The Far Right: Unpatriotic and Racist
The recent onslaught of angry, fanatical attacks against President Barack Obama are most often perpetrated by right-wing racists that are throwing stones to hide their bigoted and unpatriotic hands. Right-wing hatred for the first black president is guttural, threatening, and violent, and it is articulated in dishonest, crude, racist, hypocritical idioms and actions. Many of these stone-throwers labeled anyone who criticized George W. Bush and his disastrous policies (which devastated our economy and international standing) unpatriotic, yet they defile the president by depicting Obama as a monkey, a witch doctor with a bone through his nose, an Islamic terrorist, an Aunt Jamima pancake peddler, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and even the Anti-Christ. Some of these closet racists are willing to embrace the apocalypse before respecting our commander-in-chief.
A true patriot loves, upholds and defends their nation, and treats fellow citizens, especially the president, with utmost respect, irrespective of their political affiliation. As legal scholar, Jeremy I. Levitt, has posited, “the U.S. president is the head of state and government, as well as the highest official in the country and commander in chief of the armed forces. He is not only the most-influential and -recognized political figure in the world, but also the living embodiment of our democracy.”
While I support spirited dialogue, passionate debate, and intellectual exchange, the far right has embarrassed America with its duplicitous, mean-spirited, racist attacks on President Obama. As a historian, I cannot recall a time when an American president has been so blatantly disrespected by so many people who lack the courage to reveal their true motivations.
The far right-wing anti-Obama rhetoric invoking abortion, health care, education, and gun control is nothing more than subterfuge that masks their disdain for the president and racist disposition. Raging marchers, gun-toting anarchists, chauvinistic radio personalities, bigoted congressmen who shout at the president with red faces and hate filled eyes, and “educators” who encourage our children to “stay home,” rather than receive a motivational speech from the leader of the free world, all need to do what black people are told to do everyday. Get over it. Obama won the election.
There are many Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, who are interested in civil debate. The far right, however, has shown that they are inspired by bitterness, envy, and veiled racial hostility. And no matter how many hand-picked, self-hating leaders of color they parade in front of the media, the majority of people of color know precisely what kind of racist vitriol lies behind this anti-Obama hysteria.
I encourage those who voted for Obama, especially whites like former President Jimmie Carter, and all who wish to maintain the esteem and power of the presidency, to repudiate this malignant right-wing behavior. Racists rarely acknowledge their hatred, and many are so insulated in their bubble of bigotry that they never consider their thoughts and anger to be byproducts of racism. Most Americans acknowledge that racism exists, but few will ever identify “a racist bone” in their bodies. Still, the rage we have seen directed at the president is unprecedented, and as Carter argues, these kinds of outbursts “are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care. It’s deeper than that.” Indeed it is, and while smoking guns of racism are hard to find, we can certainly hear the shots.
Arizona Informant
Wednesday, September 24, 2009
Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker is an Associate Professor in the Department of History, and an Affiliate Faculty member of African and African American Studies and the Justice and Social Inquiry Program at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is also the CEO of The Whitaker Group, L.L.C., a consulting firm that specializes in diversity and human relations.