for Hansen, he would be the first Bangladeshi-American to be elected to Congress, which may prompt some people to demand proof he's not "working with our enemies." Remember when that seemed like a rare and crazy thing for someone to say?
