The thing about denial is that it doesn’t feel like denial when it’s going on.
- Georgina Kleege, Sight Unseen
I suppose you could say the same thing about ignorance and the refusal to wake up and smell the cat litter. For six years we’ve seen this President subjected to the most vile, egregious, deeply personal racial insults…and Barack Obama’s the one guilty of promoting racism? We’ve seen the Far Right promoting the interests of the 1% as they openly work to screw the rest of us…and Barack Obama is responsible for the divisiveness that permeates our political discourse?
It’s logic comparable to blaming the rape victim for her attack. Barack Obama was elected- and re-elected- democratically, which has evidently been far too much for those who believe the White House to be the rightful property of Conservative White males. More than one pundit has asked where this President would be if slavery hadn’t been abolished. Do you really think they’d be so gratuitously insulting if he was White? Never mind that his mother was White and his father African-American; what the haters see is someone who “looks” Black, which is more than they can process and seemingly enough to make their heads explode.
When last I checked, no other President has ever had the validity of his birth certificate questioned, even long after its provenance has been clearly established. No other President has seen his religious faith questioned, though he’s clearly and frequently stated his commitment to his Christian faith. No other President has been subjected to such virulent disrespect, hatred and opposition- in Congress. That he’s been able to accomplish anything at all borders on miraculous.
Those who accuse this President of promoting racism and division in an effort to advance his agenda should really consider removing their anterior from their posterior and taking a good long look in the mirror. Blaming the President for things you yourself are responsible for is as vile and disgusting as it is a thinly veiled attempt to camouflage your own racism. People like Stacey Dash only demonstrate the truth that it’s better to be thought a fool than to broadcast the truth to the four winds.
Barack Obama may not be a perfect President, but when you consider that no other President has faced the virulent racism and the unfounded and disrespectful personal attacks he has, that he’s managed to accomplish what he has is impressive. Pushing the rock uphill against the forces of ignorance, racism, hatred, and rage for as long and well as he has is admirable. That he’s maintained his composure when most of us would have long since told the haters to f—k off (I know I would have) only serves to demonstrate his strength of will and the depth of his character. In so doing, he’s made his opponents look like the disrespectful pinheads many of them truly are.
I’ve resolved to do a better job of trying to remember that those I wrote about are people with feelings. I’d submit that people like Stacy Dash and her fellow Teapublicans could benefit by doing the same.
