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.
That of course, is former President Jimmy Carter playing the race card-—bigtime! Not just an extreme fringe mind you, but an overwhelming portion of the critics of Obama are motivated by racisim.
Carter, for our overseas readers and those who need a refresher on recent American history, is a white guy from way down south in Dixie. From Georgia, to be precise.
Then there’s this:
President Carter is flat out wrong. This isn’t about race. It is about policy . . . This is a pathetic distraction by Democrats to shift attention away from the president’s wildly unpopular government-run health care plan that the American people simply oppose.
Injecting race into the debate over critical issues facing American families doesn’t create jobs, reform our health care system or reduce the growing deficit. It only divides Americans rather than uniting us to find solutions to challenges facing our nation.
That is from Michael Steele, the Chairman of the Republic National Committee (RNC). Steele is a black man, the first African-American chairman of the RNC.
Is this a great country, or what?
September 16th, 2009 | 7:38 pm
I agree totally with Michael Steele that for him, it’s not about race. For Congressmen John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Mike Pence, it’s not about race. For Senators Mitch McConnell, Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley, and John McCain, it’s not about race. If fact, I think that for the large majority of Republican Congressmen and Senators, it’s not about race.
But for people like Congressman Joe Wilson, it’s always about race. On that matter, he and his state have not just a history, but a past-and a recent past at that. His state’s past surfaced in the 2000 Republican Primary with the ugly false rumors spread that John McCain’s adopted daughter was the illegitimate child of an inter-racial relationship. Perhaps when Wilson blurted out “You lie”, he was looking at a pocket mirror.
For those of us, like me, who believe that Carter was a failure as president and a catastrophe as “elder statesman” (not just regarding the Middle East and Israel, but also also regarding Cuba and Latin America, and North Korea) there is a temptation to believe that Carter is similarly loony-tunes on this matter.
Here, however, we might want to give Carter a second thought. For those who remember, Carter ran for his term as Georgia governor as the segregationist candidate.. When he won, he provoked a huge tumult by declaring in his inaugural address, “The time for segregation has ended…” In short, Carter knows segregation and segregationist politics. And he knows that many originally Democratic segregationists in the South moved lock, stock, and hood directly into the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater, and J. Strom Thurmond-and remain there to this day.
It’s worth remembering that in the 1960′s Joe Wilson was a staff member for Thurmond, and seems to have been stuck on the pretenses of the segregationist past. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Wilson_(U.S._politician)#Criticism_of_Strom_Thurmond.27s_daughter , from which I quote:
“In 2003, Essie Mae Washington-Williams’ revealed that she was the daughter of Wilson’s former employer, the late Senator Strom Thurmond, and Thurmond’s black maid. Wilson was among those who publicly doubted her claim that Thurmond had a child out of wedlock. Wilson said even if her story was true, she should not have revealed it because “it’s a smear” on Thurmond’s image and was a way to “diminish” Thurmond’s legacy.[23] After Thurmond’s family acknowledged the truth of Washington-Williams’ revelation, Wilson apologized but said that he still thought that she should not have revealed that Thurmond was her father.[24″
This does not mean in the least that Obama’s programs and proposals should not be judged on their merits or lack thereof. I personally have strong objections to some of them, for foreign and domestic, and I firmly believe that virtually everyone who is a thinking person can find something with which he or she disagrees. But we have to be careful to separate out the lunatics (Joe Wilson and his ilk) who would invade the camp of the sane critics.
Regardless of whether Carter is right or wrong about other political matters or figures, he seems dead on accurate about Wilson.
Rabbi Chaim Frazer
September 16th, 2009 | 11:28 pm
This is all so sad, the posts at First Things are usually so much better than this. Maybe I’m the fool, maybe the silence of others is their was of saying “leave the Rabbi be, it’s rubbish anyway.”
Geez, must really be hard living in the South and being a white conservative. Any time you call a non-white something less than a saint it appears you get labeled a racist. I am not going to come to the same conclusions as Rabbi Frazer based on Wikipedia and Wilson’s shouting “you lie” to the president. I simply can’t go that far. I would need much more evidence than that. Having the letters R (SC) following ones name does not make them a racist, not by a long shot. The president himself lives for years surrounded by men who openly dislike “white America”, yet he gets a pass on all things racial. Mr. Wilson says something stupid 6 years ago, and now says what most polls say most Americans are thinking, and he gets nothing. Isn’t there a chance in your mind that Mr. Wilson, even if 6 years ago he was what you think he was, may today not be the same? And tell me, why does Senator Bird not get mentioned in your post? As far as I know he’s the only person in Congress today to have actually proudly worn a white hood, yet he too, like our president gets a pass. As does Al Gore Sr and many, many members of the Democratic Party. What a country. Of course I could also mention the nervousness the president causes in Israel, and go on about that and how the GOP does not cause the same angst, but I have to go to bed. Nor will I mention a certain famed president of days gone by who appointed a white hood wearing, Catholic hating man to the US Supreme Court. I’m thinking he was not a member of the GOP, but surely I must be wrong. I won’t mention these things because like I said, to bed I must go!
To read about the judge go here: http://www.catholicleague.org/research/catholics_and_the_supreme_court.htm
September 17th, 2009 | 12:02 pm
“In 2003, Essie Mae Washington-Williams’ revealed that she was the daughter of Wilson’s former employer, the late Senator Strom Thurmond, and Thurmond’s black maid. Wilson was among those who publicly doubted her claim that Thurmond had a child out of wedlock. Wilson said even if her story was true, she should not have revealed it because “it’s a smear” on Thurmond’s image and was a way to “diminish” Thurmond’s legacy.[23] After Thurmond’s family acknowledged the truth of Washington-Williams’ revelation, Wilson apologized but said that he still thought that she should not have revealed that Thurmond was her father.[24″
The evidence of racial prejudice in this quotation is overwhelming.
September 17th, 2009 | 12:28 pm
Bibbit wrote:
“Geez, must really be hard living in the South and being a white conservative. Any time you call a non-white something less than a saint it appears you get labeled a racist.”
It’s not hard at all. In fact I specifically mentioned Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia as someone is a white conservative and whose judgments and comments are definitely based on principle and are not in the least racially motivated. Note that in addition to being from Virginia, Congressman Cantor is House Republican Whip, and as such is the second ranking member of the House Republican leadership.
I certainly would include former Speaker Newt Gingrinch as another prominent white Southern conservative who grounds his views in principle without a hint of racism.
No doubt there are many others, quite possibly the majority, of whom I am not aware.
“I am not going to come to the same conclusions as Rabbi Frazer based on Wikipedia and Wilson’s shouting “you lie” to the president. I simply can’t go that far. I would need much more evidence than that. Having the letters R (SC) following ones name does not make them a racist, not by a long shot.”
I used the Wikipedia article as a quick way for people to look up the essential facts without having to slog through Google. Anyone who does make such an extended search will, I believe, reach the same conclusion that I did, or at least find that my views are reasonable if not conclusive.
“The president himself lives for years surrounded by men who openly dislike “white America”, yet he gets a pass on all things racial.”
He certainly did not get a pass on Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Nor should he have. Nor should he regarding anyone else who denigrates the American people, or any sector of America on racial, ethnic, or religious grounds.
” Mr. Wilson says something stupid 6 years ago, and now says what most polls say most Americans are thinking, and he gets nothing. Isn’t there a chance in your mind that Mr. Wilson, even if 6 years ago he was what you think he was, may today not be the same? ”
Bibbit thinks it was stupid. It’s not at all clear that Congressman Wilson thinks it was stupid. Just as he apparently still does not think it was stupid to lead, successfully, the effort to keep the Confederate flag as the state flag.
Is there a chance that he may not be the same person? Sure, there is a chance. But there is no need for Congressman Wilson to keep such a change a state secret. Where is there evidence, even a hint, that he has made himself a different person?
“And tell me, why does Senator Bird not get mentioned in your post? As far as I know he’s the only person in Congress today to have actually proudly worn a white hood, yet he too, like our president gets a pass.”
No doubt you mean Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia.
He did not get mentioned because he has publicly admitted that his joining the KIan was an error, and has resigned from it decades ago. He has also not used the language or signals of the Klan or other racist organizations for decades.
As soon as Congressman Wilson admits his past errors and distances himself from that past, I shall be happy to assume that he is different from it as well.
“As does Al Gore Sr and many, many members of the Democratic Party”
Al Gore Sr. hasn’t been active in politics since the 1960′s.
“Of course I could also mention the nervousness the president causes in Israel, and go on about that and how the GOP does not cause the same angst, but I have to go to bed.”
The president causes nervousness and angst lots of places, Israel being one of them. But he causes nervousness and angst because of his views and policies, not because of his race.
Conversely, for his supporters, he should also cause hope and confidence on the same basis.
“Nor will I mention a certain famed president of days gone by who appointed a white hood wearing, Catholic hating man to the US Supreme Court. I’m thinking he was not a member of the GOP, but surely I must be wrong.”
From after the Civil War until 1962, when John F. and Robert F. Kennedy decided it was time to act on the country’s founding transcendent principles rather than politics as usual, the Democratic electorate was always an amalgam of Southern whites (many, but by no means all, racists) and Northern/Western voters.
Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, whom you reference, large numbers of Northern blacks migrated from the Republican “party of Lincoln” to the New Deal and its heirs, a process largely completed by the Kennedy brothers and Lyndon Johnson in toto (this time including Southern blacks) with the commitment of the Federal government to civil rights justice and the successful passage of new legislation designed to implement that justice.
Beginning with Strom Thurmond in either the late 1950′s or early 1960′s, racist white Democrats began to leave the Democratic Party for the Republicans, using “states rights” and “limited[Federal] government” as their slogans of convenience.
By the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term, this migration was essentially complete.
Please note that it was the ex-Democratic white racists who brought racism into the Southern Republican party. Southern Republicans could, and can, be white and conservative, liberal, or moderate without being racist in the least.
But they do have to watch for the “Invasion of the Racist ex-Democrats”. Not all the ex-Democrats, just the racist ones. And Southerners can detect racism with great accuracy.
The Supreme Court Justice you reference was, of course, Hugo Black of Alabama. Again, he publicly recanted his Klan membership and recanted any adherence to Klan views.
While I know that he indeed became non-racist, I am not well-versed enough in his biography to know if he ever similarly recanted any anti-Catholic views that he may have held. If he did not, that obviously was an error.
I would, however, point out that anti-Catholicism was endemic to much of the country in the 1930s and 1940s, and it’s not clear that anyone else that any president would have appointed would not have been at least somewhat anti-Catholic.
Fortunately, we live in a current political age in which 6 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices can be Catholic without the sky falling down.
Rabbi Chaim Frazer
September 17th, 2009 | 1:43 pm
The “racist” claim is the refuge of the man without a leg to stand on.
One cannot _prove_ that one is not a racist. It simply cannot be done.
It is generally accepted by most Americans that racism is unacceptable. Therefore, being guided by the Alinsky principle of “Make them obey their own rules – all of them – to the letter”, by using the racist claim, you force someone into a position of an indefensible position – either one admits to being racist – in which case you’re guilty of a great social sin – or the topic is completely changed – in which case you lose anyway.
It doesn’t matter whether Wilson is racist or not – the question is whether he is correct in his statement or not. If the statement is correct – that Obama was lying in his statements – then whether Wilson is racist in his heart doesn’t matter. The fact is the fact.
The etiquette issue is a different matter – unrelated to any of the above.
September 17th, 2009 | 1:48 pm
And an “oh yeah”…
I believe that Carter is simply projecting his own deeply held beliefs/feelings on everybody else. I think _he_ has deep feelings of racism, and simply assumes that because he does, so does everybody else.
Just as years ago, he confessed in public that he had “lusted after a woman outside of marriage, and therefore was guilty of adultery”, so too, he considers that any feelings of racial awareness is an indication of the sin of “racism”. He’s guilty, and so is everybody else.
If you disagree, you’re racist. If you’re not racist, you have to agree with Obama.
So…you lose. Great position to take in an argument. Obama knows how to use it to his advantage – he’s done it all his life.
September 17th, 2009 | 9:07 pm
suek, it seems to me that discomfort with what is different and therefore not entirely understandable is just human nature, and that this discomfort is easily provoked into fear and outright dislike. Check out the Harvard study on race. It’s been pretty well established that just as we all lust in our hearts, we all harbor, if not conscious racist thoughts, subconscious racist attitudes.
None of this proves Carter’s contention, but it’s worth considering I think.
September 18th, 2009 | 12:15 pm
>>It’s been pretty well established that just as we all lust in our hearts, we all harbor, if not conscious racist thoughts, subconscious racist attitudes.>>
I think you need to include some definitions. For example, does that mean I’m not “allowed” to notice that a person has black skin? What exactly constitutes “racism”? or “racist” thoughts? Does that mean that if I notice that a person’s skin is black, I am therefore rendered incapable of a valid judgment concerning the person’s statements or actions?
If what you say is true, are you also anticipating that all blacks are equally racist? Should we institute segregation so that blacks deal only with blacks and whites deal only with whites? should we have a court system where only black judges and black juries can sit in judgment of a black person?
If we all harbor “subconscious racist attitudes”… what does that mean? are we required to _do_ something about it? If so, what?
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