The woman below attend the 9-12 teaparty promoted by Glenn Beck. Photos from the whole, frequently racist screeds can be seen on flickr.
This woman had a double-sided poster; it says, “What’s the Difference between the Cleveland Zoo and the White House.” Look at the flipside, below. Rather cleverly, she claims that they both have “Africans” but one is “‘lying.” So, is this what she is mad about–the black president. Wow, and so clever too. Here’s the problem, the first lie is that he isn’t African, the second deception is the denial that Barack Obama is American, and the third, most horrible part of this, is the use of an old-time trope about African Americans, that they are somehow subhuman, wild, and uncivilized as justifications for things like slavery. This woman, probably a Clevelander, is exceptionally clever, even brilliant in the skilled way that she evokes rhetoric to express her hateful racism. Bravo.
Now, you’d think that someone in the media would call these events what they are. They are about remaking and reintroducing the original sin of the American Nation: racism as a basic tenet of citizenship and public life. You might think that a reasonable politician on the right would decry these hate-filled demonstrations, after all Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. You might think that Republican politicians who wanted to debate political issues might find such hate distracting. But, no. We just get more hate, more incivility, and more obfuscation. We get no discussion of real issues, just fear–very revealing about the priorities of the American right.
I am appalled. You should be too.
I’m confused. How exactly is this racist?
A reference to race is racist?
And what if a few signs were completely racist? Did the kook signs at anti-war rallies hurt the case against the war? This is an absurd assertion.
First, President Obama is not African. His father was African; he was born in the United States, which allows this sign the additional advantage of parroting the crazy claims of so-called “birthers.” I explain how its racist in the post. This sign makes President Obama’s ethnic heritage part of the issue. That is the definition of racism. Example, Joe Wilson yelled to the President that he “lied.” He did not yell, “you lying African.” The former attacks the President and a statement by the President but it is not, ipso facto, racist. The second uses the heritage of the individual as an epithet. That is the definition of racism. Only someone who actively suppresses their faculties for logical reasoning can’t tell the difference.
I don’t know the “kook signs” to which you refer, so its hard to say. Also, I would note that America has a history of racism that is deep and long. Slavery based on race was the nation’s original sin. Jim Crow laws sought to remake the nation along racial lines, once the Civil War settled the slavery issue. And, it was not until the Civil Rights movement, about a generation ago, that African Americans could participate in the American political process without recrimination. The sign that you seem to think is value neutral calls forth that history as an issue with the President.
I am sorry for your inability to recognize the difference between civil discourse and inappropriate rantings.
Now if the sign had said this:
“I would hope that a wise white woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black male who hasn’t lived that life.”
THAT would be racism. This sign makes President Obama’s ethnic heritage part of the issue. That is the definition of racism, and I hope that you agree.
Thank you Steve for your posts to this and the other post. Bigotry is an ugly thing. It is good to be reminded just how widespread it continues to be.
sure…. good luck with your crusade as the defender of purity