Daniel Larison of the American Conservative and Eli Lake of the New York Sun spoke with each other on Bloggingheads about the tendency of some Obama supporters to find something ‘racist’ in every word uttered by conservatives. It’s an interesting conversation, watch it at TMV.
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As every day passes I become more and more convinced that for every person seeing racism in every attack on Obama, there’s 10 people accusing a vast majority of Obama supporters of doing it. The people accusing others of falsely calling racism seem to amply outnumber those who falsely call racism. Additionally, it’s quite common for someone to think one particular attack has racial overtones, and to subsequently be accused of thinking every attack and all opposition is racially motivated, never mind that has no actual relation to the actual statement.
Personally I think much of the more despicable smearing has a lot more xenophobia than racism attached to it. It is an unnamed fear of the Other, the Different, the Strange and Threataning. Barack HUSSEIN Obama palls around with TERRORISTS. He doesn’t see America like we do. I’d actually say that the most commonly exploited bigotry against him is Islamophobia, not racism, which is ironic, since he isn’t Muslim but he definately IS black.
I do think these lines of attack are used because they work, and I do think they’d be much harder to use if Obama were white, simply because he’d be much harder to characterize as “other”. His name doesn’t help of course. If it had been his mother and not his father that was Kenyan, and he had been named Harry, I doubt the insinuations about Harry Duhnam would have worked well.
I don’t believe all attacks are racist or bigoted. I happen to disagree with the evaluation as racist of some attacks by some people. But inevitably when you bring up the idea that one or a few of the lines of attack carry a bigoted undertone, you are accused of saying ALL attacks do. A perfect red herring that conveniently eliminates the need to discuss the particular case at all.
Yeah, it’s not like there had been any fearmongering of Sarah Palin as being on of the “Others” {rolls eyes}
Can’t you just admit that the race card is being used a shield, Claudia? It’s blatantly obvious- no one is permitted to raise ANY concern about this one term senator or his past without being accused of, as you say, using this ’subtle’ xenophobia against him. The fact is that there are a scarcity of facts about him, what he actually believes, and how he got to where he is today. When some of the more bizarre or potentially damaging facts are questioned, the questioners are shouted down and there has been so much information being scrubbed from websites it’s unprecedented in my memory.
Convenient, though, that those who question these things can be accused of smearing Obama for his “otherness”.
“All the conservative mothers in the house put yo hands up!”
I couldn’t resist.
Anyhoo: I agree with you Christine.
And let me add something: this is creating a very dangerous environment. I’m not joking. Liberals should be very, very,very careful with playing the race card. They’re doing it too often, too easily. It will create a very hateful, angry, intolerant atmosphere if it continues; I’m serious here. This could create more trouble than they bargained for.
I agree. The race card has been played again and again in situations that require the Incredible Stretching Brain to understand. I can’t tell if it’s just a reflex, or if they’re being serious — but it’s exactly like the boy who cried wolf. It distorts reality and undermines the credibility of the person(s) making the claim.
I also agree with Claudia, though: the attempts to marginalize Obama (as she outlines) as “The Other” look exceedingly xenophobic to me, and it’s a very disturbing tactic. (More so because it seems to resonate with some citizens.) But it can’t be looked at cleanly when people confuse it with racism.
What can I say that Polimom hasn’t?
The libs are misguided (putting it nicely) for calling every attack against Obama racist. Sorry, but it’s not.
But some of these 1+1=2 insinuations against Obama are xenophobic (didn’t think of it that way before, but it fits).