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Sunday, June 28, 2015

Obama's Disgraceful Race Comments

This article first appeared in Eagle Rising.


Last week, we were once again treated to an example of President Obama's negative contribution to race relations in this country. During an interview with Marc Maron, Obama used the n-word and said that racism was part of our DNA.

It is not the use of the n-word that I object to though I maintain that the word should have disappeared from our lexicon by now except for its embrace by rap artists and other blacks who have incorporated it into their street language. Obama, for his part, used it in the proper context.

I do object, however, to his saying that racism is part of our DNA.  He should have saved those words for Jeremiah Wright, in whose church he sat for 20 years. The President's words are a slap in the face of a nation whose people have worked hard for 60 years or so to transform a nation whose institutions were, in fact, racist so dramatically. They were a slap in the face of the good citizens of Charleston, who came together so positively after the horrific slayings of last week.

Even those who voted against Obama in 2008 had hoped that his election might turn a page in our sad racial history. Instead, this man and his minions-people like Eric Holder- have taken us back decades to a place we thought we would never see again. Now too many of us, black and white, are looking at each other with suspicion and blaming each other for Ferguson, Baltimore, and other places that have seen tragic events unfold.

This is a man who has invited race hustler Al Sharpton into the White House over 80 times! What does that tell you about his own agenda?  This is a man who described his own grandmother-the woman who raised him- as "a typical (read racist) white woman". This is a man who has allowed his followers to paint his political opponents as "racists" knowing full well that is a lie. His own wife, the first lady recently told a Tuskegee University audience that "others" (white people) still don't view them as equals.

So now, in 2015, we have an America where young people on our college campuses talk about such nonsense as "white privilege", a term used when one cannot prove white racism. We have an America where cops, white, black, brown or yellow, are open targets for murder thanks to their demonization by our own president and his followers.

No, Mr President: Racism is not in our DNA. You, however, should examine your own DNA.

2 comments:

elwood p suggins said...

Yes, it would appear that Mr. Obama is a self-described, self-proclaimed racist (as if we needed any more info/evidence in that regard). I must agree with Gary; let Obama talk about his own DNA, not mine.

Siarlys Jenkins said...

Racism is in the DNA of American politics and culture. That's not a statement about the arrangement of proteins in your precious protoplasmic cells. I'm opposed to the "check your privilege" preoccupation because it perpetuates racism. We don't end racism by wallowing in it, but by throwing it away. I have appreciated the president's recent speeches, which have been much more nuanced and insightful than you give him credit for.