Racism Blamed for Clamor Over Obama
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| Wed, 09-16-2009 - 8:55am |
Do you agree with Carter?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/15/AR2009091503689.html
Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that he believes race is at the core of much of the opposition to President Obama.
"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," Carter told NBC in an interview. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shared the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans"
Continued Carter: "And that racism inclination still exists. . . . It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply."
The 39th president also predicted that Obama will be able to "triumph over the racist attitude that is the basis for the negative environment that we see so vividly demonstrated in public affairs in recent days."
See the following videos. I've never heard so much ignorance. Most don't appear to know why or what they're protesting & can't back-up the 'catch phrases' they're parroting. These people vote! Now that's scary.....
9.12 DC TEA PARTY - MARCH FOOTAGE WITH INTERVIEWS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y
9/12 Taxpayer Tea Party March on Washington, DC



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Carter may not have come straight out and said "racist" but that is what he has implied and that is how most everyone has taken his remarks. Or at least everyone that I have spoken with.
I don't care for Obama but it has nothing to do with his skin color.
We need to get back to what is really important like Health Care, the economy, people who don't have jobs or homes and Home Land Security. I think Carter did this to draw attention away from these present issues.
But this is MY opinion and I just bet alot of other's as well!
***As for the President calling Kanye a "jackass"...ROTFLOL!
I like what Eugene Robinson has to say about all this, in today's Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703566.html
The Favor Jimmy Carter Did Us All
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, September 18, 2009
What I wrote last year about candidate Barack Obama -- that to win he had to be seen as "the least-aggrieved black man in America" -- may be even more relevant now. To lead this diverse and fractious nation effectively, the president has to negotiate racial issues with delicacy, caution and tact. He has to give even his most vocal critics the benefit of the doubt.
But I don't. So I can say in plain language that Jimmy Carter was right in essence, but wrong in degree. It seems clear to me that some -- but not "an overwhelming portion," as Carter claimed -- of the "intensely demonstrated animosity" toward Obama is indeed "based on the fact that he is a black man."
Obama disagrees. "The president does not believe that criticism comes based on the color of his skin," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday. Obama is the most garrulous president in many years, but when a reporter asked him about Carter's remarks, he had not a word to say.
Nor do many other leading Democrats -- outside of the Congressional Black Caucus -- want to touch this explosive subject. As a matter of political strategy, I don't blame them. The minute you observe that some of Obama's critics seem to be motivated by race, the critics howl that they're all being smeared as "racists" simply because they disagree with Obama's policies. This is not true.
Of course it's possible to reject Obama's policies and philosophy without being racist. But there's a particularly nasty edge to the most vitriolic attacks -- a rejection not of Obama's programs but of his legitimacy as president. This denial of legitimacy is more pernicious than the abuse heaped upon George W. Bush by his critics (including me), and I can't find any explanation for it other than race.
I'm not talking about the majority of the citizens who went to town hall meetings to criticize Obama's plans for health-care reform or the majority of the "tea bag" demonstrators who complain that Obama is ushering in an era of big government. Those are, of course, legitimate points of view. Protest is part of our system. It's as American as apple pie.
I'm talking about the crazy "birthers." I'm talking about the nitwits who arrive at protest rallies bearing racially offensive caricatures -- Obama as a witch doctor, for example. I'm talking about the idiots who toss around words like "socialism" to make Obama seem alien and even dangerous -- who deny the fact that he, too, is as American as apple pie.
This whole discussion was kicked off by Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst during Obama's address to a joint session of Congress. As the House members who voted to rebuke Wilson -- including seven fellow Republicans -- understand, calling the head of state a liar in such an official setting is way out of bounds. Grumbling and even booing come with the territory, but a flat accusation of mendacity is an impermissible sign of disrespect. Nobody ever called Bush a liar when he was speaking in the House chamber.
Why would Wilson think he was entitled to insult the president this way? Why would he refuse to offer a formal apology on the House floor, which would have ended the matter? I have no idea. Friends and colleagues say he is no racist, and they know the man a lot better than I do. But he does have a history.
Before he was elected to Congress, Wilson was one of a handful of South Carolina state senators to vote to keep the Confederate flag flying above the State House in Columbia. This was after a long, bitter battle over the flag had distilled the issue, at least in the minds of most South Carolinians, into a proxy fight over race: Was the state going to move forward, or would it cling to its shameful past? Most politicians in the state, including most conservatives, had decided it was time to move on. Wilson was one of the last diehards.
That, of course, was his right. But now that he has committed a singular act of disrespect toward the first African American president, it's my right to ask whether his motivation was racial.
I look forward to the day when we can look past race. But before we can do so, we need to look at race and see it clearly. Jimmy Carter did us a favor.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
The confederate flag does not you a racist either...there again
there are ALOT of racist out there and that is sad. I'm from the South
so does that make me a racist? I think not! Actually your comment "Didn't the South lose" sounded a little racist to me if you think about it.
And like I said before...Obama is part white but you sure don't hear alot of people talking about that now do you!
All of this is just non sense about the race card...let's just come together as a Nation and concentrate on getting things straightened out...people are hurting!
People don't have crosses burned on their front porch for being part white. It's the part that isn't white that gets the KKK after you.
People who fly the Confederate flag might not be racist as with people who choose the fly the swastika but both were symbols of failed states that discriminated against people based on race/culture.
I read it and thought it was exactly what was being said here.
"The minute you observe that some of Obama's critics seem to be motivated by race, the critics howl that they're all being smeared as "racists" simply because they disagree with Obama's policies. This is not true. "
This is apparent by reading the thread. People get so defensive and start speaking about their freedom of speech, etc when none of that is relevant.
Huh?
Posted: 1:45 pm EDT September 15, 2009Updated: 5:47 am EDT September 16, 2009
Morrow police were called to the Cracker Barrel restaurant on Southlake Plaza Drive in Morrow Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Upon arrival, officers said they located the female victim and called for EMTs and Fire Department officials to assist. At the same time, the alleged offender in the case, Troy Dale West, of Poulan, Ga. was detained at the scene, police said.
Police said an investigation revealed that the female victim, identified as Tasha Hill, was entering the Cracker Barrel with her 7-year-old daughter as West was leaving the restaurant. As West was leaving, the exit door came close to striking the 7-year-old daughter of the victim, police said. Hill, by all witness accounts, politely asked West to be careful, officials said.
"The man slung open the door pretty hard and fast and I had to push my daughter out of the way. I turned to the man and I just said, 'Excuse me sir, you need to watch yourself you almost hit my daughter in the face.' And from there it just went downhill," said Hill.
At that point, West became enraged and began to beat the victim in front of her 7-year-old daughter, according to police. Hill said she told West she was an Army servicemember and she did not want any trouble.
West threw her to the ground and hit her in the head with his fists and feet, police said. During the exchange, witnesses said West could be heard screaming racial slurs towards the victim.
"He said, 'You're an f****** black (N-word) b****,' is what he said," said Hill. "Then he punched me in my face. And I fell to the ground and he proceeded to punch in my head and face."
Many witnesses stepped up to assist police in the investigation by providing written statements as to the events that transpired. Cracker Barrel was also helpful to police in this investigation, Morrow police said.
This case has been referred to the FBI Civil Rights Division for a possible violation of Federal Hate Crime Laws.
Once officers obtained witness statements on the scene and looked at video surveillance from the Cracker Barrel, West was arrested and charged with battery, disorderly conduct, and cruelty to children in the first degree.
West has bonded out of jail.
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