"The anti-Obama people are just mad because the president is black." Discuss.

Let’s be logical here, for just half a second.

  1. there are racists in this country

  2. millions of 'em

  3. most of the more pronounced racists also hold traditionally “conservative” views on other social issues" i.e. gun control, taxes, labor unions, health care etc.

  4. those conservatives who reject racism will tend to tolerate (or even excuse or rationalize) racists who agree with them on other issues

  5. liberals who reject racism will also tend to reject the support of racists who agree with them on other issues

So where would you find racists gravitating?

LMK which of my postulates you disagree with.

I disagree with 5. I see no rejection of the votes of racist people by either party.

Of course you can’t reject votes-- you can reject support, denounce those who take racist positions.

  1. The Republicans have been actively catering to and recruiting racists for decades; as in the Southern Strategy. They ARE the party of white racists, they’ve worked hard to be just that, however hard people try to pretend otherwise.

I disagree with 3 and 5. 5 because liberals will eagerly take whatever support they can get. And 3, because in addition to elderly Democrats who have been racist all their lives, liberals also count among the majority of their votership blacks, many of whom are very racist toward Hispanics and Asians and, predictably, whites. They also count amongst their leadership Hispanics, many of whom have shown racism toward blacks and whites, and probably Asians wherever the two cultures happen to meet. Racists, racists, everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Seriously, all this carrying on about racism is geting out of hand. Not only does racism exist everywhere and in every culture, but there are many worse things in the world than to be a racist. Most criminal acts, in fact, are worse than racism. For example, a robber is worse than a racist, a burglar is worse than a racist, a mugger is worse than a racist, an embezzler is worse than a racist, and of course rapists and murderers and child molesters and child beaters are worse than racists. Even schoolyard and Facebook bullies are worse than racists. And yet who do we hear about around here night and day and day and night, ad infinitum, ad nauseum? Racists! If you say in ‘insensitive’ word these days, the de riguer consequence is losing your job. People’s ability to support and care for their families is wiped away in an instant because…they said a “word”! They didn’t cause anyone any tangible harm. They didn’t take away anyone’s money. They didn’t harm anyone’s person, nor harm or abscond with their wife or daughter. They didn’t cut anyone or shoot anyone or molest and children. They simply said words about a different race (or sex) and now the, are pariahs. At least we’re not branding the letter “R” or “S” into their foreheads and they can still live wherever they can find a place they can afford after losing their high-paying jobs after having said…the wrong word.

But does that shit really matter anymore? Great strides have been made in society to protect minorities. People of different races are working together and living near one another are getting to know and like each other and even to a small degree they’re beginning to socialize with one another and visit in each others’ homes. That’s progress, and it’s the best kind of progress. You don’t end racism by pointing fingers of scorn at people, you end racism by letting the different groups interact with and get to know each other. Same holds true for homosexuals btw. The more chance people have to interact with homosexuals and learn that they are basically the same as everyone else is going to go much further toward ending bias against homosexuals that is ever going to be accomplished by calling anti-gay types “evil” and whatever other slur comes to mind.

So chill. The wheels are in motion, racism to the degree it exists, is a shadow of its former self. Minorities in American have a much better time in life now than they ever have previously. Yes, there is still a way to go, but they have equal employment opportunities, they can live where they want, and shop where they want, and travel about town unconcerned that someone is going to accost them or make an issue of their race. And that is all good. All that remains are secret, hidden vestiges of racism that are merely echos of bygone days and which almost no one speaks out loud. And as long as laws exist the prohibit discrimination in hiring and housing and travel, there isn’t much a racist can do outside of criminal activity to try to harm anyone.

And yet all we hear around here, day after day after day after day, is endless whinging about these impotent and ineffectual invisible racists who are forced to hide their feelings inside. We think they make up a significant part of our opponent’s political party and we fantasize that if that party gets elected suddenly we’ll instantly be transported back to the time when blacks had to ride in the back of the bus and drink out of separate water fountains.

It ain’t gonna happen, folks. The toothpaste is out of the tube. We have minority peole with important jobs in big companies and important jobs in government, and we have the aforementioned laws that have done an amazingly good job of not only providing fairness in housing and employment but ensure that progress made is not going to be lost because someone who doesn’t like a black guy, or a brown guy or a red, yellow or purple guy, gets into office.

So in short, the battle is won! There is nothing a racist can do to turn back the clock. Those days will never be here again.

So essentially you’re tilting at windmills and accomplishing nothing by skrieking about the racists that must exist behind every door and under every bed and in every political party. For the most part they aren’t there and the ones who are can’t do anything about it.

So forget it. Let’s try to find some new way to divide us, mmkay? 'Cause this racism shit has gone way, way, way beyond tiresome.

When I can pick at random from non-race demographic and the resulting sample comes back with the same percentage of race members as the population sampled from on a regular basis, your comments will be have some relationship to the real world.

Racists can turn back the clock.

Just as creationists are working hard to get ignorance back into schools.

You can turn back the clock. It’s being done now politically in a variety of ways in many states.

Plenty racist. Just extremely far from the norm, as far as I’ve seen.

Sorry if it’s rude to click Reply after reading only 1% of a long post, but your peculiar phrasing dictates a follow-on question:

Do conservatives also eagerly take whatever support they can get?

Thanks in advance for clarification of this, Starving Artist.

I would agree with that, more less.
However, I think it’s slightly more complex than that. One doesn’t have to be racist to believe that affirmative action is wrong. Since it seems like the country is divided between “left” and “right” then it’s easier to lump everyone together.

I disagree with numbers 4 and 5 as being confined to conservatives. I’ve noticed that liberals also tend to tolerate racists who agree with them on other issues, and will not necessarily reject the support of these same racists.

Of course it’s the issue of white racists as opposed to minorities who are racist.

Hardly “just like”. The birthers are hanging on to a conspiracy theory so utterly demented it makes the retarded 9/11 “truth” movement look positively scholarly in comparison. The hanging chads were at the very least tangible. The only reason the birthers even cottoned on to the very notion that Obama could be a foreign pretender to the oval office is because he’s black and has a funny name. White Barry Osbourne (D-Hawaii) simply wouldn’t have had these same problems.

There’d be scrutiny, sure, but it wouldn’t be race-based scrutity. The birther’s are racist.

I think it’s not just a funny name but his name being Barack Hussein Obama, and his father being a Muslim. Then him attending a muslim school. I’m not saying the birther theories are not ridiculous because they are, but bothering to compare them to the truthers isn’t saying much.

It’s true, nothing is completely equal, but again, it’s always the issue of getting into pedantics and arguing over who’s worse.

We have Republicans/conservatives generalized as racist, rednecks, rich, corporate, and homophobic.

Then we have Democrats/liberals generalized as socialists, elitists, lacking morals, and anti-values.

I certainly think that’s part of it. Although, Obama has said about a billion times that he is a Bible believing Christian but the birthers aren’t having any of it. I can’t help but think they’d believe him if he was white.

Yeah. It’s like comparing different shades of dogshit.

Well white Muslims aren’t really common.

But it’s sad that people believe that he’s some kind of undercover Muslim. He was a member of Wrights church for like, what, 10-20 years? Why would he be there if he was a muslim? Did his mom and grand parents really raise him to be a secret muslim? Did the very little time he spent with his father really give enough time for him to be converted to Islam?

I remember talking to a co-worker about Obama’s slip in an interview with O’Reilly. “…my Muslim faith…”

See!, my co-worker said, O’Reilly caught him!!

The difference is that that characterization of Republicans has a strong connection to reality, while that characterization of Democrats has little to no connection to reality. Republicans on the whole are overwhelmingly racist, rich, corporate, and/or homophobic (and many other bad things, they are the moral and intellectual cesspool of America). Democrats aren’t socialist at all, or particularly immoral or elitist, and if anything have more “values” than the Republicans do. If anything, outside the “socialist” part that’s a description of the Republicans, not the Democrats; they are elitists, lack morals, and “anti-values” given their ideologically driven dedication to psychopathy.

While I don’t think Republicans or the Democrats are completely equal in their flaws, or their amount of flaws (I honestly don’t compare and count them), I can’t see one group as substantially better than the other. If were a liberal or conservative, then I could easily demonize the other, but I think both parties or political views have good merits, and I think we need both to provide a good balance.

The only thing I think that separates the two is that the Democrats are more subtle in their approach.

That is totally, and absolutely ridiculous. obama is…at least… half WHITE.

Well, yes, but his being regarded as Black is a holdover from the anti miscegenation laws that prevented children fathered by slave owners from inheriting.

So what? Bigots are, by definition, idiots. If they can believe Obama is a Kenyan-born Marxist Muslim, do you think they’re going to let the fact he’s half-white into their brain?

The only merits I see in the Republicans is that they are determined and organized. Outside of that, I see none. They are malignant, bigoted, cruel, ignorant, fanatic, greedy, stupid, shortsighted, destructive, incompetent, and in general a blight upon the planet.

America has always tended towards the silly “one drop” rule of race definition. It treats being white as some sort of pure state, and if you aren’t pure white you are contaminated and belong to the “race” that contaminated the pure whiteness of your ancestors.

Considering the number of Democrats that voted for the Iraq War Resolution, voted for the bank bail out, and voted to grant immunity to the telecoms after they were found to have been illegally wire tapping American citizens, among other things, sounds like they are pretty stupid, shortsighted, incompetent, and destructive as well.