Eugene Robinson: Race and the Tea Party’s Ire

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/race_and_the_tea_partys_ire_20101101/

Race and the Tea Party’s Ire

Posted on Nov 1, 2010

Flickr / ~db~ (CC-BY-ND)

Smearing the president: an anti-Obama poster.

By Eugene Robinson


The first African-American president takes office, and almost immediately we see the birth of a big, passionate national movement—overwhelmingly white and lavishly funded—that tries its best to delegitimize that president, seeks to thwart his every initiative, and manages to bring the discredited and moribund opposition party roaring back to life. Coincidence?

Not a chance. But also not that simple.

First, I’ll state the obvious: It’s not racist to criticize President Obama, it’s not racist to have conservative views, and it’s not racist to join the tea party. But there’s something about the nature and tone of the most vitriolic attacks on the president that I believe is distinctive—and difficult to explain without asking whether race is playing a role.

snip//

Underlying all the tea party’s issues and complaints, it appears to me, is the entirely legitimate issue of the relationship between the individual and the federal government. But why would this concern about oppressive, intrusive government become so acute now? Why didn’t, say, government surveillance of domestic phone calls and e-mails get the constitutional fundamentalists all worked up?

I have to wonder what it is about Obama that provokes and sustains all this tea party ire. I wonder how he can be seen as “elitist,” when he grew up in modest circumstances—his mother was on food stamps for a time—and paid for his fancy-pants education with student loans. I wonder how people who genuinely cherish the American dream can look at a man who lived that dream and feel no connection, no empathy.

I ask myself what’s so different about Obama, and the answer is pretty obvious: He’s black. For whatever reason, I think this makes some people unsettled, anxious, even suspicious—witness the willingness of so many to believe absurd conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace, his religion, and even his absent father’s supposed Svengali-like influence from the grave.

Obama has made mistakes that rightly cost him political support. But I can’t help believing that the tea party’s rise was partly due to circumstances beyond his control—that he’s different from other presidents, and that the difference is his race.

[saigon68]

1. And cracker whitey is about to teach the uppity a lesson today

It is unbridled racism, and its here to stay for a while. Perpetuated by religious fundy con men and male pedophiles in dresses

[jaxx]

2. K&R for the truth

Eugene Robinson nails it once again. If Obama was white and his last name was Jones very little of this ignorance would be happening. For those who tell you his being African American isn't relevant....they speak with forked tongues.

[madmax]

3. I can't wait for the people of the world

to all have very similar skin color - something along the lines of Café au lait. I won't see it in my lifetime but, maybe someday and we can stop all this shit.

[babylonsister]

4. Hopefully as the old racists die out, they won't be replaced.

I do notice the majority of baggers seem to be older white people.

[Igel]

5. You have got to be kidding.

Certainly a Western attitude.

Consider Iraq, where people are blowing each other up not because of skin color but because of religion. Or the Arab slave trade, where millions of Africans (and no small number of Europeans and Asians) were enslaved because, well, they had inferior revelations or rejected their revelations.

Consider Kenya and Rwanda, where people engaged in genocide not because of skin color but because of ethnic affiliation.

Consider the USSR, where millions died not because of ethnic affiliation but because of political party and ideology.

We focus on race because for the last couple hundred years in Western Europe and its colonies race was the single largest criterion for tribal affiliation. We declare our sins to be worst of all sins because those are the ones we see, those which are most domestically useful. Everybody else is sin-free by comparison (or tainted primarily by our corruption, adding to our sin). And, like all zealots, we search out every trace of unrighteousness in order to deal with it mercilessly and harshly in the spirit of true empathy and compassion--sort of like the stereotypical over-zealous minister who so obsesses over sexual sin that he sees it everywhere, wallows in it, and can't stop thinking about it (only to blame others, of course).

Tribalism writ large is a primate quality; we're primates. If not race, then something else will serve as the basis for believing ourselves superior, enlightened, less prone to error and generally more righteous and well-meaning--and for seeing others as inferior, knuckle-draggers, incapable of aything other than error and generally more venal and malicious. "The best of their tribe is worse than the worst of our tribe" has been H. sapiens' motto since before there was language.

[madmax]

12. I'm not as well educated as you are and I

don't mean that in a snarky way, I do understand what you wrote because I'm aware of genocide in Africa and the situation in the mid-east. I guess I tend to view things within a smaller prism and more simplistic most times without giving it any deeper thought. I do appreciate your input, makes me more aware to look beyond what may be a knee jerk idea. :)

[tledford]

6. Duh. eom

[flamingdem]

7. Eugene speaks the truth nt

[TwilightGardener]

8. Yep--they weren't all kinds of hopping mad when GWB wiped his ass with

their tax money and flushed it down the toilet. Nope, they were all fine with that.

[CTyankee]

9. Uh, oh! Watch out , Gene! You just came perilously close to telling the truth about

tea partiers racism! Joe and Mika will label you a "left wing extremist."

[Brewman_Jax]

10. He sums it up nicely

It is about race. An individual, who happens to be black, from modest beginnings follows the American dream and becomes President. The teabaggers go insane. His predecessor has the office handed to him and proceeds to tank the economy, lie the country into war, and disobey the Constitution. The teabaggers are pleased, because "he's just like the rest of us". GMAFB! :eyes:

Maybe not all repubs are racists, but most racists vote repub.

[11 Bravo]

11. Let Gene know you appreciate his willingness to speak the truth at:

[e-mail]