Jimmy Carter, a good man who was a bad American president, said this the other day:
Carter: 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. … racism still exists and I think it’s bubbled up to the surface, because of a belief among many white people, not just in the South, but around the country, that African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country.
Obama disagrees. His press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said this:
Gibbs on behalf of Obama: The president does not believe that that criticism comes based on the color of his skin. We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we’ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by both this administration and previous administrations to stabilize our financial system, to ensure viability of our domestic auto industry.
Carter is right, though his timing might not be the best. Carter tends to do what he thinks is right, the consequences be damned. So, for example, he pushed for human rights in Iran under the Shah even though it led to the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini. Carter acts morally without thinking ahead.
Obama, on the other hand, goes along to get along. To a sickening degree: He agrees with right-wing talking heads that racism has nothing to do with it. Nothing. It was his policies for saving the banks and the car companies.
He cannot possibly believe that.
Yet, I wonder: Is Carter doing Obama’s bidding? Obama, after all, could never say what Carter said. It needed to be said and said by a white man, one whose opinions would be reported and not be dismissed out of hand.
Obama cannot “cry racism” himself. It would put him in an extremely weak position. And it would not even work: white people have built-in defences against that stuff. It is how they live with themselves.
Yet the racist right is not going to go away. Yesterday it was about his hospital birth record, today it is about health care reform and a sudden, overdone concern for state socialism, tomorrow it will be something else. None of it has the ring of mere policy disagreements. It is too angry and too unreasoned. Because the true issue is not his policy but his race.
The country is at that point in its history where it is liberal enough to elect a black man as president but still too racist for many to accept him as their true president. The nearest comparison I can think of is King James II, a Catholic king of a Protestant England. He was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Like Reagan and the labour unions, Obama needs to force a showdown with the racist right. That is how Martin Luther King dealt with them. We call it Selma.
See also:
- Martin Luther King
- crying racism
- Barack Obama
- how white people think
- political left and right
- Why Obama called the police racist and why it is good – which he did in the Henry Louis Gates thing, but then later distanced himself from his statement!
Abagond 
Granted the days of politicians outright saying things like ‘let’s outlaw the hemp plant because it makes black men look white men in the eye, it makes white women want black men and it makes Mexicans crazy’ (these kinds of arguments actually did work!) are long gone but listening to these right wing crazies still lets us know the sentiments are very much still here. They’re trying to drum up a white nationalists movement so a handful of people can stay fat and wealthy. As irrational and lopsided as many of their approaches are, many people take it as the gospel and that is downright scary.
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Wow. This post goes to show you that absolutely nothing has changed. This country is racially structured and built on racism. That a white man has validate an opinion (or a truth, in this situation) to make it credible shows what type of land we live in.
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I don’t doubt what Carter is saying is true, he grew up in the South, he knows the real deal.
Obama will obviously have to throw good people under the bus to protect himself and his image even if it’s an honest-down to earth- seen it all- 85 year old former President.
And yes, it needed to be said by a white man to validate the truth to make it credible. A black or non-white person’s opinion apparently is never enough.
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And even with Carter, a white man, “validating” the truth. The whites that don’t want to hear it will call him a sellout and pay him no attention anyway. 😦
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Actually, they would call him a race-traitor, not a sellout. But, he’s right.
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yes. that was the term. thanks B&G 😀
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AMEN! AMEN! AAAMEN!!
Carter spoke a mouth full. White Americans know it. That’s why so many are bitchen about it. All I heard was THE TRUTH!
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Certainly there are elements of racism within Obama’s critics. Carter’s statements needed to be said, and Carter was probably the best (and perhaps only) person who could utter those statements with any gravitas.
At the same time, let’s not forget that viscious personal attacks on the sitting POTUS have become pretty much rote. Clinton, in the eyes of many on the right, was the lowest form of dishonest, deceitful, priapistic, vulgar slime, and they stopped at nothing to cast vitriol and aspersions about his character, his life, his person. By the time he left office, he was in the eyes of many nothing more than a dripping, syphylitic hardon trying to rape your daughter.
Many on the left did the same with Bush43, describing him as a facist (well, that part was at least in part correct), an idiot, a sub-human, etc.
I for one don’t believe that there are fewer racists among the Dems than among the Repubs. After all, until not that long ago the Dem party was the haven of southern segregationist Dixiecrats. Robert Byrd was a KKK member. Etc.
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/17/clinton/
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“I for one don’t believe that there are fewer racists among the Dems than among the Repubs.”
Agreed. I think that they do hate Obama because he is black but if he wasn’t they’d find some other reason to hate him.
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@Blanc2 – yes, it’s true, many on the left did label Dubya a fascist/ape/etc., but those names when applied to a white aristocrat who actively worked against his people’s best interests following an extremely biased, xenophobic agenda simply don’t carry the same weight (hell, they seem almost justifiable) as when applied to America’s first BLACK president.
People protested Bush’s PRESIDENCY because he did not legitimately win the election. People are protesting OBAMA (his presence, not simply his presidency) because some people simply cannot swallow the idea of a black man in a position of power.
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Actually, they REFUSE to accept it. They could, if they wanted.
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To Abagond:
In comparison to the critiques of Clinton, how do you feel the criticism of Obama is worse.
As a reminder Clinton (and his wife..) were accused of murder. (Vince Foster and a host of other people.. there was a list of “victims” that was circulating in the early days of the internet…)
Clinton was accused of selling state secrets to the Chinese in exchange for campaign contributions.
A Republican Senator (I believe Jesse Helms..) suggested that Clinton’s life would be at risk if he set foot on a military base in his state.
Russ Limbaugh held a photo on his TV show of Chelsae Clinton was she was 13 years old and said “Here’s a photo of the white House dog..”
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To Abagond:
The scathing criticism and attacks against Clinton continued…
Rumors were circulated that Hillary was a Lesbian. President Clinton was accused of rape. There was a widespread campaign to stop single payer healthcare (which Clinton was advocating in 1993..)
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Strange comparison. What what Reagan did to the labor unions was a terrible disaster for working people in this country.
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It was the wrong thing morally, but the right thing in terms of pushing his policies.
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Uncle Milton and Blanc2:
My comment about your points is turning into a post….
(Blanc2, thanks for the link)
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The one thing that is clear is that the paleocon right is very efficient at glomming onto attack points and focusing them into weapons of mass consumption. The Shrub literally tossed softballs to the left — his past as a cokehead rounder, his draft dodging, his utter and repeated failure as a businessman, his glib use of eminent domain to build a stadium for his baseball team, I could go on and on. Yet, the left never seemed able to find traction with any of these issues.
In contrast, as noted, the right was able to get people actually debating whether, for instance, the Clintons killed Vince Foster (was that the name?) or whether Obama was born in Kenya and yet, via some nefarious conspiracy, obtained an ersatz Hawaii BC.
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america seriously wasnt ready for a black president…i mean america may not find blatant racism socially acceptable, but it sure as hell finds closet and subtle racism to be socially acceptable…
40 years since the movement was not enough time to really undo any damage…everyone was too excited about having a black prez to see that america just was not ready to have one yet…
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also, the right seriously need to start picking their battles more carefully, they really are becoming the kid who cried wolf too many times…i mean when they started to have a cow over the whole speaking to the school issue recently…it really showed how stupid and immature the right had become.
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40 years since the movement was not enough time to really undo any damage…everyone was too excited about having a black prez to see that america just was not ready to have one yet…
Why do you feel that’s the case… ? Take a look at the Salon article that Blanc2 posted about how the Clinton was treated.. (You’re 20 right? If so then you likely would have been too young to see the brunt of nonsense that was thrown at Clinton (and Hillary..) )
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…i mean when they started to have a cow over the whole speaking to the school issue recently…it really showed how stupid and immature the right had become.
Well yes.. but it wasn’t without precedent.. note how the Democrats reacted to a similar situation with George H. W. Bush (Bush I)
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/When-Bush-spoke-to-students-Democrats-investigated-held-hearings-57694347.html
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In contrast, as noted, the right was able to get people actually debating whether, for instance, the Clintons killed Vince Foster (was that the name?)
Yep.. it was Vince Foster.. do a Google search of Clinton Murders and you’ll 1,690,000 hits!
There’s even a snopes entry rebutting the email that was circulated:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/bodycount.asp
1,180,000 hits for Bill Clinton Rape:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/broaddrick022599.htm
Which was covered by Dateline and the Washington Post when Clinton was in office. (For the record I don’t believe it..)
786,000 Google hits for Hillary Clinton Lesbian:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=hillary+clinton+lesbian&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=d6985f0b1643625b
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What criticism, if any, has been racist? I do think some are upset about his policies,his liberalism …. but mabye not his skin color.
Alot can’t stand Bill Clinton, Bush and they are white dudes. they had had difficult time even worse.
and when some are going to see him just as a President and not as ( the AA president, The black president ….)
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Don’t trust the left or the right. They’ll only screw with you a$$.
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Nubiah,
Even though there’s truth to Carter’s comments, I do think the media is making the anti-black criticism of Obama more than what it is. The mainstream pream likes to play up any type of racial discrimination towards blacks.
I totally agree to Alwaysrights’ comments.
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Personally I think the criticism that President Obama is getting, isn’t racist.
It’s just the right wing having a temper tantrum. Just ignore them.
The left wing and the right wing. Who needs them?!
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Blanc2 & Uncle Milton:
In answer to how this is different than Bush or Clinton:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/this-is-not-like-clinton-or-bush/
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I agree..out of all the news the lack of respect our fellow Americans have for the President is sad!
Sincerely,
Go
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YOU ARE RIGHT
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There is certainly a lot of racism behind the opposition to Obama (not all the opposition, but a lot of it, for sure).
The thing is that many of these folks who hold these beliefs don’t identify it as racism. It’s a racism that lies deep in their subconscious like a cancer which no one knows is there.
While many hated Clinton or Dubya, Obama gets a special kind of hate because he is somehow “different”. For those on the right who don’t frequently interact with those of diverse ethnicities, Obama represents “The Other” in so many ways. He’s brown. He seems foreign. He has a strange name. He might be one of those Muslims we keep hearing about. For many, all of this is internalised into a kind of gut feeling that something’s just not right about the guy, but this feeling is not realised as being racist in nature.
Of course, if anyone points this racism out, the white right-wing starts howling about thought-police and the race card.
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this does not surprise me one bit… only an ignorant person did not see this coming.
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Former Pres Carter said some real shit. I feel bad for Obama because he is in a bad place. He knows full well the racist sentiment against him but can’t voice it or else he will get backlash from racist whites and brainwashed white people who think “racism doesn’t exist”. Too bad it took 1 white man to say what black people have been saying since before the man even got elected.
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Yeah sure. Just blame racism. It sure is an easy way to deflect any criticism of obamas policies.
More people lost insurance cause of him than gained it.
If i point that out does that make me racist?
No, it just means that my opinions are based on facts, not emotions.
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@Bobby Martnen
Opinions are never really based on facts. Though if you have facts then you should provide sources to support.
Though I gather from your comment that you did not really read the post. If you had then you will know why he referred to them as racist and it has nothing to do with policy disagreements.
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There is nothing racist about questioning obamas birth certificate. He is the only recent president with a foreign born parent.
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I agree with Jimmy Carter. Oprah Winfrey said the same thing. I have always held this opinion.
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He was born in Panama to a father in the Navy. He was born there because his father was serving the country. And he was born at a US base, therefore he was born ON AMERICAN SOIL.
And Hawaii is American.
But McCain’s father and grandfather were Americans who served in the Armed forces.
Obama’s dad was a tribal savage with multiple wives who died in a drunken car wreck.
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