The same old hate, this time on a bumper sticker

[teach1st]

The same old hate, this time on a bumper sticker
Leonard Pitts, Tampa Bay Times, 9/23/12

This is for Vanessa in South Florida.

She emailed me a few days ago after spotting a bumper sticker that read: "2012 Don't Re-Nig." "Honestly," she wrote, "I don't know how to process my outrage, so I'm handing it off to you. I know that President Obama's race has always been an issue to many people, and perhaps I live a relatively sheltered life in Democratic-leaning Broward County, but I'm still stunned by the sentiment. I'm even more stunned, naive though that may be, by the fact that some people believe it's appropriate to flaunt that sentiment — and that it's not a source of shame."

Vanessa, I'm afraid I'm not nearly as shocked as you. After all, the sentiment that bumper sticker expresses has been part of the Obama narrative since before he took office.

...

But Vanessa — when one in four Americans thinks there's some mystery over the president's birthplace, while Mitt Romney (son of a man born in Mexico) and John McCain (born in the Panama Canal Zone) face no such scrutiny; when tea partiers denounce health care reform as "reparations"; when Rep. Lynn Westmoreland calls Obama "uppity," then-Rep. Geoff Davis calls him "boy" and Rep. Joe Wilson yells out, "You lie!" during a presidential speech; when Rush Limbaugh says Obama's election means it's open season on white kids; when Obama is called a terrorist, a "food stamp president" and a "Chicago thug" — why should "Don't Re-Nig" come as a surprise? It's just the next logical step.

More

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Jimmy Carter was ridiculed soon after 2008

for identifying the neo-racism soon after the election, obstruction of our government and resentful actions of our citizens.

[railsback]

2. There's some douche living a few blocks from me

who has some of those nasty bumper stickers on his truck's bumper. 'Don't blame me, I voted for the American'. Shit like that. He knows its offensive because he parks his truck backwards so people going by his home can't see it. Even in San Francisco.