Calling It What It Is

Here is racism you can see with your eyes.  I want to call out racism you can hear with your ears, subtle things that still are clear, especially to someone like me who grew up in the segregated South.  

We've seen racist statements like this many times on T-shirts, handheld signs, banners—especially at Tea Party's rallies.  (We've seen our first black President depicted as a witch doctor with a bone in his nose and as Hitler.)  What's more subtle, but just as clear, are the buzz/code words used by Republican radio talkers,  Romney ads and Romney surrogates on TV.  Words/terms like welfare president, food stamp president . . . the president is "lazy."  I could go on and on, but you know what I'm saying.  Did you hear John Sununu on Andrea Mitchell's show the other day, calling the President lazy?  Sununu's not merely a Republican surrogate, he's co-chairman of the Romney campaign.   In another televised interview he said President Obama is not a "true American." To me, this is unconscionable.  You can see the video clip from Mitchell's show here:

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/john-sununu-calls-president-obama-lazy-and

 

  "We don't know who this man is" is something we hear about President Obama after nearly four years into his presidency.  Give me a break!  He's probably better known than any President in my lifetime, thanks to 24/7 cable, the internet with Youtube and social media, and, more importantly,  the two books he has written about his life—all that, and the fact that he and the First Lady are generous with their openness and candor when interviewed.  Surely anyone who doesn't have a sense of who President Obama is by now must live in a cave or with a TV remote stuck on Fox.

 

 Actually people who say they don't know who he is simply mean what others mean when they say He's not one of us; he is a foreigner; he's not like us.  He's not a true American.  He wasn't born in this Country.  He's a Muslim.  You know and I know the translation:  He doesn't deserve to hold the highest office in the land.  

 

Sadly, those of us outraged by the racism—as those connected with the Obama campaign and Administration must surely be— have little to gain by calling the racism what it is.  When we do, it's denied, of course, and we're accused of "playing the race card" or being "whiners."  I guess the question that has no answer is how do you defend against hate?  And at this moment I'm thinking the best thing is to rise above it.  And this President surely does that.

 

It's mind boggling to think that many Americans will vote against their own best interests and America's future simply because they don't like the idea of a black man in the White House.  I cannot fathom the depth of their prejudice or their inability to see that—unless they're in the highest income percentile —voting for Romney-Ryan will not make their lives better, but worse.  Probably far worse.