The Impact of Race on Today's Political Climate

Carter and Obama are both right

This past week, former President Carter told NBC news, "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 . . . racism inclination still exists. And I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply."   

I applaud former President Carter's  "calling out" of these racists.  I made the same observation myself in my September 7th entry about the hysteria over President Obama's address to the nation's school children  when I wrote, "This is a pure and very sad case of racism. These people cannot stand the fact that we elected a black president. They cannot tolerate the thought of a black president speaking to their children and possibly inspiring them, because it would disrupt the hate that they are spewing and teaching their children."

In an interview with CNN's John King, to be broadcast on Sunday, President Obama said that he assumes some people don’t like him because of his race but said it is not the “overriding issue.” He said the intense public reaction reflects a long-standing debate about the role of government, which gets more fierce “when presidents are trying to bring about big changes.”

The resulting headlines stating that Obama rejects Carter's statement, were wrong.  The Republicans  oppose health care reform and most of the other changes that Obama has proposed.  They are angry that they lost the election.  They will do anything to regain their power.  So, as they did with the Christian right and the issues of abortion and homosexuality in prior elections, they are now stoking the pent up racism of Americans who resent having a black man as our president.  Then, they feed one lie after another to these people, via the internet and people like Glenn "Joe McCarthy" Beck and Rush Limbaugh, to create angry mobs at town hall meetings and giant temper-tantrums in Washington D.C. This keeps negative Obama stories in the media and drags down his approval ratings.

Thus, Obama and Carter were both correct in their statements.