Born in the U.S.A. ...Really, We Swear

I miss wis.dm, my friends. I'd find it much easier to carry on our little portion of the debate on race in America, if we were wis.dming instead of Facebooking. When a man can tell me that the above nonsense "has nothing to do with race," and sincerely believe this, I know we're still, as AG Holder has said, "a nation of cowards" in this respect.

Listen up. Many people are racist. Many of these people have a podium and the will to use their voice at that podium to spread their ideology. In this specific instance, the debate is supposed to be about health care. And I hate to break it to those who didn't know, but even if that's the debate we were having, there would still be a racial component - encoded in terms of class. But these men (and Malkin) who've been termed "wingnut" over and over again, insist on flat-out ignoring the national debate we're supposed to be having - when the bill we're supposed to be talking about is already way overdue - and bringing us all around to the fact that, yes, the President of the United States is Black American. Or is he? Even if some of these giving voice to the concept don't embrace it, they're still legitimizing the lunatics.

Essentially, the lunatic fringe has spread way off of the fringe and is actually nearly monopolizing the opposition's agenda. And in such a manner that they cannot be ignored. No, the President is not engaging these people, nor is his staff; but neither are they able to press their agenda. Given the supposedly filibuster-proof majority the Senate Democrats have, and the Democrat advantage in the House, that's absolutely ridiculous.

Don't tell me this isn't about race. Yes, if this was Hilary's presidency, it would be about sex - but they'd have a whole lot less room to call her eligibility to serve into question. (Truth be told, I can't imagine what they'd dredge up for her that hasn't already been covered in the last eighteen years or so, but there'd be some corruption of some kind to fish out.) But our President happens to be a man of color, whose father was indeed not born in the United States. Git a rope.

And they're just afraid. They're afraid that Obama's presidency means the death of White Privilege. I could reassure them: White Privilege in America has many generations left in it. Hell, many of those who bestow this privilege (store owners, tax men, census takers, local politicians, voter-registration volunteers) have little-to-no idea that they're showing preference to White Americans. Maybe it's not as obvious as following the Black Man around the store, or clutching their purse in an elevator. Maybe it's not as clear-cut as denying business to one man, or giving preferential treatment to another. Perhaps it's the simple discomfort with a person of color that leads you to look at one man askance and not another.

I believe it's this quiet discomfort with the other that's being exposed on the national stage. Even by those with clearer vision, but who have not experienced the symptoms of this discomfort, the effects can go unnoticed, unnumbered. Let me try to share a few.

1. Not being comfortable anywhere the larger balance of people in the room aren't comfortable with you.
2. Feeling as though you must defend your right to be present in a given space or situation.
3. Wondering, often automatically, if being not White has something to do with "it".

It'll be a while before we're all of us able to look beyond the color of a man's skin into the content of his character. But the least we can do is acknowledge that for some, there is no desire whatsoever to do so. There are those who are currently capitalizing on the discomfort many Americans feel when race is raised as a topic of discussion, manipulating it so that it's taken as discomfort with the Presdient's performance or his eligibility to hold office.

And I have to applaud one tactic: the labeling of President Obama, Justice Sotomayor, and anyone else who acknowledges a racial reality, as "racist." Brilliant! This is how it goes: Judge Sotomayor acknowledges, before the media, that she is in fact Latina. Racist! How dare she admit to being Latina! President Obama acknowledges the reality that racial profiling exists and is stupid. Racist! Racial profiling in America is a "reverse racist" myth! (Whoever said that obviously didn't know that many officers of the LAPD freely admit to racial profiling, claiming it as a valid and useful policing tactic.)

Even Obama's health care policy (hey, way to work it in there somehow) isn't safe: it's all about reparations.

Don't tell me this isn't about race. If anyone but Obama was president, we'd be talking about health care right now, like we should. Instead, we get nonsense about Mombasa, reparations, a sitting President of the United States of America with a "deep-seated hatred for White people or the White culture," and on and on ad nauseam - and all of this from people who, it is important to note, are not racist.

Cowboy up, White America. It's time to admit that some of y'all are just dyed-in-the-slave-picked-Confederate-wool racists. It's okay. I won't judge you for that - but for claiming otherwise; for being tricksy and false; for laying some of the most racist of trips I have ever heard upon the man who holds the highest office in the nation, then claiming not just that you aren't racist, but that he is, I have nothing but contempt. And for those of you who don't have a podium, for those of you who watch all of this nonsense and can still tell me that "it" isn't about race?

Well, if by "it" you're referring to Obama's presidency, I agree. If by "it" you're referring to the conservatives' actual problem, I might agree on a case-by-case basis. If by "it" you're referring to what they're saying on the air, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. If by "it" you're referring to this "birther conspiracy" or whatever, sorry. That's nothing but racist. If the man's father was from Dublin, I find it nearly impossible to believe that we'd be having this 'debate'.

And I have gone weeks without hearing a conservative pundit discuss the President's political agenda without making either an encoded, or a completely overt, racist statement (or two). But I'm open to being shown otherwise.

I remain ever yours, Angry Black Militant Guy or not,
Dash