Fear of a Black President | Clipped Fresh

Fear of a Black President | Politics | ReligionDispatches.

COMMENT: First, let me say that I think racially motivated opposition to our president is very much the minority argument for folks who oppose his policies. Political opposition is healthy, normal and American. It creates a stronger union.

But it’s blindness not to recognize that race is a factor among some. I think this article does a good job of pointing out that opposition which isn’t grounded in policy or philosophy of government could well be grounded in racial hate. The general argument that “we are losing our country” without specific examples except Obama is a socialist could be white fear about their place in a society where a black man is now the most powerful person in the country. And that’s too bad.

FROM THE ARTICLE: The prevalence of racist images of President Obama brandished by protesters juxtaposed with calls of “taking our country back” are reminiscent of D.W. Griffith’s fictional America as depicted in Birth of a Nation. And the pride with which this segment of society has rallied the troops around its shared sense of whiteness reveals that their skin color is the one true object of pledged allegiance and determinant of professed patriotism.

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