Looking at the images on the news, I imagine it would be difficult for a black mother to teach her child to not fear or loathe white people. For, even a child witnessing the outpouring of hatred against this nation’s president could hardly help but come away with the idea that white people hate us. When the first shots are fired, they won’t be aimed at the president. They'll be aimed at some kid. Some black kid, some Latino kid, wandering through a park where these extremists are standing around hollering. It’ll be some black kid giving the racists among them the finger. Some homeless guy asking for a handout. The shot will ring out. And then we all lose.
“You
lie!”
Although the fuse had been lit long before, South Carolina
Congressman Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson’s outburst during a
presidential address to a joint session of Congress—the first
such outburst in history—confirmed to the world what many
African Americans already suspected: conservatives do not
consider the presidency of Barack Obama to be legitimate. We can
dance on the head of a pin for a few paragraphs articulating the
possible reasons and motives, but none of that will change a
simple fact: black America is outraged. Congressman Wilson’s
lack of respect, not for Barack Obama but for the office of the
president, will doubtless become the most notable mark of his
otherwise unremarkable Congressional record. He has, in his
ignorance, widened a racial divide in this country that so many,
black, white or other, have worked tirelessly for decades to
close.
When the first shots are fired, they won’t be aimed at the
president. Or Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy
Pelosi. They won’t be aimed at House Minority Leader John
Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It’ll be some kid.
Some black kid, some Latino kid, wandering through a park where
these nutwing Tea Baggers are standing around hollering, holding
up signs comparing Obama to Adolph Hitler and threatening his
life. It’ll be some teens just going to play basketball, or
maybe some homeless guy panhandling in the crowd, a crowd
spewing hatred under veil of political expression. An irrational
and disproportionate hatred of Barack Obama, based not on what
he has done or even on what he wants to do but on some nonsense
they heard on Fox News Channel—which capriciously and
deliberately spews right-wing propaganda and complete untruths
about, well, everything. These are white people. Crowds of white
people hurling racial epitaphs at the president of the United
States. This is scary stuff. Imagine, if you will, angry mobs of
blacks carrying racist banners and threatening violence. At the
climax of the Million Man March on Washington, Minister Louis
Farrakhan, speaking to a crowd that dwarfed that of Glen Beck's
ridiculous 9/12 rally last weekend, showed enormous respect to
U.S. President Bill Clinton. There were no Kill Whitey signs
permitted. No personal attacks on the president.
And white America was terrified.
Fast forward a decade, and now it is black America who are
terrified. And who are chastised like children when we object to
the overtly racist behavior of the fringe right wing, while we
suspect the only thing that makes these folk fringe is their
bravery in expressing what we suspect a great many others feel.
Much as we'd like to believe it, much as intellectuals want to
rationalize it, racism is alive and well in this country. My ire
over last week's anti-Obama rally, which was organized under the
transparently disingenuous "9/12 Project"—supposedly designed to
bring America back to the place of unity and tolerance this
nation experienced in the wake of the 9/11 attacks—is not about
the rally itself, but about white America's abject failure to
respond to it. In fact, Beck's whole "9/12" concept is deeply
flawed. As I pointed out at the time, that coalescing of America
in the wake of the terrorist attacks coalesced white America. It
wasn't our America being coalesced, but it was patriotism as
defined by white folk. It was white folk driving around with
these flags all over their cars. White folk running down to buy
a car at zero percent financing—how many blacks do you think
qualified for zero percent financing? It was America: Love It Or
Leave It, patriotism expressed in an extremely megalomaniacal
way. It wasn't Arab America or Chinese America. It was white
America. And it was very scary.
On Tuesday, September 12, 2001, Air Force jets were screaming
over my house, flying sorties between Colorado Springs and
Denver. It was very scary. And as I saw this great outpouring of
human emotion, the nation coming together, oddly enough, I did
not see my place in that. I didn't feel welcome or invited. I
was a spectator at the parade. The 9/12 Glen Beck is talking
about was a time of great anxiety for me as all I saw were these
darned flags blinding me while I was trying to drive down the
road. And white folk with gun racks on their pickups, scowling
at anybody they thought looked middle eastern. 9/12, for me,
harkened back to the pre-civil rights days, with Jerry Falwell
front and center insisting everybody get a haircut and fall in
line. Why would I want to go back to that? Why would I want to
be the person I was on that day?
Beck's 2009 9/12 march on Washington had almost nothing to do
with the faux-10 Commandments of Beck's 9/12 Project. the nine
principles the project claims to espouse:
1. America is good.
2. I Believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was
yesterday.
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate
authority, not the government.
5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is
blind and no one is above it.
6. I have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with
who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority
or share my personal opinion.
9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them,
they answer to me.
How did comparing the president of the United States to Hitler
or Joseph Stalin fit with those principles? How did the ethnic
stereotype cartoons or the death threats or painting him up like
the Joker illuminate those values? This was a hate rally, pure
and simple. And black America was watching.
If I'm overreacting, if I'm being too sensitive, if these people
are just a tiny fringe movement and not representative of white
America as a whole, then where's the pushback? Where are the
leaders of the religious right condemning the fringe elements of
last week's protests? where is the record of these conservatives
rebuking the extremists, the racist attacks and threats of
violence? The lack of pushback from white America widens the
racial divide in this nation, as black America needs to hear
such rebuke not from Jesse Jackson but from Rush Limbaugh and
Bill O'Reily. Both men missed a golden opportunity to gain
credibility by slamming the racist and violent fringe among
their conservative base. But, to my knowledge, no such rebuke
was issued. And, so far as I can tell, white America and, even
sadder, conservative Christianity, seems content to not speak to
the issue at all. And their silence is deafening.
These folks, all stirred up and shouting, seem eerily
reminiscent of the crowds who attacked and burned Freedom Rider
busses and who brutally assaulted civil rights protestors at
lunch counters. Whether they intend to or not, these
God-fearing, America-love-it-or-leave-it-to-Beaver white folks
come across as what they likely are: ignorant, intolerant
racists. And the first acts of violence won’t have anything to
do with politics or healthcare reform or the stimulus package or
taxes. It’ll be some black kid giving these racists the finger.
Some homeless guy asking for a handout. The shot will ring out
from somewhere within the angry mob.
And then we all lose.
This ain't the sixties. White folk can't march around hollering
"nigger" while we cower, shuffling through the streets with bent
backs. Black America is full of lawyers who will sue you. Full
of cops who will arrest you. Full of pastors who will rebuke
you. Crips, Bloods, Gangster Disciples, Folk. Oprah Winfrey,
arguably one of the most powerful African Americans in the
world. Dissing the first black president is a seriously stupid
strategy on the part of the right wing, most of whom know
nothing about the streets and don't realize how fast violence
can jump off. Black America is full of people just as
overwhelmed by repressed emotion as the wingnuts. We have our
own wingnuts, and these are scary people. Scary people who are
watching, who are taking their cues from this president, but who
really aren't going to just stand around and let white folk call
them names. Those days are over. It amazes me how the right
wing, including conservative Christians, don't get that. Don't
get it that the days when they could just put their foot on our
neck are long gone. These hollering, ignorant Obama-haters are
playing with fire. The longer we do nothing, the more incendiary
their rhetoric goes, seeing no reprisals for their behavior. But
when that first shot is fired, that first blood is shed, it is
likely the entire nation that will pay the price, as race
relations lose decades of hard-won progress.
Looking at the images on the news these past weeks, I imagine it
would be difficult for an African American mother to teach her
child to not fear or loathe white people. For, even a child
witnessing the outpouring of hatred against this nation’s
president could hardly help but come away with the idea that
white people hate us. A child’s first question might be why
these white folk—and they are indeed white folk—treat our
nation’s president, this nation’s first African American
president, with such disrespect. Why, of 44 U.S. presidents, has
he been singled out to be heckled from an audience of
congressmen and senators? Why has he alone been chosen to be
compared to Hitler? Why have death threats been publicly and
proudly lobbed at the president, while no apparent law
enforcement action has taken place?
Why is Barack Obama less of a president than George W. Bush? And
why should the American people, of any race, believe this
visceral hatred begins and ends with Obama? For many African
Americans, these are extremely disturbing images. While these
protest groups are relatively small and obviously extreme and
fringe, the lack of pushback from, well, anybody, allows those
images to linger in our collective memory. Where is James Dobson
denouncing the more fringe conservatives openly threatening the
president with violence? Where is Bill O'Reily venting his
righteous furor over the fringe set who are making all
conservatives look like racist jerks?
These are scary images, and our children are seeing them every
day. And we just have to eat it. It is comical to me that those
very same people become offended and defensive when someone
suggests their motives are racist. Eyes roll as they go on the
attack, “See? You can’t criticize a president if he’s black!
This has nothing to do with his skin color!” Barack The Magic
Negro is a song parody Rush Limbaugh has featured on his radio
broadcast. We've Been Hijacked, Let's Roll. one placard reads,
demeaning the sacrifice of the passengers who gave their lives
on 9/11's doomed flight 93 while inferring the president is both
a terrorist and a Muslim. What’s The Difference Between The
Cleveland Zoo And The White House? another sign reads. One Has
An African Lion, The Other Has A Lyin’ African.
Even a child will tell you, calling the president a liar is code
for calling him a nigger. They can’t call him a nigger, so they
accuse the president, this president, the smartest guy to hold
that job since Bill Clinton, of being a liar. Which they know is
disingenuous because the president has not been proven to be
lying about anything. These folks don’t actually believe Obama
is a liar, it’s just a neat word to throw at him since they
can’t throw the word “nigger” without their friends running for
cover, just as the Joker makeup (above) is merely a way to
demean the president by putting him in whiteface. But, make no
mistake about it, these folks want to call Barack Obama, the
President of the United States, “nigger” so bad they can taste
it. It is simply unacceptable to them to have a black man as
president. From my chair, that seems to be what their angst is
really about: not health care, but the insatiable outrage of
wingnuts at this nation having a black president.
“It’s important to realize I was actually black before the
election.” Barack Obama garnered huge laughs Monday on CBS' Late
Show with David Letterman, releasing the tension from
Letterman's awkward, rambling question about the truer nature of
the angry protests against the president. Of the controversy,
the president said, “This is not untypical. One of the things
you sign up for in politics is folks yell at you. …the
overwhelming majority of people, Republican and Democrat... just
want to see some common sense, they want to see some honesty and
integrity in Washington. I think they’re turned off by the
shouting and the yelling…and they expect more from their public
elected officials.”
This past weekend, the president launched a media blitz to push
for his healthcare reform initiative. He clearly does not want
the conversation co-opted by discussions of race. And, he’s
right. For, every time this president launches any kind of bold
initiative, Republican strategists find some way to interject
race into the fight. Race is sexy. Race beats everything else to
the top headline. Joe whatsisname, some Congressman we never
heard of, is now big news because of his outburst on the Senate
floor. And the president knows this, he knows the race thing
will dog his entire tenure as U.S. president. So, he’s seeking
to douse the flames and calm fears and lower the temperature.
The problem is, black folk can see through that. We understand
the president has work to do and can’t allow his agenda to keep
getting hijacked. That was, ultimately, the purpose of those
silly tea bag things: not to raise real issues but to incite
fear and loathing and anger and get people shouting at one
another and get the news to report that instead of talking about
health care. These folks aren’t talking about healthcare. Aren’t
talking about what’s in the bill. They are arguing about Obama.
Was he born in Hawaii. Is he a Muslim. Searching for clever
euphemisms for the N-word while working overtime trying to
discredit and attack him. None of that has anything whatsoever
to do with healthcare: healthcare is simply what the president
is working on at the moment. If he were working on Gold Fish
Preservation, that’s what they’d be screaming about.
I applaud the president’s monumental cool, but I worry about him
walking the fine line between moderation and being obviously
disingenuous. These were clearly racist attacks. Dismissing them
as not racist may keep a fragile coalition of whites together,
but it strains credulity. And now every black man, woman and
child in America now has to eat it because that’s what the
president is asking us to do. I’m unsure of the long-term impact
of such a diet, but I am willing to continue trusting him
because I also know giving into anger is what the conservatives
want us to do.
As Christians, of course, we are tasked to forgive and turn the
other cheek [Matthew 5:39]. However, turning the other cheek is
not about being passive or even non-violent [Matthew 10:39]. It
is about not seeking vengeance, not returning hate for hate.
Which is, essentially, what the president is asking us to do. He
can’t put it into those words without further escalating a
discussion he is unwilling to have, if only for the sake of
healthcare reform. Hating those who hate us is not what Jesus
has asked us to do. It is not what He did. As for forgiveness:
it is wrong to harbor resentment and hatred. But, on the other
hand, know that God does not forgive us until we ask Him to [I
John 1:9; 2 Chronicles 7:14]. Forgiveness is both a Christian’s
strength and his vulnerability for, once someone asks us to
forgive them, we have no other option. It is mandatory. We must
forgive. We must show love.
So, we probably should not suit up with JoJo and the Critters
when those guys inevitably get fed up with the hollerin’ white
folk. These are folk who are pretty brave with the racist
rhetoric when they’re surrounded by riot cops on the Washington
Mall. Try that down in Compton. In Little Rock. Give that a shot
in East St. Louis. Oh, you’ll get on TV, trust me.
For eight long, very long, years, I just had to eat it. George
Bush was the president. Like it or not, he was my president. As
deeply ashamed as I was of the Christian right, most especially,
for electing and re-electing what history will aptly demonstrate
was the worst president in U.S. history, I had to accept the
fact that there he was—the prez. Far too many people, mostly if
not exclusively white people, refuse to accept the legitimacy of
Barack Obama’s election. Many of these same people voted for
George Bush, which was like handing Porsche keys to a 13-year
old middle school slacker. He did what any kid would do: wreck
the car and blame anyone he possibly could. These same people
who told me to eat it for eight years, now cannot practice what
they preach. At their very core, they are enraged. A rage that
can, and I fear someday will, express itself in violence and
split this nation apart.
Luckily, I believe Barack Obama understands that as well. So he
walks the tightrope, knowing the political and very real-world
risks. But he keeps his cool, perhaps knowing that every smile
just burns the wingnuts more and more. Pray, beloved, for the
day to come when the Silly Season will finally be over.
Christopher J. Priest
20 September 2009
editor@praisenet.org
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