Salon.com
While the tea party protesters have proved over and over that their protests are filled with political hypocrisy and based more on politics than principle, and while the email I myself have received from tea party protesters over my criticisms are easily the most ignorant and uneducated as I have received, to call them racists because of their opposition to Obama as Carter did is,not just absurd and ignorant., it's about as low as someone can go politically.
To be clear, Carter used the word "animosity" and not "opposition" towards Obama and while by the law of averages in a country of 300 million people there has to be more than a few who have a lot of animosity towards Obama because of his mixed race, if I remember correctly, there was a lot more animosity by conservatives towards Bill Clinton, a white southerner, than Obama. In fact it was during Clinton's presidency that the political waters became the most poisoned and created divisions that exist to this day.
But probably the most amount of animosity directed towards a president by southern conservatives was the animosity directed at Jimmy Carter himself, another white southerner. So it's very possible that Carter's remarks could have a lot more to do with payback than insight.
While no doubt there has to be some protesters who are racist simply because there are racists in any society and always will be, and it's obvious that some are just tasteless and ignorant (with their swastikas and Hitler signs), to accuse them of being racially motivated in their opposition to Obama's polices is almost a reverse form of racism in itself.
In it's own way it's trying to make the case that maybe Obama needs or deserves a little more slack and should be placed above criticism because of his heritage. That is the kind of knee jerk liberalism Robert Kennedy used to fight and Lenny Bruce used to satirize in the early 60's, the idea that somehow blacks needed help from whites instead of what they really needed which was for whites and institutional racism to get off their backs and out of their way.
The proof of the absurdity of Carter's remarks is there for anyone to see. Were southern conservatives protesting the policies of Condoleeza Rice? Did they protest the policies of Colin Powell? Are they protesting Michael Steele? Have conservatives drummed Alan Keyes out of the party? Before you start accusing people of racism you had better be right and you had better have proof and the only proof that exists is that Carters claim is nonsense.
Race is race and if these people were racists they would have made that plain over Powell and Rice, Keyes and Steele and many,many more.
The protesters are ideologues and aligned with Republican conservatism and that is what matters to them. It really doesn't matter what color you are, its their ideology that matters to them not race.
They represent a lot of things that deserve criticism and they have a track record of supporting Republican policies that have proven to be disasters for the country. But to ascribe their opposition to Obama to racism is about as low as it gets. Obama supporters tried it during the primaries where any opposition to Obama was met by playing a race card. It worked to some extent with members of the news media and there are some now in the media who trying to give credibility to Carter's remarks.
But a case can be made that it's those in the media now talking the loudest about racism and giving credibility to Carter's comments who are the ones who are doing the most to perpetuate it.
Comments
As a life long democrat who did not support Obama- I was appalled last year when some good friends noted that perhaps I was racist in my refusal to support Obama. No one said a word about my reservations against Pretty Boy John Edwards (and look what would have happened had he gotten the nomination!)- no one suggested anything other than some disagreement was why I didn't like Edwards-
But boy- when I stuck w/ Hillary to the end and then refused to hop on the unity bus- the race card was played against me.
It devastated me last year- this year I am sorry to say- I am not surprised by it-
And let's not forget- democrat that I am/was- Carter was one of the worst presidents ever - since when does he even matter?
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