Those genuinely “uncomfortable” that the fellow in the Oval Office is a black man... Racist? [View all]

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from John Farmer at the Star-Ledger: http://blog.nj.com/njv_john_farmer/2012/07/after_nearly_four_years_of_bar.html


After nearly four years of Barack Obama, is white America still uneasy with a black man in the White House?

____ Leonard Zeskind, head of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, catalogued various groups that make up what he labeled the “anti-Obama opposition.” He came up with a menagerie that included anti-tax tea partiers, Christian right activists, anti-immigrant nativists, “birthers” who profess to believe Obama wasn’t born in this country, Stormfront national socialists, militia groups and others.

They may not all be racists, though some surely are. But each has found a reason to oppose Obama if only because, as president, he represents a sea change in the life of the nation that they can’t accept — at least not yet. He makes them uncomfortable . . .

I do believe they are genuinely “uncomfortable” with the fact that the fellow in the Oval Office is a black man, not a white man. It’s unacceptable and unworthy, but perhaps understandable in the context of this moment of dramatic — and to some indigestible — change . . .

They’ve seen the country change more radically and rapidly in their lifetime than their parents ever did in theirs. Soon whites will no longer be a majority and they feel vaguely threatened.

They want the country back the way it was when they were young, when presidents were white. That’s clear enough . . .


read more: http://blog.nj.com/njv_john_farmer/2012/07/after_nearly_four_years_of_bar.html