Where did the racists go?

Ehh, after he won, most people dropped the whole “you’re a racist if you don’t like Obama, blah blah blah” shit. I think that once a lot of people realized that he wasn’t as great as they thought he was, they didn’t seem to care anymore.

There is a lot of racism out there, it’s just hidden under a lot of cover. Things like the birthers, and claiming the President is Muslim and calling him a communist, socialist, nazi. There are a lot of people just absolutely confounded by a black man in the White House, and they have lashed out with a lot of irrational accusations.

1) The Obama team is waiting for later in the election cycle to bring out the racist tag. If they use it too early and too often it loses its power, especially if the target of the accusation can disprove it.

2) It has not gone away in some places. Jeramiah Wright is actually starting to use it against the current administration.

They turned into gay bashing, poor hating, union busting, fear mongering Islam hating, Wall Street loving, Bible thumping Tea Party white elitists trash.

@zenvelo the people around me who feared Obama was/is Muslim really seemed to be extremely concerned he is Muslim. I don’t think it was a cover to avoid saying, “I ain’t gonna have no blackman as my president.” I am sure racism is part of it for some people and/or along with the Muslim bit, but they really really believe he wasn’t born here, and that he is a secret Muslim. They are all worked up into a frenzy, terrified.

It still exist. I just think the racist are starting to notice that they have to choose their words more carefully. If you get called a racist too often you run the risk of others (even those who agree with you) not listening to you or at least avoiding you like the plague, for fear that they too will lose power. They figured out that it is better to fight the issue and not the man directly.

”You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nig_er, nig_er, nig_er.” By 1968 you can’t say “nig_er”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
Lee Atwater – political strategist, adivisor to Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush, chairman of the Republican National Committee

@jaytkay great quote.

@jaytkay the entire quote, in the context of the interview where Atwater was discussing the Southern strategy and what was wrong with it: “You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, States’ Rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now that you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is that Blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

“And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’”

@bkcunningham But is it? The whole Memphis public education thing going on by me where the city of Memphis is surrending its school charter to the county, actually has the white people put in the county (which is even an odd expression since Memphis is within the county) saying just those things, “watch busing will start up. School scores for the county will come down. The voters will put in sub par individuals on the board.” I can’t figure out if it is racist or not? They definitely are talking about black people in the inner city.

I hope they crawled under a rock somewhere and decide to stay there forever!

@bkcunningham That quote is from 1981. Atwater was the foremost practitioner of the Southern Strategy for another decade after that.

I think “doing away with the racial problem” did not mean doing away with racism. It meant finding ways to code the racism so they could appeal to bigots without offending normal people too badly.

I think people who felt others were racist knew that that’s how others saw them, and didn’t want to get into a screaming match again over something that would lead to deadlocked disagreement.

I am neither a racist nor “a birther”, but I haven’t liked the President for a long time, since before he was even a candidate, in fact, and for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with his race.

I also believe that since we have a Constitutional requirement that candidates for the office of President of the United States have to be citizens by birth, I think it’s a reasonable – in fact, “essential” – requirement that the fact be proven somehow. I don’t mean “by releasing a copy of one’s birth certificate to the New York Times”, either. It seems to me (and has seemed since “the issue” was first raised) that we need to have a non-partisan (not “bipartisan”) official body with forensic and investigative powers if necessary to review such documentation and ascertain non-politically that “this is a viable candidate”. If we have the requirement, then there should be an official, non-political way to say that “minimum qualifications are met” ... or amend the Constitution to do away with the requirement. (When I participated in the first conversation on this topic in Fluther, I also said that since there is not such a current Constitutional requirement, then the President is perfectly right to say – in fact, should say – “I don’t have to prove anything to you.” He never should have responded at all, in fact.)

The responses I’ve had before on this, to the effect that “the parties wouldn’t embarrass themselves by putting forth a non-qualified candidate” are ludicrous at best.

Maybe they all kept their promise to leave the country if Obama was elected.

@WasCy All of that stuff has been verified, and all records, under the laws of the State of Hawaii, have verified that Obama was born in Hawaii.

John McCain was not born in the United States. Why would he be unquestioned on this point, but Obama has been questioned irrationally for the last three years?

I don’t think there is any proof that could convince you he is a natural born citizen.

@WasCy Another constitutional requirement is that the President and Vice President be from different states, so Dick Cheney simply changed his voting registration location. That immediatly made me worry Bush/Cheney were gonna play fast and loose with the Constitution, and history proved me right.

@WasCy Yes, as @zenvelo said third parties have verified his birth certificate. It would have to be a grand scheme for him to have not been born in America, with a lot of people in on it. It isn’t truthful to say there is not a real birth certificate. Birthers would have to switch to something more along the lines of falsified government issued documents to be more accurate in their conspiracy theory. Our government is pretty dumb if Obama really was born outside the US. The Bush administration was in office when Obama was a senator. I would think there is some sort of FBI file, security clearance, for our politicians in congress. I assume knowledge of birthplace is in that file.

I believe his place of birth is a non issue. If he had not been able to prove he was eligible, Hilary would have burned him with it early in the Primaries.

@WasCy If the only issue you have with him is that you feel his birth certificate isn’t as valid as you’d like it to be, then you should probably just get over it – fixating on this one issue prevents you from focusing on issues that are happening now, that matter.

Plus, the loudest birthers keep yelling out in public Obama is not an American citizen, this is just flat out stupid. His mother is American. Why would anyone want to associate with them?

Jesus. Does anyone actually read what I’ve written, with comprehension?

I have zero issue with Obama’s birth certificate. Zero. At this point I don’t care whether he’s a US citizen or even human.

However, who are the “third parties” who have verified the authenticity of any presidential candidates’ birth certificates or other bona fides? The New York Times? I doubt their impartiality, frankly. As much as I love “private enterprise” over most government operations, when it comes to the composition of the government itself, nothing will do but another arm of the government to check and oversee.

I doubt the impartiality of most current “verifiers” – as much as anyone here doubts the good faith of any so-called “birthers”. What I have said and what I reiterate now is that “the Constitutional process” is lacking. That’s all that I’ve ever said on this; I cannot say it plainer. For the Constitution to say “thou shalt be and do this and that and thus and such” ... and provide for no official and sanctioned verification is a huge, gaping “process hole”.

It’s as if a manufacturer had an internal process requirement to be certain that a metal was a certain composition or had been treated in a certain way… and then never checked to see that it actually happened.

I don’t care about this president’s birth certificate one way or another, at this point. That ship has sailed, which is why I say that the President should not even respond – should never have responded – to questions from any quarter, once he was in office. The process is lacking; that’s been my point from day one. My grievances with particular presidents and policies is not at issue here: we have a procedural flaw in the Constitution. That flaw should be remedied.

@WasCy A few third parties have verified Obama’s birth certificate. Perhaps the most convincing one is Chiyome Fukino, director of Hawaii’s Department of Health, who released the following statement:

“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawaii Revised Statutes §338–18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

“Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

For whatever it’s worth, Dr. Fukino is a Republican.

No constitutional mandate exists requiring a government agency to verify a candidate’s place of birth. Recording births was not a government function until the twentieth century, so there were no records to verify. Somehow, presidents were elected anyway. Why the hell is anyone belaboring this non-issue?

From BirthDetails:

”... it wasn’t until 1853 that the United Kingdom made it mandatory to register certified birth records for each citizen. In the 1900s, the United States followed suit.

Prior to that time, birth records were generally written down by doctors, midwives, or priests. Documents were not certified or recorded by the government, and it was very common for documents to be lost or destroyed. Therefore, there was no “official record” of any citizens until they reached adulthood and started paying taxes or joined the military.”

@ratboy We could also bring up that the definition of “natural born citizen” has been challenged in history also. Obama was naturally born with the birth right of being American, because he has an American parent, but in our young country’s history, being born on US soil has been the sticking point to run for president. It has been an issue before, a way to challenge a candidates legitamacy. Andwith the 14th amendment this idea of born on US soil is emphasized, although unrelated really to this particular issue. Plus, we do have government records now for births. But, i understand your point, at the time when lawswere written about who can be president there was no official way to check, good point.

@WasCy Maybe this will help.

I think a lot of the “racists” finally caught on to the fact he is half white!

@jaytkay
”…you’re talking about cutting taxes”
So by according to Atwater, and by your reckoning I suppose, people like me who dream of having our taxes reduced are closet racists. Thus, instead of writing my congressman and saying “How about voting for lower taxes”, l might as well just write “Nig_er, nig_er, nig_er.”
Terrific logic. Keep going. I’d love to hear more of this.
@WasCy
I feel for you buddy. Sometimes you just can’t win.

Maybe they went to a klan meeting. Bless, those tosspots love to dress up silly & share bullshit stories around the campfire. “Over here boys.”

I think that people were seeing a racist/sexist behind every tree during the 2008 campaign. Anyone who was opposed to Sen. Obama was a racist and anyone who was opposed to Sen. Clinton was a sexist. Undoubtedly, there were some racist/sexist people out there but the fact that any discussion of disagreement of issues came down to you don’t like him/her because they are black/female got old really quick. After Sen. Obama became President Obama he and his administration began to alienate even a part of their own supporters to the point that you could no longer assume that everyone who disagreed with them was a racist. Just my opinion, mind you!

They’re around and kicking. I just had the pleasure of hearing this ridiculous pharm rep blab about the dirty public schools of brooklyn that ‘probably have gangs and poverty’. Anyway, I hear racist shit all the time about Obama, dont know where you’re living but lucky you.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I don’t think the question is really about racists so much as accusations of racism. It asks why this has stopped being used as a response to criticisms of Obama. Now, I’m not entirely sure it has stopped. Some elements of the Tea Party, for instance, are still accused of being racially motivated.

It might be worth looking back at the rhetoric, then, and seeing who was and who was not accused of being racist. The question might seem to imply that it was once common to accuse all Obama critics of being racist. Is that accurate? I don’t think it is. So while @josie is correct that Boehner, Ryan, Cantor, et al. are not being labeled racists for their accusations, I’m not sure what this is thought to prove. Leaving aside the fact that everyone everywhere has probably been accused of racism by someone somewhere (thank you, internet!), I’m not convinced it was ever common to label high-profile political opponents like Boehner, Ryan, and Cantor racists in the first place.

Racism becomes “institutionalized” according to the postmodernists. i.e. The system (political, etc.) itself is inherently biased against minorities.

Some of the cries of racism were proved to be unfounded. Remember the MSNBC picture of the back of a tea party event attendee? He was carrying an AR15 and the photo was closely cropped to show only his back and the rifle?

The anchors went on about redneck white men afraid of a black president.

When the uncropped photo appeared in the WSJ we found out that the gentleman carrying the rifle was an African-American.

Incidents like this tend to harden the people that are targetted by the claims so that when there is a legitimate case of racism, it is downplayed because of the constant misuse of the term.

The anchors went on about redneck white men afraid of a black president.

You can point to a transcript of that, right?

@jaytkay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwg-f3dqN4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYKQJ4-N7LI&feature=related

I looked for the original clip on MSNBC, but could not find it on their site.

@WestRiverrat Whoops, serves me right, I didn’t believe you, I was wrong.

Thank you for the link.

@WestRiverrat perfect. I was ready to post it if you didn’t.

Thirty years ago racism was a problem in many soccer fan clubs in Germany. Black soccer players from Africa were the exception and they had to endure dumb hecklers all the time. The managers of soccer clubs were quite embarrassed. Of course these racist hooligans are a tiny minority, but Germans fear nothing more than stories in newspapers of other countries reporting anything related to neo-Nazism, racism, antisemitism and so forth.

Well, our soccer clubs found a very simple solution:

Every club hired at least one black top players from Africa. They could select from the best. Hundreds of scouts travel the continent and move from stadium to stadium spotting top talent.

Today, the fans cheer everyone who plays great soccer and scores goals. Many of the African players are now German citizens.

Where did the racists go? I’d say they grew out of it.

@mattbrowne The details of this question are kind of important. I recommend reading them.

I did.

America never got a black President. Then it happened the first time. Unchartered territory.

But it will happen again in the future. Republicans will have black presidential nominees too. New generations of voters will enter the scene.

And further into the future people will no longer realize that this once has been an issue, unless when reminded by their elders. It will be like the Dad observing his son in soccer stadium cheering when Boubacar Sanogo just scored a goal, thinking back when a black African was being booed and heckled when his Dad first took him to a stadium.

My point is in my story.

Racism will become an issue of the past. False accusations of racism too.

So in 2032 during the presidential campaign most white people who oppose the black presidential nominee’s agenda won’t run the risk of being labeled racist.

@mattbrowne Arguably the best all around baseball player of his day was discriminated against in his teams’ town (Willie Mays when he moved to San Francisco), but that was 50 years ago. It still has not moved from sports to politics.

@mattbrowne Yeah, I still don’t think you get the question.

@mattbrowne Yeah, I’m with @SavoirFaire – it’s not about the path of racism over the past few decades, but rather why in the past year or so people have stopped accusing Tea Partiers and opponents of Obama as racists.

Well, sorry that my answer is so difficult to understand. Sometimes, stories are not the best way to make a point.

Since you mentioned baseball in the US. Today, if a white commentator criticizes the performance of a black player, everyone will either say, yes, I agree with this analysis or, no, the performance wasn’t that bad because. Practically no one will say, hey, this coach made a racist comment. Why? Because as you said, unchartered territory was 50 years ago. There are similar example in the US military.

So once it becomes normal that all parties have presidential nominees from all backgrounds all the time and there are several US presidents who were black, those wrong accusations when disagreeing with certain policies will stop. It’s of course nonsense to accuse someone of racism if he or she disagrees with fiscal policies of Barack Obama. In my opinion large portions of the population are still not used to having a black president. There are a lot of emotional debates. But this is my opinion. I could be wrong.

Hope this helps.

John Pilger schooled everyone.

I meant uncharted territory was 50 years ago. Sorry.