Arizona Has History of Racist Legislation

In 1986, the Arizona state legislature rejected efforts to establish Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a holiday.  That same year, Governor Bruce Babbitt declared MLK day a holiday.  In 1987, Arizona had a new governor, Evan Mecham, who rescinded Governor Babbitt's declaration.  In 1989, the state legislature finally passed legislation establishing the holiday, but it was subsequently rejected by voters via  ballot measure.  It wasn't until after the NFL voted to pull the 1993 Super Bowl from Tempe, Arizona and award it to Pasadena that Arizona voters approved the holiday. 

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.

Teach Your Children

In 1991, George H.W. Bush gave a speech to schoolchildren across the nation.  The speech  was intended "to motivate America's students to strive for excellence; to increase students'  as well as parents' awareness of the educational challenge we face."  The White house  sent letters to schools across the nation encouraging the schools to allow students to listen to the speech.  The Education Department arranged for live television and radio coverage.  Washington Post, October 2, 2001. 

Simon Maloy at Media Matters points out that George W. Bush posted a "teacher's guide" on the White House website for teachers to use to help their students understand the "freedom timeline" for the Iraq war and encouraged them to "explore the biographies of the President, Mrs. Bush, Vice President and Mrs. Cheney."

In 1988, Ronald Reagan addressed schoolchildren in a speech that was broadcast live and rerun by C-Span.  The Instructional Television Network fed the program to schools nationwide on three different days.  At one point in the broadcast,  Reagan used the occasion to speak in favor of his tax cuts. 

Following the tradition, President Obama will give a speech to American schoolchildren on the first day of school, in which he will "challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their own learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens."  U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

So why, pray tell, did Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, lash out at President Obama for his plans to give a speech to the nation's school children about the importance of working hard in school?  Why would he accuse the president of trying to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda?"  Why would he call  President Obama's planned speech an  "an invasive abuse of power?"  Why all this coming from Mr. Greer, who, himself, went into classrooms and talked about Republican values?  Why are conservative Republicans all over the country condemning and spouting off conspiracy theories about the speech, which they haven't even read?

Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress astutely concluded, "Probably the biggest moral of the story is that the contemporary conservative movement is run by crazy people with no scruples, who’ll turn anything into a pretext to level wild accusations. "

For this to to cause so much hysteria from the right, I can't help but conclude that if Obama was a white male president, the reaction would not be so hateful and venomous.  In fact, there would be no opposition.  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.

It  sickens me.