Magic Mulatto, Mrs. YoMama, Touching A Tar Baby, Your Boy, Orbameo, Watermelons on the White House Lawn, cartoons with the President Obama's head and a chimpanzee's body, references to monkeys who escaped the zoo being related to the First Lady, and the list goes on with the racial slurs that have been hurled at this President and his family. Along with these is the recent attack of racial slurs against 11-year-old Malia, his youngest daughter.
Along with these insults is the greatest insult of all coming from the birthers with racism bubbling from every word that they speak. There is not any way that rational people would have initiated this very bizarre discussion regarding the citizenship of the President unless it was undergirded by the blinding energy of racist fear. What truly thoughtful person would have the notion that a man who is trained in constitutional law and who is an African American would be unconscious enough to imagine that he could pull off being President and not be a citizen. The entire discussion is almost beyond comprehension for those of us who are not being blinded by bigotry and hatred.
I am really not interested in hearing anyone say that these comments are about not wanting President Barack Obama to be criticized because nothing is further from the truth. Whatever policy issues that anyone finds themselves at odds with him about should be spoken about, debated and fought over in whatever civilized manner that discourse can occur. But I am talking about this low level of racist discourse that has been going on since day one. A discourse that has exhibited no respect for the office of President in the first place as well as no respect for this man, his wife and children. But even larger than this is the lack of respect that is being shown toward every African American in this country.
It is such a lie for a person to make a comment such as that of California Mayor, who said, "that there will be no Easter Egg Hunt on the East Lawn of the White House this year because there will be watermelons there" and then to say "that he did not know that African Americans liked watermelons." Amazing, if he did not know that stereotype why didn't he make a reference to the First Lady turning it into a garden or some other general comment? The intention seems rather clear to me and many others who are paying attention to what is being said and the tone that continues to grow stronger in this country regarding the expression of hatred and disrespect for this President.
The irony is that so many of us wish that he could be the radical change maker that he had hoped to be, but he has discovered that there are so many limitations to making changes and has not been able to do many things that many of us wish that we could see him do. So in some ways many things have not changed that much and all of these folks who are so distressed about Obama's policies and feel the need to make racial slurs to express their frustration need to check themselves out and see how their not so thinly veiled racism is shining through their words and many of their behaviors.
Another frightening thought about all of this expression of racist hatred is the fact that if President Obama and his family are treated this way, what about the young black men and women in the many racist pockets of this country who do not have the protection of education and power to buffer such attacks upon them? So many of them stand in the courts everyday and are treated to a massive dose of racist laced justice as they receive unfair treatment and find themselves being given sentences that never would be given to young whites who have committed similar crimes. This spirit that some politicians, media pundits and the birthers are fueling adds to the racism that already exists across this country and we will live to regret it if we don't find a way to show how unacceptable it is.
As a member of the Anti-Racism Commission for the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, Georgia, I know how difficult it is to get good people who are trying to be fair and open minded to see what is really going on now. But all of us need to stay clearly focused upon the fact that the only thing that it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to be unconscious and to congratulate themselves on not being evil. This evil has to be named and resisted every day no matter what your particular political party might be since it goes deeper and further than politics. We cannot allow the artificial lines of division to deter us from standing together because we are losing our souls and the country's soul while we watch in silence.
Monique Ruffin: Occupy Christian Oppression
What president's daughter has never been maligned? What president has never been falsely accused and verbally degraded? I am a member of the NAACP and a bold supporter of Obama. I am weary of those who feather their nest by protesting too much.
If you are incapable of seeing the difference here, perhaps you should ask a few of your fellow members what exactly constitutes a racist remark.
Peace,
Omar called his Mother, told her he got all the racists and wished he'd killed more before killing himself. Other minorities working there claim Omar was treated fairly and his biggest problem was reading inflammatory works by Black authors.
Some in the Black Press lack any sense of moral conscience. Racial hatred is a two -way street Mister.
In states like California where Black America will soon be the 3rd largest minority behind Whites and Asians there will be a need for new rhetoric. A new, helpful and healing rhetoric that ignores the wingnuts whether they are black or white wingnuts, red or blue.
Hispanic Governors like New Mexico's Latina Susanna Martinez are going to be more common. Their agendas, and the agenda of urban core Atlanta and Chicago and New York, are going to diverge. I expect a fracture of racial politics and articles like "All the Voices are White." The Herman Cains, they are the future.
I am white! I have little ability to believe that the larger objection to Mr Obama is not the color of his skin! I would believe that it is! It is a putrid thought that so many of us humans throw away all logic and common sense in pursuit of such fallacies. It would appear that when the logic does not fit we resort to black, white, republican, democrat, left, right, middle, or religious affiliation rather than face the loss of ego that questioning the logic would cause. Man in all his wisdom should learn to use that wisdom. I wish you well in your endeavor!
But please don't make enemies out of your friends. Most of those who question Obama do so for political reasons. Equating the birther movement with racism is almost as silly as the birthers are.
Birthers maintain that the president is foreign born. It ties into the notion that he is some sort of deep agent for a foreign government. While that may be a paranoid fantasy, it's a different fantasy from the racist fantasies.
Give me a break.
Why wasn't there a birther movement for John McCain? He was born outside our country.
Come on. Yes, the story is weaved with all sort of the "other" in it, but a big one is race. The appeal is visceral.
Thanks for being in the conversation.
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No, we really don't.
But every word of this blog could just as easily been written by (say) the late Christopher Hitchens, who was a rabit anti-religionist.
That's why I say there's nothing about this blog that is particularly religious, or about religion.
Now, I have no doubt that your religion informs your ethics - but the two are very different, and sometimes very much at odds with one another.
For example, the reason that homosexuals don't have the same rights as heterosexuals in our society is because of the influence of your religion, Christianity. That may not be your personal ethics, but unfortunately it is the ethics of the majority of the Christian church, including many in the Episcopal/Anglical branch, as I'm sure you know.
So...what you have written is a blog about ethics, not religion. From what I can see, your call is for people to take an ethical position on the subject of racism, not a religious one.
Unless, of course, you're not addressing all of us, but only those who profess the Christian religion.
We the only country in human history that fought a war with ourselves to free an enslaved race of people. More men were killed in the American Civil War than all of our other wars combined.
For a Black man to be elected President of the United States is a testament to our ability to measure the worth of a person based on substance rather than prejudice. Remember, Black Americans only make up less than 13% of the population. President Obama recieved 43% of the white vote. This is not an example of a racist nation.
I am not an Obama supporter, but his election is a watershed moment in Western Culture.
I, myself, am not concerned with someone else's feelings, thoughts, or speech, as I am with their actions.
been certified by the state executive committee of a political party, and therefore must, under
Code Section 21-2-5, meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought."-- Leo Donofrio, Esq., one of the leading attorneys in the so called "Birther "movement, first sued John McCain over these same charges, not barack Obama. Didn't Sen. Barack Obama co-signed the legislation that looked into John McCain's "natural born" citizenship status?
ex animo
davidfarrar
ex animo
davidfarrar
===
A big part of the problem is that there has been no pushback, and I think Obama himself bears part of the blame with his insistence to rise above and pretend we live in a post-racial world. Having committed himself to ignoring the fact that he's black, he can't really reply to his attackers. And by not taking on his attackers, he has only embolded them.
I will say that because of President Obama, I've learned that very close friends that I grew up with my entire life were racists. It was startling. The words that she uses and a few others in her family are open and with anger. What is this? The family my brother married into have behaved the same. We don't go to those relatives for Thanksgiving because of what is said at the dinner table. It has made myself and my mother, brother and sister feel as though we are supporting it by not saying much. We stopped going to those dinners (my brother still goes). We avoid conflict (in our nature), but we need to fight this. The ugliness of it and the williness for people to say things and do things that are ugly is an eye opener.
What I'd like to understand is why? Why has the election President Obama brought all of this out to be more open, but also more emotional? What is going on?
I had heard that after the Civil War and during the Reconstruction, it was bad.
I had heard that after the Civil Rights Bill was signed, it was bad.
Why do people feel so threatened? What is it that they have lost? Is this power and feeling less power on the hierarchy? I'm trying to understand.
I don't understand it either, but I don't know anyone who has made racial comments about Obama.
I wish you the best.
BTW, you are entitled to your own opinions, however, you are not entitled to your own private definitions of words, such as you are employing here. Someone with a Ph.D. shouldn't have to be told that.