Is President Obama's race behind the 'birther' conspiracy movement?

[BirminghamExaminer]

REad the entire column here.

The origin of the birther conspiracy appears to have begun during the Obama presidential campaign when Obama campaign workers heard a rumor that then Senator Obama's birth certificate had his name as Barack Mohammed Obama instead of Barack Hussein Obama. The rumor was untrue and to allay any confusion, President Obama decided to post his birth certificate on the internet.

Instead of allaying any rumors regarding his given name, the posting of his birth certificate on the internet only served to amplify rumors among a small group of passionate Obama haters to spread the false information that Obama was not born in the United States at all but was born in Kenya and therefore wasn't eligible to become president.

The birthers, faced with the factual evidence as submitted by the state of Hawaii, witnesses, hospital workers, family and friends and faced with the actual birth certificate itself, still claim to believe that President Obama isn't really a U.S. citizen. Faced with overwhelming evidence that proves that Obama was born in the United States, the birthers still aren't satisfied.

There have always been people unhappy with the outcome of presidential elections. But since the election of the first African American president, President Obama, there has been a small but increasingly vitriolic segment of the population that appears to genuinely feel hatred towards our new president.

Historically, presidents have borne a great deal of criticism by the opposition party and to some degree at least, we expect this sort of thing. But the criticism aimed at President Obama has crossed the line of expected criticism by the opposition and has spawned the birther movement.

snip

The idea that there are hundreds of people, perhaps thousands of people who have agreed to keep the secret that the president of the United States is not really an American citizen, is not merely illogical, it's absurd. And so there must be some other reason for the passionate hatred by people like the woman in Delaware.

If we apply the principle of Occam's razor to the birther movement, the logical conclusion is that President Obama's race is the reason for such passionate hatred. it is the one thing that makes him very different from every other president that has come before him.

A majority of Americans voted for an African American man for president but that doesn't mean that racism no longer exists in the United States.

The issue of race has all but disappeared from the public discourse but racism may be what has spawned the birther movement. The embittered remarks by people like the woman in Delaware conveniently obfuscate what is really bothering the birthers.

[EFerrari]

1. That woman was crying because "a citizen of Kenya" is in the White House.

Doesn't get more plain than that.

[awnobles]

22. Yes

No Question.

[suzie]

28. I think that racism is a part of it.

But I think that Republicans have decided that any Democrat is somehow an illegitimate president. They used the same kind of thought processes about Bill Clinton--that he was somehow not legitimately elected.

Which is not to discount the racism of the Republican base. But any Democrat will somehow be deemed to be not legitimately elected--it's something they've gotten into their heads.

[EFerrari]

29. The Republicans, being authoritarians, always believe our side

is illegitimate. But the energy and venom in this situation comes from their racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, misogynistic base being whipped into a frenzy by their hate radio hosts.

[LiberalMuslim]

2. I know what they think!

The 'he was born in Kenya' is just a cover! If you watch that video of the women in Delaware again, she mentions her birth certificate from the USA! and her father who fought in the war. And then you see the reason clearly. They feel that he doesn't deserve to be where he is. Her ancestors came long time ago and none of them got to be president. His father came 50 years ago and suddenly his only son in America got to be the president!! She does not believe that's FAIR!

[BirminghamExaminer]

4. It needs to come out in the open, that's why I wrote it.

I think it's racism, pure and simple but so far nobody's really mentioned the great big staring elephant in the room and it's time someone did. So yeah, I did.

[Dennis Donovan]

6. Yep - you nailed it. It's all about ethnocentrism and nativism...

Of course, her birth certificate has nothing to do with the US government, yet she screamed about it being a "USA" birth certificate (there's no such thing as a "USA" birth certificate). She also ranted about her father fighting in WW2, but fails to acknowledge that President Obama's maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, fought in the same conflict.

Good call & welcome to DU, LiberalMuslim!:hi:

[LiberalMuslim]

9. Thanks! But trust me...

I've been here since 2005 .I'm just a lurker that never signs up for things let alone comment or post diaries! lol. Thanks again.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. All these people see is Obama's brown skin

they can't get it around their heads that he has white ancestry as well as black.

[Blue_Tires]

25. +1

[PSzymeczek]

36. There actually is a US birth certificate!

Certification of a US Citizen Born Abroad (Or something to that effect), issued by the State Department. My daughter has one, because she was born in the Army hospital in Heidelberg, Germany, when her dad and I were stationed in Mannheim.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/first/first_828.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. Salaams and welcome to DU n/t

[jmondine]

26. If that's the case, 99% of our presidents should have been from Native American tribes

I wonder if she would even consider that extension of her "logic".

[catbyte]

27. Yeah, well,

I'm Ojibwa and I say ALL of you need to go back where you came from!!!!!!!!! :evilgrin:

Just kidding, folks...

Of course it's code for "Eek! A negro!"

Anything else makes no sense.

Diane

Anishnabe and Proud

FREE LEONARD PELTIER

[Critters2]

31. Eek! A negro! sums it up pretty well. Sad, really. nt

[LeftishBrit]

3. Is water wet?

I'm sure if he were white they wouldn't be pursuing this obsession; they didn't with McCain and he was born abroad.

[Skittles]

5. of course it is racism

it's easier for these racist fucks to scream about a birth certificate than to scream about a black president - in the same way it is easier to say I AM A REPUBLICAN than to say I AM A BIGOT

[jaysunb]

38. big high five to you !

:thumbsup:

[Sukie]

7. Hell yeah, his race is the problem with people like that woman.

I have been saying that from the moment that this stupidity started. I also want to have that womans face and name plastered all over national television. I want to see the face of stupidity and racism in the year 2009. It is so unbelievable that she felt comfortable enough to get up and utter such nonsense.

[unblock]

8. duh. can you imagine a "birther" argument about gore? kerry?

it's a transparent effort to paint obama as "other".

[marmar]

10. Does a Catholic Bear sh*t in the woods behind the Vatican?

Some things are self-evident.

[whathehell]

11. Does a Muslim camel shit in the Sand in Mecca?...Does a Jewish camel

..Oh well, you get the idea!

[whathehell]

12. What I can't, for the life of me, understand, is what they think an

eighteen year old girl from Hawaii (Obama's mother) was doing in Kenya to give birth...Hello?!..If I'm not mistaken, 1961 was about the time Kenya was casting off Colonialism and dealing with the subsequent Mau Mau wars.:shrug:

These people are bigoted and stupid, bigtime.

[Demeter]

13. Fact-Free and Reality-Challenged, Not to Mention Impervious

to anything that doesn't fit their preconceived notions.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

17. You are right, of course

But I would bet that few if any of these birthers have any clue what was going on in Kenya at that time.

[whathehell]

34. They probably didn't even know

what was going on in the U.S. at the time:eyes:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

14. Of course it's all about race

the stress on his African roots shows it. But people don't dare say that it is the fact that he's African-American that is the problem, because they will be dismissed outright as racists.

BTW, he wasn't the first President whose native birth was questioned. Some say Andrew Jackson was not born in the Carolinas but rather on board the ship taking his family from Ireland to the New World.

[BlueMTexpat]

18. Ding, ding, ding ...

we've got a winner.
These nutcases are also xenophobic because his father was an African, rather than a homegrown African-American. To have him actually live in a third-world country for a time, and a "non-Christian" country at that, really enrages them.

:popcorn:

[Life Long Dem]

19. They ignore the United States Constitution.

It's the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment they have a problem over and not President Obama.

[Froward69]

20. Another aspect My mother told me about

was... That in some places in the united states (1950's- 1960's) Mixed children/ (that is black babies born to white women.) were discriminated against in the crib.(food, medicine, care) Mothers in an even larger context. Going away to have the child was a means of protecting the mother and child. Just as single mothers were often shuttled to another state to avoid the stigma. mothers of black babies would go to "liberal" states like Hawaii to protect their children from the discrimination.

(My brothers and sister are Half white or half black depending on your biases.)

This is also why birthers claim President Obamas Birth certificate is fake BC it says "African" not "Negro" or "Black" in the ethnicity column. as other states would have been.

[Kind of Blue]

21. You bet it is! And I'm sure deep down they

don't believe that Hawaii is a "real state" either, hence the birth certificate cannot be trusted.

[Bluenorthwest]

23. What's behind it is the racism of the people who push that stuff

It is pure racism. There is no need to tip toe around it, it is racism from racists.

[caseymoz]

24. Sure is. Imagine if O'Bama's father had been Irish instead.

Leave everything else the same. I can't imagine this happening. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. How particular were they about HIS birth certificate?

I think this is a demented form of racism, where people just get so unhinged about an ethnic minority being THE number one authority figure. The only way they could figure it is that some conspiracy has subverted the American system. They do not care how big and omniscient that conspiracy is-- it is there.

[provis99]

41. John McCain wasn't born in the Panama Canal Zone.

He was born in Panama itself. He is ineligible to run for President of the United States.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

30. yes. nt

[burning rain]

32. I see it as a meme & memeplex issue.

I'm sure the birther meme wouldn't have spread and developed the way it has absent the racist meme that blacks are not authentically American. Not every birther is necessarily a racist, but birtherism heavily depends on racism to support it. Birtherism is also sustained by Obama's dad's having been from Kenya, and Obama's years living in Indonesia. I doubt the racist meme would be enough to sustain birtherism, if, say, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina had been elected president.

[POAS]

33. Is it race based? Do conservatives shit where they eat--

Yes to both!

[TheWraith]

35. Simple answer: YES!!!!! nt

[handmade34]

37. Joseph Farah is the man behind the movement

and it is NOT about a birth certificate and not entirely about race(although that is a part). We need to understand where this is coming from and how a few people like Joseph Farah are exploiting under-educated, fearful, white Americans that are unable to think for themselves. It is Fundamentalist Christian, radical neo-conservative.... ideologies.

http://www.acpr.org.il/
http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/peace_freedom/patriots_and_protesters/news.php?q=1247259076
http://g2bulletin.wnd.com/
http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/AuthorDetail.asp?CreatorID=2361

[Jakes Progress]

39. Well, duh!.

Sorry. But I think that race is their whole motivation. If they didn't have the wacko birth thing, they would make up another. Once the wacko birth thing becomes unusable, they will come up with something else. They just won't have a non-white person as president. I think that there are former Democrats who have joined the anti-Obama network because they are racist. These former Democrats don't really disagree with any of this policies; they just can't vote for a black man. Notice that none of them ran around making up stuff about the Panama and mccain.

[creeksneakers2]

40. Race is the primary factor

Its evident from all the openly racist comments on birther message boards.

But I think another cause is being overlooked. RWs have tremendous emotional investments in wingerism. They believe in it so ferociously that they can't even look at contradictory evidence. They absorb right wing propaganda for hours a day to keep the beliefs in place. They hate with every ounce of hate they can produce. They compare themselves to the fantasies of completely evil members of the other side. This is the source of their self esteem. They think they are more patriotic, or have values while liberals are all degenerates. To RWs, that makes them special. Special enough that all their other character flaws, and there are usually many, can be ignored. Everything about them is tied up in wingerism.

Wingerism failed.

There were no giant economic improvements from tax cuts for the rich. In fact, it all ended in disaster. The RW drunken belligerent foreign policy didn't intimidate any nation into submission. "The market will take care of it" didn't work with energy. The list goes on. It all failed.

The wingers are unable to accept that wingerism failed. They must invent other villains for what happened. ACORN caused the economic collapse, as did Barney Frank.

More than anything, they must come up with a reason for their electoral rejection in 2008. They must consider the election to be illegitimate. Its all a plot.

[Third Doctor]

42. Tt has to with race

if Obama's father was white from the UK or a Afrikaner from South Africa this would not be a issued at all. the fact that his father was from Kenya is too much for the cons to handle.