Minorities with funny names are coming to their country, thriving in their workplaces, snatching the coveted spots at their most prized universities.
And now, one is president (if you agree with the 43%). And how convenient that, embedded in America's founding document, there exists an arcane technicality they can use to justify their passionate pursuit. People aren't pointing at the birther issue to rephrase their hatred of the president.
They're pointing at the Constitution to hide their xenophobia.In November of 2008, as I listened to a close friend relay her father's stories of Jim Crow segregation as tears welled up in her eyes, I was reminded of a debate I'd had a year prior. I couldn't believe that
many months ago I'd argued, with the certainty I felt a lifetime of racist slights had entitled me to,
that there was no way a black man named Barack Hussein Obama could be elected president of the United States. I smiled as I sent a conciliatory text -- "Well, I was wrong."Some claim that this couched racism is evidence of how little we've progressed. I'd argue precisely the opposite.
As the daughter of someone who once had rocks and racial epithets hurled at him by white children, I believe it is indicative of how far we've come that people would rather be labeled morons and conspiracy theorists than racists or xenophobes. And it is understandable, I think, to find a loud foreign accent to be more grating than a loud American one. It is understandable to return to your hometown and find the signs in strange languages to be disconcerting.
It is understandable to be confused when people who seem so unlike you are flourishing here, where you grew up, particularly in dire economic times. And it is understandable to look at all of this unfamiliarity and feel a little bit scared.
We can scrutinize our ideas to confront our beliefs, or we can use our ideas to avoid them. For those who choose to do the latter, the cost to the national dialogue is high, but the personal cost is as well. Because
as moments of great historical import seemingly propel the rest of us forward, they will be left more bitter and alienated than when they began. They will feel foolish as they're easily proven wrong. And worst, as the dust settles and everyone else prepares to move on, they will find that their anger hasn't gone anywhere.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/silpa-kovvali/bringing-birthers-into-th_b_856750.html