Posted by
David Zublick on Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:32:41 AM
Barack Obama sold himself during the presidential campaign of 2008 as a
uniter.
He was going to bridge the racial divide in the United States, healing
wounds of the past and putting this country on the road to a point
where skin color and ethnicity would no longer be an issue polarizing
its citizens.
Didn't happen.
Despite his smooth talk and
his appealing personality, it soon became apparent that the people with
whom Obama surrounded himself were anything but racial healers.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright surfaced first with his rants about the evils
of the white race, with ludicrous charges of AIDS being a creation of
those wishing to exterminate the black race. Obama claimed to high
heaven that he never sat in that church in Chicago where Wright
preached his message of hate, yet he was a member of that congregation
over 20 years, was married there and had his children baptized there.
There
were some who questioned whether the influence of such as pastor would
leave an indelible mark on Obama, one that would later raise the ugly
specter that any criticism of this future president might lead to
accusations of racism.
This has now come to pass.
Many times since this president has taken office, those who have questioned
Obama's policies have been met with charges that any disapproval is racially motivated.
Janeane Garafolo,
in an appearance at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 21, ripped into tea party protesters, or what some of of the left have deemed “tea baggers” calling them “functionally retarded adults” and “racists.”
“Do you remember tea baggers?” Garofalo
said. “It was just so much easier when we could just call them racists.
I just don’t know why we can’t call them racists, or functionally
retarded adults.”
The flap over Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst at
Obama's address to the joint session of Congress took an unexpected turn when several prominent people, from
HBO's Bill
Maher,
to former president Jimmy Carter blamed racism as his motivation. Many
Democrat politicians, including Hank Johnson of Georgia, chimed in and
echoed these sentiments, leading to Wilson's rebuke on the floor of the
House of Representatives.
There has been a deafening silence from the White House with regard to these charges of racism.
Barack
Obama has had several opportunities to address these charges and lay
the issue to rest. To his credit, he did tell CNN that he believed
criticism of his health care agenda was not motivated by race. But
because he took so long to come out and say something, his words rang
hollow. He could have given a speech to the nation, admonishing those
who would throw up the race card every time he is criticized to "knock
it off", as these charges are idiotic, and do nothing to advance the
debate on health care and other issues.
He did not. And by not
being forceful on this issue, Obama is, in effect, giving a wink and a
nod to those who use race baiting as a method to stave off challenges
to his agenda.
This will only serve to further divide the
nation. And it might work to the detriment of the African-American
community with regard to political aspirations. If a black president
cannot be criticized on policy without race being thrown out as the
motivation behind it, one has to wonder if the nation is really ready
for a black president.
It is a shame that this question needs to be asked.
Listen to America Talks Monday through Friday at 6 pm eastern time at www.blogtalkradio.com/americatalks. Visit our website at www.americatalks.com.