from Morris Dees, Southern Poverty Law Center
Right-wing pundits are jumping all over Attorney General Eric Holder for daring to suggest on Sunday that racial animus plays a role in the level of vehemence thats been directed at President Obama. Theyre denouncing him for playing the race card and stoking racial divisions.
Who do they think theyre fooling?
The rhetoric is whats hateful. Calling people out for it is not.
The racism Holder described has been obvious since the 2008 campaign, when Obama was portrayed as someone who was not a real American a Muslim, a Kenyan, a communist, even a terrorist sympathizer.
Since then, an entire movement has been built around the thoroughly discredited notion that the presidents birth certificate is a fake. And thats just the beginning.
Newt Gingrich has called Obama the food stamp president and referred to his Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.
Rush Limbaugh has said Obama and Oprah Winfrey, too, by the way have reached the pinnacle of their professions only because theyre black. He added this week that so-called conservative media types praised Holders nomination only because hes black.
Glenn Beck has said the president, whose mother was white, has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or white culture.
Conservative hero and former rock star Ted Nugent, who was invited to campaign with the GOP nominee for Texas governor, called the president a subhuman mongrel.
A Confederate flag was waved in front of the White House during last years Million Vet March.
U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina screamed You lie! during the presidents address to Congress in September 2009. When has that happened to a president before?
All manner of overtly racist posters have been seen at Tea Party rallies, including one depicting the president as a witch doctor.
Weve repeatedly seen stories about conservative politicians sharing racist jokes about Obama.
And, weve seen an explosive growth of radical-right groups, including armed militias, since Obama was elected, and repeated threats that violence is needed to take our country back from the tyranny of Obama. This is part of a backlash to the growing diversity in our country, as symbolized by the presence of a black man in the White House.
I grew up in rural Alabama during the Jim Crow years and lived through the civil rights movement, when white supremacists did everything they could, including committing violent atrocities, to turn back the tide of progress. And Ive stared across the courtroom at some of Americas most vicious hatemongers men like neo-Nazi Glenn Frazier Cross, who recently killed three people and once targeted me. I know racism when I see it.
No one, of course, is suggesting that merely disagreeing with Obama is evidence of racism. Thats clearly not true.
But we have a political party and a right-wing media machine that pander incessantly to the racist reactionaries in our society, often through code words. Its been going on since Nixon implemented his Southern strategy of appealing to white resentment in the wake of the civil rights movement.
I wish it werent so. But it is simply undeniable. We should call it what it is.
Sincerely,
Morris Dees
Founder, Southern Poverty Law Center
freshwest
(53,661 posts)pansypoo53219
(20,976 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)K&R
Gothmog
(145,242 posts)I love Mo Dees
Is there a link to this?
elleng
(130,907 posts)E-mail.
I love him too, and contribute, as did my Dad for many years.
brer cat
(24,565 posts)Thanks, elleng. K&R
Brigid
(17,621 posts)Last edited Thu Jul 17, 2014, 09:15 AM - Edit history (1)
Even this old white broad knows better. This is about race. Nobody should kid themselves.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)It's because (Holder and President Obama) are Democrats ... I see it on DU, whenever the words "racism" and "President Obama" appear in the same sentence.