Race and the Opposition to Obama

Townhall.com ^ | September 20, 2009 | Steve Chapman

[Kaslin]

A new president, pursuing policies well within the political mainstream, evokes weirdly angry and intense denunciations from opponents -- a reaction hard to explain in terms of anything he has actually done. Does that suggest, as Jimmy Carter insists, that their true motivation lies in racism?

No, it doesn't, because I'm not talking about Barack Obama. I'm talking about George W. Bush and Bill Clinton -- both of whom, from the day they took office, managed to convince a minority of Americans that they were not just wrong but illegitimate, dangerous and thoroughly evil. Obama's troubles are not exactly unprecedented.

It's generally forgotten that on Inauguration Day in 2001, Bush was greeted by thousands of protesters who threw eggs and bottles, made obscene gestures and carried signs jeering, "Hail to the thief" -- a reference to the legal fight needed to settle the outcome of the election. To the protesters, he was a corrupt enemy of democracy.

Clinton fared no better. He was reviled as a skirt-chasing, America-hating draft dodger. Eventually, he handed his antagonists the opportunity to impeach him, in one of the bitterest episodes in American political history.

What Obama may not have recognized before he arrived in the White House is that hating presidents is an irrepressible American tradition. The haters hung George Washington in effigy. They called Abraham Lincoln a dictator. They said Franklin Roosevelt was a Bolshevik.

[MNJohnnie]

The 0 can come out and nip this gutter slime “racism” talk in the bud by publicly rebuking Carter and the rest of the clown posse that is spewing this lie.

That 0 does not do come out and publicly rebuke the race baiter indicates he not only condones the accusation, he is in fact encouraging the accusers to keep making the blatantly fraudulent accusation.

[ETL]

From Jeff Head's website...
One notable quote from [James] Cone describing his Black Liberation Theology is as follows:

"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." - "Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology", in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology, by William R Jones, ed Cornel West and Eddie Glaube (Westminster John Knox Press).
http://www.jeffhead.com/blacklibtheology.htm

African American Religious Thought: An Anthology (Paperback)
by Cornel West (Editor), Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Editor)
http://www.amazon.com/African-American-Religious-Thought-Anthology/dp/0664224598
_______________________________________________________

HANNITY: But Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not backing down and has not for years and in his strong stance on the teaching of black liberation theology is nothing new. He had the same things to say last spring when he appeared on "Hannity & Colmes:"

WRIGHT: If you're not going to talk about theology in context, if you're not going to talk about liberation theology that came out of the '60s, systematized black liberation theology that started with Jim Cone in 1968 and the writings of Cone and the writings of Dwight Hopkins and the writings of womynist theologians and Asian theologians and Hispanic theologians, then you can't talk about the black value system.

HANNITY: But I'm a — reverend

WRIGHT: Do you know liberation theology, sir?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354158,00.html
________________________________________________________

For all you'll ever need or want to know about
Wright's "Black Liberation Theology",
see my FR Home page:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/

[cripplecreek]

Agreed.

If he were any kind of a leader or even any kind of a man, he would call a press conference in prime time and loudly denounce the steady screeching about racism.

[Wonder Warthog]

"A new president, pursuing policies well within the political mainstream, evokes weirdly angry and intense denunciations from opponents -- a reaction hard to explain in terms of anything he has actually done."

Excuse me, Stevie-boy, but "I" don't consider the Obama administration "well within the political mainstream" at all. This is the most leftist/socialist bunch that has ever occupied the executive branch in "my" life. The "racist" bullshit is getting REALLY OLD, REALLY FAST.

[BuffaloJack]

Racists are those who put some hyphenated other allegiance before American, i.e., Irish-American, Mexican-American, African-American, etc.

[Jabba the Nutt]

"Eventually, he handed his antagonists the opportunity to impeach him, in one of the bitterest episodes in American political history."

Hmmm, no mention of perjury or attempting to fix a court case and no mention of the joke of a US Senate, who couldn't be bothered to have a real trial. Bitterst? The GOP Senate loved the guy.

[Bluebird Singing]

weirdly angry and intense denunciations from opponents — a reaction hard to explain in terms of anything he has actually done.

. . . in terms of anything he has actually done?

This is bizarre.
Does this Chapman guy watch MSNBC for his information?

[al baby]

[paulycy]

[Alas Babylon!]

LOL! He was talking about Bush!

[gartrell bibberts]

What the fringe media don’t want to admit is that we feel the same about Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, Dodd and Frank.

[freeangel]

I can hardly wait for the next white President so that we can hurl the term “RACIST” at every person of color who disagrees with his/her policies.

[AndrewB]

See what you get when you only read the first sentence?

[Wonder Warthog]

"See what you get when you only read the first sentence?"

I read the whole article. It changes nothing about my comment. The fact that other comments in the rest of the article refer to denigration of Bush and Clinton doesn't obviate the fact that the mainstream media is trying to sell opposition to Obama as "racist".