Former President Jimmy Carter…..
2:34
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“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, that he is African-American," Carter said.
“Racism … still exists and I think it has bubbled up to the surface because of a 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 grieves me and concerns me very deeply,” Carter told NBC News.
Is the former Democratic president correct?
If he is….does that mean that every TeaBagger and every Townhall Buster-Upper is a racist? Of course not. My blog friend King attended last Saturday's protest and I don't consider him a racist.
That said, do racial animosities play ANY role in what appears to be an organized and concerted effort to delegitimize America's first black president? Undoubtedly.
As I have observed the Tea Party opposition to virtually anything Obama it's been hard to rule out racial animosity as a major contributing factor.
Racial animosities played a role during the presidential primaries…..
From an ABC piece May 27, 2008….
In recent weeks, the role of race in the Democratic primaries has been increasingly discussed. And while racist caricatures and jokes about threats against Obama's life have been widely condemned, they seem to reflect an undeniable element of racism that still exists in the country and could play an unknown role in a general election.
……
The latest controversy centered on a depiction of Obama in the cross hairs of a rifle used that appeared on the cover of Georgia's Roswell Beacon newspaper. The controversy focused on the image, though the story, which included interviews with several white supremacists threatened by Obama's candidacy, reflected a deeper reality.
Racial animosities played a role AFTER Obama was elected president….
Arizona Daily Star, November 16, 2008…..
Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting, "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hanging from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.
Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.
Ever hear the phrase, "we want our country back", from those at Tea Parties or Townhall Bust-up sessions?
Here's what the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center said after the November election…..
Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."
Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades, and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.
"If you had real change, it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.
Who can forget the Obama-dressed-up-like-Aunt-Jemima waffle mix and the numerous signs alluding to Obama's race?
Who can forget the hours of wasted time by main stream media anchors and talking heads microscoptically analyzing the black/white vote count in every primary? Why was that done? At the very least it was done because of an awareness that there is still a racial divide in the U.S.
How many times did we hear folks like NBC's Chuck Todd or Nora O'Donnell tell us that the black presidential candidate Obama was having trouble with white voters?
Why is it that still today a majority of southern Republicans believe Obama is not a U.S. citizen? Why the drumbeat, even now after 8 months of the Obama presidency, about Obama's father's native country of Kenya? Is that explained by some coincidental big-bang randomness theory? Or more likely, does that southern belief, one which Jimmy Carter understands and has experienced first hand, reflect a predetermined rejection of a black Democratic president, because he's black?
How can the intense focus on ACORN by Fox enthusiasts during the primary and general election campaign….and again now by the Teabaggers and Townhallers….be explained away as an innocent non-racially tinged focus?
Why the triumphant jubilation over the black second-tier appointee, Van Jones, resigning? Why the recurring use of the word "uppity" by so many opposed to Obama? Why the projectionist claim by Glenn Beck that Obama "hates white people", "white culture?"
Conservative culture warriors are more sophisticated than during the 1960's,….not all but most….and I'm thankful for that. Modern forms of racial animosity are more subtle and oblique. It's Obama's policies, opponents say, not his skin color, which riles them up. Policies that many opponents say will take stuff from them and hand it over to the undeserving, however, are just barely thinly-veiled jabs reminiscent of Uncle Ronnie's southern strategy baiting over fictitious Cadillac driving "welfare queens".
Yes, racial animosities play a significant role in today's unhinged attacks on America's first black president.
Can we overcome these animosities that still exist in America? Will the "we want our country back" crowd ever be content with a black president?
I honestly do not have an answer. I certainly hope so…..but I fear that yet another generation will have to die off before it happens.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
He is a senile old coot that needs to stop being taken serious. He was the worst president in the history of this country. His family owned slaves. But of course Dems won't talk about that will they.
Rev I want you to defend this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtTnizEnC1U
Finally the truth is coming out. Why was there nothing in the news about ACORN funding being cut off.
What truth?
The black ACORN employee in the entrapment video isn't doing anything that any lawyer wouldn't do when asked the same questions.
ACORN helps the less fortunate in urban areas and registers new voters. Those legal activities, because they are being carried out by primarily black Americans for black Americans, cannot be tolerated by those who still believe only whites should rule the nation.
Thus, the Beck entrapment scam video.
Wow…..
It has nothing to do with blacks ruling our nation. The head of the RNC is black. What we do have a problem with is the blatent disregard for the law and that Obama is one of the leaders of this orgainzation. We can't excuse this just because they are black just as we can't pass a bill like healthcare or Cap and Trade becaue it is being sold by a black President. This is being made into racisim by the Democratic party. If being against the destruction of America and not being able to question things is racist, then I guess I am a racist.
This is how this entire program is, nothing but crooks. Do you see how the blacks they pick to do these jobs work. They pad voter registrations with fake names because this is how they get paid. Their members are involved in one of the biggest real estate in the US right now. Now they are giving advice on how to start a prostitution ring with minors and avoiding paying taxes. All this against their own people, knowing that if they get caught it could ruin the Democratic party and they would lose their funding. Is this the character of our president? If so this may be grounds for a recall. Is this a group that I support with my tax dollars? If it were a white group there would be headlines and people going to jail, because it is a black group and the people were warned, it isn't even being coversed on TV except by Jon Stewart.
Go ahead and defend them Rev. This disappoints me.
I guess if it takes Beck to tell us the truth then so be it. It seems he has been more correct than incorrect lately.
We'll have to agree to disagree.
It is widely understood that someone who think everyone else is a thief, is likely a thief. It is how they justify it to themselves.
Enter Carter, a known anti-semite. Of course he thinks others are racist. It is how he gets to sleep at night. He thinks everyone is a racist. Because the person he knows best, is.
bzzzp….you have no idea what you are talking about. Sorry.
Jimmy Carter is the most righteous ex-president the nation has ever seen. His work for peace and justice throughout the world is unmatched.
bzzzzzzp
Must be the sound of your shock therapy.
It is truly the sign of a lack of a real logical argument that would cause anyone to flip the race card. Very desperate and a sign of things to come. Most righteous ex-president indeed.
During the 70% approval rating days that BHO used to enjoy all of racists must have been sick those days. Jimmy Carter does not speak for the Demoncratic party, he is an embarassment to the White House. As for ACORN they are not defensible, they are just like the two political parties we have today, that is they started out with good intentions, but as they grew they became corrupt and lost their way. It happens, now the big question is, how do we get it back?
So you dispute the Simon Wiesenthal Center about Carter's anti-semitism?
Or any stupid stuff he does is forgiven because you agree with his politics?
Carter doesn't have much of a personal legacy of course as one of this nation's worst presidents, but I hope his latest comments don't hurt that houses of humanity thing he's involved with.
Racism is still alive. While certainly not every opponent against Obama is a racist they are scattered in there. I say it because I know of one Obama protester who I worked with. I know his anger against blacks. I have heard his mouth before Obama came on the scene. I Have seen the confederate flag he hangs. So when people like him are mixed in with the protesters – we have a potentially dangerous situation. Which I wont down play
I have a neighbor who is what could mildly be called a "Bush opponent." He has been arrested several times for indecent exposure. I'm sure all Bush haters aren't that way, but I'm not about to downplay the connection.
If you want to know how "righteous" the anti-semitic Jimmy Carter is, just look at who is highly recommending Carter's latest book – Osama Bin Laden.
Righteous indeed.
And Rev, I listened to Democrats talk about "taking our country back" for years under the Bush administration. Funny how it's only "racist" now that conservatives are doing the same.
To wingnuts, "taking back our country" means taking it back from the minorities, and as Pat Buchanan believes, giving it back to it's rightful owners, white people. Those minorities are vicariously represented in our first black president. That's the central focus, if there is one….of the group you now identify with, Tea Partiers. Your new found group agrees only on one thing….they don't like Obama.
"taking back our country"…that came from liberals from 2001-2009, initially referred to the Supremes odious Bush v Gore decision. The Supremes had taken over the country, unConstitutionally I might add, and handed the executive branch over to the Terror Twins To Be. Popular vote went to Gore, don't forget.
Then when the Twins began dismantling our civil liberties one at a time and defrauding the country for the sake of William Kristol's gang at PNAC…..sprinkling gulags and torture along the way….then what "taking back our country" meant to liberals was a return to a rule of law, restoring our national reputation, while seriously examining how far our country's moral bearings had fallen.
Quite a difference.
To people who think Carter is an anti-semite because he thinks what Israel is doing to Palestinians is a form of apartheid….
What Israel is doing to the Palestinians is more like enslavement, than apartheid, so Carter didn't go far enough. As some more radical Jews steal more Palestinian land for Bebe's "settlements", a clearly illegal activity,…..American homeboy ignoramuses defend whatever Israel does as good for America. I have no idea why that is.
Defenders of Israel….like bzzzp, have no idea what they're talking about. They ignorantly defend the slaughter of Palestinian women and children by Israeli helicopter gunships raiding Gaza…..and call the only American president to help broker a lasting peace deal with one of Israel's perceived enemies, Egypt…..anti-semite.
It's all just so stupid.
Fair or not, when I read the Reverend's "It's all so stupid" what I hear is him saying, "It's all so stupid, Jewboy."
Read into it…what-the-hell-ever you want to read into it.
If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, the majority of Israelis want peace with a 2 state solution and the ending of settlement expansion and mistreatment of Palestinians. It's only the extremist minority, represented by Bebe, who want to keep fighting and slaughtering the innocents. Oh, yeah, and, of course, the blood drenched neo-conservative Americans.
Rev says, "To wingnuts, "taking back our country" means taking it back from the minorities"
Huh ? I didn't even realize "minorities" had taken over. I rather thought we were all in this together. But I guess you are more focused like a laser beam on skin color. Whatever. To each his own. I just want our government to stop spending the country into disaster and trampling all over liberty. That's also what I heard expressed at the Tea Parties. I didn't hear anything about minorities. Maybe you could get me one of those liberal secret code word descramblers, so I could understand that no conservative means what he actually says. It all means something else. I only understand english.
Wait a minute. Are you confusing the GOP with the KKK ? Maybe that's it. They both consist of three letters………..oooh, there MUST be something in THAT. Yeah, baby. I'm starting to get that code word thing.
I thought the top 5 percent earners were running everything. Are they minorities??