Joe Wilson -- This One's Too Easy
Once again, my poor President's health care initiative has been buried by an act of someone acting stupidly. After a South Carolina Congressman shouted that the President was a liar, the news has been deluged with stories about Joe Wilson. I think more people can tell you more about Rep. Wilson than define a public option. Don't worry, Eric Cantor (R-Va), your incessant texting during the President's speech to the Joint Congress also hogged the headlines.
As a diversity consultant, I must say that Barak Obama's Presidency is the gift that keeps on giving. Just as America was starting to pat itself on the back for coming a long way on gender, race and other polarizing issues, finally America is inching closer toward having an honest conversation about race.
Some have cautioned against using the "racism chip" to describe the vitriol that Republicans, the Deathers, the Birthers and the Schoolers have slung toward President Obama. They believe that couching disagreements with the President as racism is simplistic and inaccurate.
Yet, during this season of disrespect toward the President, we have seen more than just a little good-natured partisan ideological disagreement. From a Congresswoman calling for a Great White Hope to save the Republican Party (isn't Michael Steele the leader of the Republican National Party) to parental hysteria about the President's back to school speech, people who are not used to having a black leader are finding tacit ways to revolt.
Calling President Obama the "N" word and other racial epithets are not the only ways to manifest racial animus. Racism and discrimination are rarely overt in twenty-first century America. They are usually veiled in disparate acts of disrespect and unfairness. Rarely, when I practiced employment law did I come across the smoking gun where a manager called an employee a slur to express his or her disability, race, gender, or religious bias. When did we become so afraid to call out racism? (I find it interesting that women are still very vocal about calling out gender discrimination when they see it.)
As I rush to finish this post so as to not overshadow the importance of remembering September 11th, I'll leave you with a lesson last night's heckling taught me. Joe Wilson helped me to realize why John Kerry (D-Ma) applauded during George Bush's first address to the Congress after the 2004 election. I remember thinking that Kerry was a wuss. How could he applaud for the guy who just beat him in such an important election. At the time, I didn't realize that Kerry was exhibiting a quality that Joe Wilson does not posses -- class. Cynthia Hardy, a South Carolina talk show host said it best, "Joe Wilson didn't lose himself. He was just being himself."
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"At the time, I didn't realize that Kerry was exhibiting a quality that Joe Wilson does not posses -- class."
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In doing so, Sen. Kerry exhibited another quality Rep. Joe Wilson does not posses -- love of country. He did everything he could to keep the citizens of our nation united in a time of crisis and turmoil. I'd say that he put his country first, but the Reactionary party has sullied that phrase so thoroughly with it's sloganeering and empty rhetoric that it has been rendered meaningless.
I am a white man from the deep south. I used to be what people call a racist. I matured with age and realized how incredibly stupid racism is. There are much better reasons to hate someone than because of their race, creed, or religion. However, I have come to the conclusion that racism is a human instinct. We pathetically insecure humans have a strong natural tendency to fear the unknown and those that are not like us. This tendency may have had a useful purpose in the far distant past, but no longer. The difference between us and the other animals on this planet is that we can use our greater capacity for reason to overcome our base instincts, if we so choose. I have chosen to do so. Sadly, there are many who have not. Clearly, the insanity concerning virtually everything that President Obama does or says is firmly rooted in racism. No other President in our nation's history has been faced with the insane obstructionist behavior that President Obama now contends with. The vast majority of the citizens campaigning against healthcare reform would benefit greatly from said reform. So, what is it they are really up in arms against?.........it's the black President stupid.
Good for you!
Keep speakin' broter. Keep speakin...
I can't spell, brother
lol...it's okay ;-)
my poor president - omg calling out the whaaaaambulance!
"When did we become so afraid to call out racism?"
This one's easy. When Republicans ruled the world (most of the past 20 years and more), they claimed "reverse racism," protesting that blacks, Hispanics, and others who talked about racism were actually being racist toward white people. They claimed that they were perfectly non-racist--completely evolved past old notions of racism--and that when people dared to mention racism they were "playing the racist card." Everyone rushed to get into line and participate in the new "speak" of the Republican Party. It was a concerted effort to cut civil rights off at the knees, and it actually worked. Once the GOP had thus eliminated the ability of minorities or of liberal whites to EVEN ADDRESS racism, they went about removing civil rights protections from our laws.
What is frustrating is that it feels like no one even noticed. But then, the same thing is true of all the other ways that the GOP set out to deliberately corrupt our country into something hideous.
I wonder what the response would have been if Congressman John Lewis (a black man) had shouted "liar" during one of George Bush's addresses?
Probably the same thing that happened when Svend Robinson, then an openly gay MP, heckled Ronald Reagan when he addressed the House of Commons. This was about the decline of respect for the executive, and the procedural prerogatives of the president. They'd have done this to any democrat who became president. It's disrespectful, because he's a head of state in addition to being a head of government, but this is really nothing for a prime minister, just an inaccurate heckle which would have been directly responded to... further asserting someone lies in a parliament is a severe breech of the rules of the chamber, and he'd be called to withdraw the remark immediately.
Well, it wouldn't have been considered 'racist' for one thing.
Democrats booed him, what's the difference?
Very good--thank you. You're right about "my poor President" I think. He is working so intensely, it puts me to shame. And it's seriously magnetizing the bigots and loons.
I except to see 9/11 hijacked once again in the name of violence and bigotry. Surely this is the obscene underside of Beck's "9/12 spirit"--where "we came together as a nation" to lick our chops over bombing and torturing the other.
Well said.
Well said, Natalie.
Beautifully said!
FINALLY....On point.
The teabaggers rally 9/12 can't wait to see the signs.
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