Ron Moore
DC Special Interests Examiner
American Christian evangelicals have long considered racism America’s original sin. Our national monuments like the White House and U.S. Capitol building were constructed by slaves. From Jim Crow, to the resistance to civil rights laws, to the dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, the struggle to overcome our heritage is ongoing.
The Republican Party trumpets the political ideology of originalism, also called original intent, a belief in the original Constitution as framed by the founders of the American democratic republic. While slavery was part of that frame, it’s the legacy of the ideology behind slavery that still exists to some degree.
The election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African-American president is considered a milestone, but for some it is more of a millstone. White Americans faced a choice in the ballot box. They could vote in their economic self interest or accede to the racist impulse that it is not yet time for an African-American to lead the country. Clearly economic self-interest won by a wide margin. The Sarah Palin rallies were seen as anomalies in light of the election results. From the angry Florida law enforcement officer to the shouts and taunts of racists at her rallies, America could pat itself on the back that those voices were drowned out by the better angels of our nature. Except the Republican Party doesn’t seem to be willing to step in to the future just quite yet. It’s true they found a black face to lead the party, but he has literally been a whipping boy for Rush Limbaugh from day one.
In just the past month the New York Post has published a cartoon depicting the commander in chief as an out of control chimpanzee that had to be put down. A traditional President’s Day display at the Peterson Air Force Base commissary always included a picture of the current president, until this year when complaints were raised about a picture of the current commander in chief. A Republican appointed member of the Staten Island Community Education Council sent around a racist cartoon strip mocking President Obama. In Florida a bookstore display was altered so a picture of a monkey was prominent as the focal point of a selection of books about the new president and stayed that way for days with no complaints. A Republican mayor sent around a picture showing the White House surrounded by a watermelon patch.
These are isolated incidents and one cannot infer that the Republican Party is racist just from a few examples. But it is clear that the only political party where racists can find comfort is the Republican Party. When racists hid behind sheets it was an unwitting expression of shame and a desire to hide from a community that may not approve. Now the white sheets are off, and what lies underneath is ugly and destructive. For too long Republicans have gamed the officials, the press, and cowed them into framing any discussion of race in an evenhanded way so as not to appear partisan. But we live in a time where we know that allowing a small minority to grow increasingly angry can lead to terrorism.
Who knows if Timothy McVeigh had found other avenues for his frustrations and had not found comfort in The Turner Diaries? What if the American baptist Christians who taunted visiting Muslim students, stealing their shoes when they went in to pray had respected religious liberty? One of those students was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the purported mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
It is easy to suggest that hate leads to violence; it is harder to predict where one’s hate speech inspires another’s violence. We don’t limit speech in this country for good reason; it stifles debate and the free exchange of ideas. But if hate speech isn’t challenged, if it is filtered through the mainstream media in the desire for fair and balanced reporting it becomes an accepted part of the milieu. The Republican Party has a choice, either accept that the world is changing in a positive way, or continue as racial Luddites refusing to accept that “that one” and his type should have every opportunity to achieve and succeed. Originalism as a form of racist nostalgia is something we can do without. The Republican Party can put a black face out in front and he can attempt to keep a lid on the boiling bigoted, racist rage in his party. But the steam just continues to leak out. At some point he has to turn down the flames or we will all get burned.
http://www.examiner.com/x-2071-DC-Special-Interests-Examiner~y2009m3d4-Is-the-Republican-Party-racist
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
