Race, Racism and Current Political Discourse

President Carter brought it out in the open:

“When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds,” the Democrat who served from 1977-1981 told students at Emory University.

“I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American.

“It’s a racist attitude, and my hope is and my expectation is that in the future both Democratic leaders and Republican leaders will take the initiative in condemning that kind of unprecedented attack on the president of the United States,” Carter said. [...]

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American,” Carter told “NBC Nightly News.”

(Emphasis mine.)

Note: did President Carter say ANYTHING about those who oppose President Obama’s policies?

Others have noted this tendency. Here is what Paul Krugman has to say:

There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.

Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they’re probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.

That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don’t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s a substantial fraction.

So Dr. Krugman has a good reason to suggest that it isn’t policy that these protesters are protesting.

Of course, some people got their feelings hurt and have responded; here is one such response:

@Left-wing Nutjobs: Disagreeing with the President does NOT make me a racist

by Jason Fischer

An extremely disturbing trend has started to develop in the U.S. political landscape, which needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. It seems that the the left would like to start playing the “race card” every time someone disagrees with President Obama. Not only is this behavior irresponsible and childish, it only serves to breathe new life into the real race hatred that we would all hopefully like to see eliminated in this country.

Like most political rhetoric, this started out at the fringes of the left, but in recent weeks, it has made its way into popular media.

Mr. Fischer goes on to berate Paul Krugman. Just a note: Krugman is a world famous Nobel Laureate in economics; I am unaware of Mr. Fischer’s “accomplishments”. But never mind that; it appears that the loudest, most noxious wingnuts have the thinnest skins. Then again, no one howls more pathetically than a former bully that is getting the crap kicked out of him. But I digress….

In any event, it appears that many of these critics of those of us who are calling out the racism that we see are either dense or deliberately missing the point: no one is calling criticism of the President’s policy “racist”. Mr. Leonard Pitts puts it well:

When you call them on that behavior, Barack Obama’s detractors love to accuse you of equating dissent with racism. It is a specious argument. I disagree with the president’s use of signing statements to avoid complying with laws he doesn’t like, but it would never occur to me to carry a sign vowing death to him, his wife and their “two stupid kids” as a protester in Maryland did, or to pray that Obama dies of brain cancer as a “minister” in Arizona does, or to heckle him during a joint session of Congress as Rep. Joe Wilson infamously did.

That’s not dissent. It is the howl of the unhinged and the entitled. The same folks who were complacent as President Bush spent surplus into deficit, wasted $600 billion and 4,000 American lives on the wrong war and watched a major American city drown are morally outraged because the new guy wants to reform healthcare?

So, just what are President Carter Dr. Krugman and Mr. Pitts talking about?

In case you haven’t seen, here are just some examples:

Tea Bagger signs

Obama Monkey

The Obama Witch Doctor Photo

The photo shopped racist Air Force One photo

Racist Photo of 44 Presidents

Watermelon Patch on the White House Lawn

Rush Limbaugh: blames President Obama for white kids being beat up by black kids.

So racism is certainly there and it is certainly being directed against the President. Of course, liberals readily admit this and so do some Republicans.

But many resist accepting it. Why? Sure, some may be simple denial. But there may be a different reason.

Let’s look at what the statistics tell us. Let’s start with the 2008 election map and note that President Obama won by roughly 69.5 million to 60 million.

So it is obvious that there are many Americans who thought that President Obama WAS qualified to lead the country. (duh).

Now let’s look at another map: let’s compare President Obama’s performance with that of Senator Kerry in 2004:

(click the images for a larger image)

The maps are from the New York Times.

Note: aside from one specific region, Obama out performed Kerry in most of the country, including in the regions that he lost!

So many people living in those regions probably don’t see too much different; they see conservatives not liking more liberal policies. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that.

I admit that I attended a rally for Senator McCain. I saw nothing remotely racist there; if anything, I thought that the crowd was well behaved. I said so at the time, though I remember the wacky invocation (which amused me more than anything else; the preacher said that their deity was being tested and that people who worship other deities would gain confidence if “their” candidate won! Some were offended but I was amused; to me it is the equivalent of someone beseeching Zeus to fight Thor).

One also notes that the current Republican Party is approved of in the South but disapproved of just about everywhere else. Note also that President Obama’s “favorable” ratings in the West, Midwest, Northeast and the South are 59, 62, 82 and 27 percent respectively. Overall white favorable/unfavorable ratings are 46/47 percent (roughly 50-50).

So we see that one region stands out.

So my guess is that unless you live in certain regions, you don’t see anything out of the ordinary policy split that comes with having a two party system.

Most people simply haven’t been to the more angry tea-bagger rallies.