Sunday, September 20, 2009, 11:34 AM
Atlanta, In the News, Stop the Presses
By Kevin Moreau

Race, Obama and the ticking time bomb

Last week, former president Jimmy Carter and U.S. Congressman Hank Johnson brought race into the national health-care debate, labeling racism as a factor in the increasingly venomous and bizarre attacks on President Barack Obama.

Carter voiced the opinion that many people are fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of a black president. Rep. Johnson, meanwhile, made a more unfortunate leap, saying of Rep. Joe Wilson’s famous “You lie!” outburst: “I guess we’ll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again … if this kind of attitude is not rebuked.”

Does race play a role in the shouting match that passes for our current political discourse? Of course it does. It would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise, in the face of posters depicting Obama as a stereotypical witch doctor, complete with a bone through his nose, or the Obama-as-Curious-George T-shirts that thrust Marietta saloon Mulligan’s Bar and Grill into the national spotlight last year. Let’s be honest: A black man named Barack Hussein Obama doesn’t fit our preconceived notions of the archetypal American president.

But reducing the problem to racism alone misses the mark. Racism, like anti-Semitism or the bigotry displayed by anti-gay activists, is just one facet of our deeply ingrained predisposition to hate and fear those who are different from us.

A black president with a foreign-sounding name is bound to spur emotional responses in the most reptilian parts of our brains—responses we can and should overcome. But those nerve centers are already getting a strenuous workout. Every day, we value our own rights and beliefs over the rights, feelings and safety of others. Our text messages take precedence over the movies they interrupt. Our cell-phone conversations are more important than the lives of the other drivers on the road.

Selfishness, self-absorption and self-interest are our default settings. We are always right, always justified, our cause always righteous. Those who don’t believe as we do aren’t simply misguided: They’re brainwashed. They’re unhinged. They’re morally reprehensible. Is it any wonder our political discourse consists of shouting down those we disagree with?

In response to my column last week, one reader suggested that the current incivility of our culture is actually a good thing—that opponents of the president’s agenda are simply “letting off steam.” Without that release, he said, “things would truly get a little uncivil and we would self-destruct as a nation.”

But that, I submit, is exactly what is happening now.

This isn’t just a left or right thing, or a black or white thing. It’s a ticking-time-bomb thing.

It's racism, classism, religionism, and the general selfishness that has pervaded America since our actively Christian president, Jimmy Carter, was replaced by the puppet of the Religious Right, Ronald Reagan. Conservatives are by nature, selfish and lacking in the kind of "brother's keeper" nature exemplified in the walk of Jesus Christ. Instead they quote the rules that he fulfilled in his summary commandment: Love God--love others--love yourself. The proof is in Reagan's "trickledown economics"---give everything to the rich and they will take care of the poor. Well, it did not trickle. The sieve got stopped up with Republican greed. More evidence is blocking gay marriage, making it harder to go to college, the destruction of social program, wars designed to benefit multimillion dollar companies, and even persecuting disadvantaged and handicapped children by forcing all children to learn the same way at the same time with No Child Left Behind.

These are the same people who demonstrated against MLK who protest against health care and rudely insult our first actively Christian President (meaning his faith informs his politics, I am not questioning Bush's personal salvation.) since Jimmy Carter. All the conservatives have given us is war, poverty, discrimination, and racism. Why would they want change? They benefit from the miserable condition of America in 2009. Rich conservatives have health insurance and can afford to pay for it. With our black president they might actually have to benefit America with its own tax money

Rhonda
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 7:32 PM