Does Racial Bias Fuel Obama Foes? How To Tell?

[Purveyor]

Is it because he's black?

The question of whether race fuels opposition to President Barack Obama has become one of the most divisive topics of the election. It is sowing anger and frustration among conservatives who are labeled racist simply for opposing Obama's policies and liberals who see no other explanation for such deep dislike of the president.

It is an accusation almost impossible to prove, yet it remains inseparable from the African-American experience. The idea, which seemed to die in 2008 when Obama became the first black president, is now rearing its head from college campuses to cable TV as the Democratic incumbent faces Mitt Romney, the white Republican challenger.

Four years after an election that inspired hopes of a post-racial future, there are signs that political passions are dragging us backward.

"We're at a tipping point," said Susan Glisson, director of the Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi. "But I don't know which way we're going to tip."

MORE...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_BECAUSE_HES_BLACK?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-09-14-23-55

[catbyte]

1. I think it exacerbates the problem but they rained down hate on Clinton too

I think Obama being Black gives the haters a license to disrespect him publicly, but hatred of Democrats started with Gingrich and his creepy cronies. There was never this level of sheer hatred before Clinton. It is pathological and if we do not find a way to root it out and destroy it this country is doomed.

Diane
Anishinaabe in MI

[defacto7]

2. OUR country would be doomed!

What's happening to our country? It's never been perfect but at least we were headed in the correct direction.

My father used to say,"It doesn't matter if you have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peal. What matters is which way you are facing."

[fasttense]

3. In the South the RepubliCON vote is all fueled by racism.

These Southerners who vote RepubliCON today all have other excuses for voting in rich white men. A lot of them say it's because their parents and grandparents vote for rich white RepubliCONS and so they do too.

But the South was not always a RepubliCON stronghold. It only changed when the Democratic party supported the Civil Rights movement. Before that, the South was Democratic (no not all were Dixiecrats) because the Democratic party was pro-slavery and pro-segregation.

"The "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery prior to the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter, many white Southern Democrats stopped supporting the party following the civil rights plank of the Democratic campaign in 1948 (triggering the Dixiecrats) and the ...Civil Rights Movement."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

So you see if it wasn't all about race, then those Southern RepubliCONS would still be voting Democratic today because their parents and grandparents did.

[CRK7376]

4. This white Southerner has never,

nor will I ever vote Repub. Yes so much of the hate is based on race and this stupid birther nonsense - race driven and because he as a diferent name.... Makes my family absolutely crazy when we hear the nonsense they heap on our President...all because he's Black. Our eldest son in Grad school will be voting in a few weeks for the second time, again he will be voting for Obama. Our middle child just started college a few weeks ago and has already signed up and is working for the Young Democrat organization in his campus. Makes mom and dad very proud! Our daughter will not get to vote until after Obama leaves office in 2016, but she too thinks the Repubs are nuts...but mostly she is texting and face booking etc...pretty typical for a 13 year old, but she knows which side her family stands for. One other neighbor of ours are Democrats, both PhDs....the rest of our neighbors are much less educated in our small farming community and to say they are ignorant...well we live here and try to be nice, but they throw out a race card from the get go and it makes us crazy!!!!