I firmly believe that there are people who oppose President Obama and everything he stands for simply because of the color of his skin. As Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post does, I would tend to throw most of the “birthers” in that group (these are the people who say Obama shouldn’t be President because they think he wasn’t born in the United States).
But former President Jimmy Carter does nothing to further real work done in race relations or even bring to light real racist attitudes toward the current President, when he said, “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.” An “overwhelming portion”???
It is a huge disservice to the sitting President to make a comment like that. So now instead of opposing plans and creating dialogue about it, Obama’s foes will simply oppose everything without dialogue for fear of being charged with racism.
On the other hand the Right doesn’t do a good job of protecting themselves against charges of racism. When 5% of a anti-Obama policy rally contains racist imagery or signage and there isn’t a strong stance within the group itself to weed those people out, it is no wonder that those are the people that end up on the news.
I like what Bill Clinton had to say in response and would be more in line with my thinking: “I believe that while it is true that some of the most extreme opponents of President Obama may also still have racial prejudice, I believe that 100 percent of those who are opposing him now would be against him if he were a white Democrat.”
Much like Joe Wilson disrupted the President’s address, Carter is distrupting the President’s agenda. Jimmy does a great job of building houses. He should stick with that.
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