racism – Page 31 – Sheila Kennedy

It’s the Obama, Stupid

Over at Political Animal, Steve Benen joined the discussion over Tim Pawlenty’s recent remark that “Any doofus can go to Washington.” (There has been a good deal of mirth in the wake of that remark, actually–since one interpretation is that Pawlenty himself is something of a “doofus.” ) But viewed in context, Pawlenty seemed to be complaining about the lack of bold action from both Congress and the Administration.

Benen noted the disconnect between Pawlenty’s complaint and the Tea Party’s dark view of President Obama.

“But what I found especially interesting about this line was Pawlenty trying to label President Obama as someone who wants to “maintain the status quo.” For a while now, it was a given in Republican circles that Obama was a wild-eyed radical trying to undo the entire American experiment, turning everything we hold dear upside down. The president, we were told, was responsible for pursuing too much change, too quickly. It led conservatives to stand athwart history, yelling, “Stop.”

And yet, Pawlenty apparently doesn’t see it that way. Obama, we’re told, isn’t radical enough when it comes to change.”

I usually agree with Benen’s analyses, but on this one, he misses the obvious. A substantial percentage of Americans–mostly Republicans–have a blind, irrational hatred of Barack Obama–and unlike the well-documented detestation of George W. Bush, that hatred is not a product of anything the President has or hasn’t done. Those who see an equivalency are quite simply wrong–Bush had sky-high favorability ratings the first couple of years of his first term and didn’t really hit bottom until after he was re-elected. In other words, as we got to know him, many of us came to loathe him. But it wasn’t immediate, and it wasn’t rooted in who he was. It was a reaction to what he did.

The animosity to Obama was immediate–even before he assumed office. And it is hard to believe that most of the animus–the accusations of “otherness,” the reluctance to believe he wrote his own books and excelled at Harvard and the like–aren’t a product of his skin color.

If Barack Obama suddenly walked on water, cured lepers with a touch, and had a halo, these people would accuse him of being an extraterrestrial invader.

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When Will We Ever Learn?

I wasn’t one of those people who believed the election of Barack Obama was a sign we’d entered a “post-racial” society. But I also failed to appreciate the extent of racism that still festers in this country. The unremitting attacks on Obama personally–attacks utterly unconnected to any policy disputes and clearly motivated by outrage over his very existence–have shocked me.

Donald Trump’s racially-motivated slurs don’t just reflect his own long-standing bigotry (in the 1970s, the Department of Justice sued him for refusing to rent to African-Americans); they also are tacit recognition that a large percentage of the remaining hard-core GOP base is racist. Periodically, leaked emails and “jokes” from Republican officeholders and party officials confirm our worst suspicions: the Obama family portrayed as monkeys, the White House shown in the middle of a watermelon patch. Pretty disgusting stuff.

As if we needed added confirmation, yesterday the Tulsa World reported that during a debate on a bill to eliminate Affirmative Action in state government, Oklahoma State Senator Sally Kern testified in favor of the bill, saying : “We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”

As appalling as her testimony was, the thought of this woman teaching is arguably more frightening. But of course, she is still teaching, and so are all of the people who pretend that their attacks on the President–their insistence that he is not a “real” citizen, their denial of his academic achievements–are just political differences of opinion. Those of us who enable them by refusing to call these attacks what they are, are also teaching. And the lesson is an ugly one.

What was the refrain from that old song from South Pacific? You’ve got to be taught to hate.

Better to be Thought a Fool than to Open Your Mouth and Remove All Doubt

Donald Trump. Need I say more?

Trump has actually trumped the buffoonery displayed by his birtherism. Today, he is being quoted as saying that President Obama wasn’t smart enough to go to an Ivy League school. This is a none-too-thinly veiled attempt to paint Obama as the beneficiary of affirmative action. (Perhaps he was worried that the racism of his prior attacks had been too subtle?)

The most depressing thing I can say about contemporary America is that it includes a not-insignificant number of people who actually take gasbag self-promoters like The Donald seriously.

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Politics as Farce

That anyone–anywhere–is taking “The Donald” seriously is a black mark on America.

This megalomaniac with really, really bad hair, whose most salient characteristic is a breathtaking lack of self-awareness, is busy pandering to the very worst elements in our political system–much as he has pandered to our obsession with money and celebrity. As a side show, I suppose some may find him moderately amusing, if bad taste and cluelessness are your thing. As a presidential contender, not so much.

On the other hand, the shamelessness with which he is playing to the Tea Party folks makes it abundantly clear what truly motivates them: hatred of Obama. Not the real, flesh and blood person who occupies the White House, but the idea of Obama. “Birtherism” is simply a slightly less obvious attack on Obama’s race. The other attacks flow from that central conviction: a black President is unthinkable, illegitimate.

Was there intense hatred of George W. Bush? Absolutely. But it developed over time, as Bush took actions that enraged many citizens. Even after the disaster of the hanging chads and the Supreme Court’s intervention, there was partisan disapproval but not the white-hot anger that developed as Bush revealed himself through word and deed. That is not the case with Obama; he was the object of searing personal attacks before he even assumed the office. You don’t have to agree with everything he’s done (and I don’t–especially his continuation of Bush’s national security policies) to recognize the difference.

But even the most reactionary among us surely don’t hate Obama–or America–enough to consider Donald Trump anything but the shallow side-show he is.

Right?

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Toxic Times

I returned to Indianapolis after a week of being blessedly unconnected to “the usual suspects”—otherwise known as the media/chattering classes/punditocracy—to find that the National Organization for Marriage had been through town. Some forty “pro-marriage” demonstrators had promoted loving relationships with signs suggesting that gay people should be murdered. One particularly nasty poster featured a picture with two nooses.

Lest the gay community feel singled out, our local Tea Party crackpots have added anti-Semitism to their toxic brew of pique and racism, handing out materials about the Jewish Bankers Who Control Obama, among other pleasantries. And I won’t even revisit the much-publicized and despicable effort by Andrew Breitbart and Fox “News” to demonize Shirley Sherrod, the African-American civil servant with the Agriculture Department by twisting her words to make a plea to get beyond racism sound like an endorsement of racism.

In short, these are not the best of times.

I know the drill: we are hurting economically, and at such times, intergroup tensions tend to be high. There is a desire to find someone to blame for what ails us, and that must be the person or persons with the different color, religion or sexual orientation. Choose your “Them.”

I have my own pop psychology take on what ails so many people these days. As I noted in last month’s column, I think a lot of people who have fewer resources—emotional, intellectual, fiscal—find themselves a bit like Rip Van Winkle, waking up to a world that has changed while they slept. Suddenly, there is a black man in the White House. There is a woman (a strong one) running Congress, another one heading up the State Department, and it looks like there will be three women on the Supreme Court, all time-honored bastions of male privilege. Turn on a television set or go to the movies, and there are all these openly gay people acting as if they were entitled to be treated like everybody else. The local weatherman or news anchor has a name like Huang or Sanchez, and at the office, there are brown and black coworkers of various genders and orientations.

The whole world is different, and those without the ability to cope with the changes—or even understand them—are fearful and angry and confused.

What we are seeing right now is analogous to the tantrum a two-year-old throws when he is tired and frustrated and not getting his own way. That’s why the Tea Party doesn’t have a coherent complaint or policy agenda, why Fox “News” and the right wing blogosphere disapprove of anything Obama does—even when it is the same thing they approved when Bush did it—because that usurper did it!

Most of the anger and hateful behavior we are seeing is really just lashing out at a world that isn’t behaving the way it is supposed to—at least, in the reality inhabited by those who are angry and frightened. It doesn’t help that there are political actors with a personal stake in fomenting that anger and stoking those fears.

The question we are left with is: what do we do? What do those of us with a more inclusive worldview and a less apocalyptic agenda do to tamp down the ugliness and defuse the hate? I wish I had a quick and pithy answer to that question, but I don’t.

I do know one thing. Until our political landscape settles down, until cooler heads prevail, we all need to speak up: to call the hatreds out, to advocate for understanding and acceptance, and to remind the people who are still able to reason that all people are entitled to be treated as individuals and judged on their behavior, not their identities.