Birther Is Another Word for Racist

 Posted by at 2:42 am  Politics
Apr 282011
 

Will Obama obtaining the long form of his birth certificate settle the issue?  It would if the issue had anything to do with the document.  It does not.  Obama is guilty of being President while black, and birther is just another term for racist. I remember all too well the signs at Republican demonstrations calling Obama an African, a Halfrican, and even the N word.  Disclaimer: the graphic I chose for this article is an example of Republican racism directed toward Obama, while also defaming the poor.  Its offensive content does not reflect the views if this author.  The opposite is true.

28racist

If there were any doubts about the racial animus driving Donald Trump’s attacks on Barack Obama, the billionaire reality-show star exposed himself with his latest conspiracy.  On Monday night, Trump questioned how Obama could possibly have been admitted to Ivy League schools, since Trump “heard” Obama was a “terrible student.”  Trump told the AP that he was investigating the issue, whatever that means, just as he claims to have dispatched investigators to Hawaii in order to find the president’s famous birth certificate.“How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?” Trump said. “I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.”

By charging that Obama was not admitted based on merit, Trump is suggesting that Obama was admitted because he is black.

Launching an investigation into Obama’s birthplace in 2011 is not really objective journalism – it’s an overreaction to conspiracy theories masquerading as fact-checking.

In GOP politics, attacking racial minorities as the underachieving beneficiaries of affirmative action is a very old move. Senator Jesse Helms produced the most notorious example, an ad against his black opponent Harvey Grant that blasted affirmative action for taking jobs from deserving white people and giving them to minorities. Even that dark salvo, however, was putatively linked to jobs and active policy debates. Trump is not so smooth. He is blatantly attacking Obama’s teenage qualifications for college—a topic so obscure, it was a non-issue in Obama’s exhaustive, two-year-long presidential campaign. Coupled with the rage of the Birthers, Trump’s adopted conspiracy crowd, the mogul looks more like he is auditioning for a talk radio gig than the presidency.

Still, racial dog whistles only work when a lot of people play along. Otherwise a coded attack—aimed at the racists but clinging to deniability—curdles into public, blatant racism. (That’s bad in politics and business, so it would restrain even a business candidate like Trump.)  So far, the press has been quite delicate when confronting Trump.

The editor-in-chief of CBS News, Dan Farber, sounded rather strained when explaining Trump’s Ivy League attack:

“…how could a person from Mr. Obama’s humble background and academic achievements get into Harvard? Trump’s inference is that Mr. Obama is a cipher, cannot be trusted and is concealing a dark secret.”

What is this dark, untrustworthy cipher-secret?  I don’t see Trump saying that the president of the United States is a cipher—a zero or nonentity—but rather that back in the day, Obama was not good enough to get into college without a racial boost.

Inserted from <The Nation>

Here is the Jesse Helms ad discussed above.

 

Of course, requiring black people to have identification is nothing new in the history of American racism.  Rachel Maddow gave up her microphone to Goldie Taylor, who reveals her own connection to such behavior.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

How shocking and saddening that is!

Not all Republicans are racist, but the Republican Party is a racist organization, because they not only welcome racists with open arms, but they actively pander to them.

Now as for Trump, I think it should be his turn now.  Since Obama has produced his birth certificate, shouldn’t Trump now produce his AKC Pedigree?

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  19 Responses to “Birther Is Another Word for Racist”

  1. TWM says:
    April 28, 2011 at 3:31 am

    The sad part about the Republican dog and pony show is that even though most of their base get the references they have no historical context within which to place them. Which marginalizes in their mind the true significance of the racism. Most of the ones who actually think must despise the brush that paints them as racist because their spoke people are. And it isn’t just Trump (who has good relations with “The Blacks”) but take a look into Palins dealings as governor with the Native peoples. You may be surprised to find how overt her racist attitudes are as well.

    • TomCat says:
      April 28, 2011 at 11:50 pm

      I’ve noticed that Mark, but rather than recognize the racism in their midst they prefer to blame the people who identify the racism for “falsely-accusing” them. I intended Turmp just as an example. Blood-libe[ Barbie would have served the purpose equally well.

  2. SoINeedAName says:
    April 28, 2011 at 4:23 am

    Well, there’s just a FEW lingering questions for those who can’t get over the fact that a black man is their President:

    [1] What took ya’ so long?
    [2] Are there any misspellings?
    [3] Is that thing photoshopped?
    [4] Isn’t there a LONGER form?
    [5] Haven’t I seen a place that sells those on the Internet?
    [6] American? Hell, no … and this proves it! It says right there that he was born in HAWAII!

    I don’t think any of us believe that this will end the racist hate-mongering, but we can enjoy the Tweet of the day from Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight:

    @fivethirtyeight
    Nate Silver

    WHY IS OBAMA STILL REFUSING TO LET REPORTERS USE WHITE HOUSE TIME MACHINE TO TRAVEL BACK TO HONOLULU, 1961???

    http://twitter.com/#!/fivethirtyeight/statuses/63276911928942592

  3. Infidel753 says:
    April 28, 2011 at 5:39 am

    It was proven a long time ago that Obama was a natural-born citizen — proven to the satisfaction of anybody for whom this was really a question of following the evidence.

    The only people who are still using this line of attack are people to whom it’s a matter of faith — evidence isn’t the point, and no amount of it will ever sway them.

    They are now claiming that the long-form BC is fake or falling back on claims that even if Obama was born in Hawaii, he’s not a natural-born citizen because his father blah blah blah.

    It will never end. Even after Obama leaves office in triumph in January 2017, there will still be a few of these grumbling troglodytes in shacks in Montana writing semi-literate pamphlets claiming the whole Presidency didn’t count because blah blah Photoshop blah blah British subject blah blah.

  4. Dave Dubya says:
    April 28, 2011 at 7:34 am

    “Not all Republicans are racist” but pretty much all racists are Republicans.That we can bet on…

    • TomCat says:
      April 28, 2011 at 11:56 pm

      I can’t agree Dave. The most racist elements of the Republican party used to be Democrats, known as Dixiecrats. The deserted the Democratic party when LBJ passed Voting Rights. They should have disappeared into the political hinterland, but the Republican Party formed “the Southern strategy” and institutionalized racism to attract them in. They are now the base.

  5. tnlib says:
    April 28, 2011 at 8:02 am

    Many of us have been calling the right-wing on their racism since Day One while political scientists and other so-called experts, including the MSM, have denied it. Finally, Bob Schieffer proclaims that racism is behind Trump’s birther claims. Well, duh! Where have you and the rest of the MSM been all this time?

  6. Jack Jodell53 says:
    April 28, 2011 at 9:04 am

    I looked up synonyms for “Donald Trump” in the dictionary. Here’s what I found:
    1. Blowhard
    2. Racist
    3. Shallow
    4. Self-absorbed
    5. Bankrupt
    6. Attention-craver
    7. Phony.
    8. YOU’RE FIRED!

  7. Lisa G. says:
    April 28, 2011 at 9:08 am

    That first video was disgusting – if that were played in this day and age, the white man would have lost and lost big. Maybe in the southern states this would fly, but not in any normal state. That man would have been vilified from NY to CA. Absolutely disgusting. 😡

    And The Donald taking credit for Obama releasing his “long form” of his certificate of birth, well that’s just going to give the birthers more fodder. What an arrogant asshole that man is. But his hair is not looking as weird as usual. 😆

    Never in American History has a president have to show his birth certificate. Now that asshole Trump is going for his school records – the man graduated magna cum laude from Harvard for God’s sake. (For those of you who don’t speak Latin that means “with the greatest praise”). Fuck, leave it alone already and get a fucking life. 😡

    I’m going to be calling Trump “trumpass” from now on. Go back to your stupid show and stop this fucking nonsense.

    • TomCat says:
      April 29, 2011 at 12:00 am

      Lisa, the first video shows how Republicans think, but have been afraid to say for a while. I’d rather call him off TV and out of politics.

  8. Cellophane says:
    April 28, 2011 at 9:30 am

    I love a term for birthers who won’t give up no matter how much proof . I saw it on Newsvine: Afterbirthers. Snort!

    • SoINeedAName says:
      April 28, 2011 at 1:23 pm

      Now THAT is hilarious! I had to Google it, and it looks like it started from an article at “The Onion” (no surprise there):

      Afterbirthers Demand To See Obama’s Placenta

      11.04.09 WASHINGTON–In the continuing controversy surrounding the president’s U.S. citizenship, a new fringe group informally known as “Afterbirthers” demanded Monday the authentication of Barack Obama’s placenta from his time inside his mother’s womb. “All we are asking is that the president produce a sample of his fetal membranes and vessels—preferably along with a photo of the crowning and delivery—and this will all be over,” said former presidential candidate and Afterbirthers spokesman Alan Keyes, later adding that his organization would be willing to settle for a half-liter of maternal cord plasma. “To this day, the American people have not seen a cervical mucus plug, let alone one that has been signed and notarized by a state-certified Hawaiian health official. If the president was indeed born in the manner in which he claims, then where is his gestation sac?” Keyes said that if Obama did not soon produce at least a bloody bedsheet from his conception, Afterbirthers would push forward with efforts to exhume the president’s deceased mother and inspect the corpse’s pelvic bone and birth canal.

      http://www.theonion.com/articles/afterbirthers-demand-to-see-obamas-placenta,6866/

  9. Alice says:
    April 28, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    Trump is a joke. Obama & all of them should be working on getting the country running 100% and not this foolishness about Obama’s birthplace. MORE Stupidity!

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