It’s Not About Race

There is one fundamental facet of the American psyche that will never change no matter how “enlightened” or “progressive” we as a people may think we are. When something happens or someone has an idea that runs contrary to our own fundamental belief structure, someone will cry “racist” or “sexist” or “dummy-ist” to denigrate our ideas. This happens far too often to be anything other than empirical data and can not be dismissed. The latest wave of idiocity is from the (of course) liberals who cannot understand why some people refuse to believe Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States. Those who continue to question and doubt the president are labeled racist.

While I have my own conspiracy theories, I am not here to debate Obama’s citizenship. What gets me is that those in the far left have labeled anyone who questions or doubts Obama’s citizenship a “birther,” so it adds a stigma and makes that person seem fanatical and less worthy of notice. “Oh, don’t listen to him; he’s a birther!” To further emphasize this stigma, the liberals lump all those “tea-partiers” into the “birther” category as well; giving the media a two-fer in referencing the right as radicals.

With the release of what the White House is calling Obama’s “Official” long-form birth certificate, the liberals seem to consider the matter shut while the skeptics are still asking questions. One individual noted that Obama’s father was listed as the more politically correct “African” when—in 1961—he would have been listed as “negro.” Others question the validity of the document since it took so long to produce that it could have been created and names of supporters added that could be called as witnesses. These lingering questions and doubts are being lumped into a different category—the same one that liberals like to use to describe anyone who doesn’t like Obama—Racist.

“There is a real deep-seated and vicious racism at work here in terms of trying to de-legitimate the president,” Peniel Joseph, a professor of history at Tufts University said in an interview.

“This is more than just a conspiracy,” Joseph added. “I think this is fundamentally connected to a conception of white supremacist democracy in this country.”

Say what?

This country just elected the first non-white president in its history. Couple that with the number of non-Caucasian governors and legislators and judges and I think the edge of the racist argument is getting pretty dull. It was only 50 years ago that there were no people of color in any political positions in this country. Now Caucasians are about to become the minority.

While there are still some people in the country with racist attitudes, it is not racism that fuels the anti-Obama rhetoric by the tea-party and others. It is the fact that the man is and always has been woefully inadequate to the job to which he was elected. It is that the circumstances around the birth certificate do not answer all questions and in fact raise new ones.

Columnist Michael Tomasky wrote for The Guardian Wednesday that the birther conspiracy “had to be the only explanation for how this black man got to the White House.” He added: “And if you think race isn’t what this is about at its core, ask yourself if there would even be a birther conspiracy if Barack Obama were white and named Bart Oberstar. If you think there would be, you are delusional.”

I challenge that assertion. If Brad Pitt were in the same position and faced the same questions of legitimacy of his birth certificate, I would be one of the first to call for an investigation. Again, it doesn’t matter to me that Obama is black. What matters is that he never—not even once—during his campaign laid out a plan for the “change” he promised. Had he done so, I doubt he would have even come close to winning. No one would have supported Obamacare in an election (in fact, no one did in congress either). If he had mentioned his plan to do any of the things his administration has done, he would have handed the presidency to McCain. In his obfuscation, he has demonstrated an inherent dishonesty. He has proved himself so dishonest that it is easy to believe he forged a birth certificate and bribed the staff in Hawaii.

I am no racist. I do not wear the label of birther, but I doubt the birth certificate, and I continue to question and doubt anything and everything about the man sitting in the White House.