It Was Inevitable

Racism is Very Much Alive

The "race card" is now being played in the United States. This was inevitable. We expected it as soon as Obama was elected. No political leader can sustain the heights of popular support enjoyed by Obama when he was elected. As his popularity waned, criticism would inevitably surface, and his disappointed hard-core supporters would blame racism as the underlying cause.

To Obama's credit, the White House has flatly discounted racism as a factor in the political and public opposition building against his presidency. But what it does show is that attitudinal racism is actually alive and well in the United States and it resides on the political left.

Attitudinal racism is a habit of heart and mind which views life through racial categories. Imputing racist attitudes to opponents or those you disagree with is just another manifestation of attitudinal racism. When Obama instantly decided--with no evidence except superficial prima facie appearance--that the Cambridge police were racially motivated when they arrested Gates, a Harvard professor in his home, he showed that he practices attitudinal racism. He was projecting on to the scene his own world view which sees things in racial terms. He automatically assumed that police actions were caused by racist attitudes and policies on the part of the arresting officer.

As details quickly came to light, they showed how absurd Obama's rush to judgement had been. The White House went into damage control mode. Beer in the Rose Garden was used to wash away the stains of Obama's racism.

Attitudinal racism is just one more pathetic ad hominem. When you are losing the argument, attack your opponent personally. It's the oldest trick in the book. (After all, it was used by the serpent in the Garden of Eden when enticing Adam to rebel against God.) If it was seductively effective in the hearts of Adam and Eve, who were without sin, it comes as no surprise that ad hominem continues to be powerful in our fallen and depraved world.

Opposition to Obama is rising. People are upset. Elements on the left (we suspect the extreme left) allege that the fundamental reason people oppose Obama and the reason folk are angry over his policies and proposals is because they reject a black man as their president. The ad hominem charge of racism actually betrays attitudinal racism on the part of those making the charge.

Remember, there is no evidence--just a rush to allegation and judgment. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. It gets so bad that Maureen Dowd, columnist for the New York Times and left-wing apologist declared to the world that Congressman Joe Wilson called President Obama "boy" (a racial slur) when he interjected in the House that Obama was telling lies. Dowd parsed her lie by saying that she had heard it as an "unspoken word", and that regardless of what Wilson actually said, she was sticking to her story. O'Dowd clearly sees the world through racist spectacles. There are the good guys (Obama supporters) and the racists who oppose him.

Former President Jimmy Carter has entered the lists assuring the world that he knows for certain (again no evidence presented whatsoever) that the anger being expressed over Obama's policies in town hall meetings and other gatherings is racially motivated.

Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act "based on racism" and rooted in fears of a black president.

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

"Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," he said. "It's deeper than that."

Here is the way we think it works. Those who are strongly opinionated and doctrinaire left-wing in stance wholeheartedly endorse and support Obama's reckless spending, his quadrupling of the US fiscal deficit, his move to socialised medicine, and so forth. These things are so self-evidently the right things to be doing you have to come up with a "deeper" explanation as to why the majority of people oppose these things. The convenient "deeper" reason is the festering of racist attitudes thoughout the polity.

It's all ad hominem nonsense of course. But the sub-text is even more interesting. When supporters of Obama rush in to allege racism on the part of the President's opponents, they show the world just how firmly a racist world-and-life view has a hold over their hearts and minds.

Racism is alive and well in the United States and it appears to thriving amongst hard-core Obama supporters.