Is the birther movement racist?

[undeterred]

[BlooInBloo]

1. Need an option for "Um... duh?"

[panader0]

2. Yes

If McCain was black, the birthers would be all over him for being born in Panama, even if it was on a base.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Emphatically, YES

[ControlledDemolition]

31. It's how they rationalize not really having an African American president. n/t

[TexasObserver]

4. It's 100% racist. It's the "We Hate that N Word" club.

The very same SOBs we had to fight in Texas 40 years ago to secure voting rights for blacks are the ones pushing this birth certificate crap.

If Jesus appeared to them in a light, and told them Obama is an American and was born in Hawaii, they'd tell him to STFU. They are lifelong racists, and they know they can't simply rail about the black man. Their goal is to constantly besmirch him.

[DainBramaged]

5. You need a FUCK YES

[Mrs. Overall]

6. +1

[countmyvote4real]

7. Puh-lease. Do you really have to ask? n/t

[Buzz Clik]

8. Who knows. It's so hard to get past Teh Stoopid that you can't tell what's underneath --

-- maybe racism, maybe just more stupid.

[MajorChode]

27. The cause is the same

only the symptoms are different.

[armyowalgreens]

9. I'm not usually one to answer these kinds of threads. But the answer is most certainly yes.

Probably a fuck yes.

[Betty Karlson]

10. Not racist, but xenophobic

It is quite easy to assume that the "birther" movement is racist because they distrust an African-American man.

However, the point you may be missing is that at the root of their aversion is xenophobia. Now, excuse me while I make some unflattering remarks about the self-proclaimed "real American culture".

Ever since the presidency of Grant, America has glorified the self-made man. This is the myth of the "American dream"*. By consequence, any suggestion to help people (from a federal level) are viewed with suspicion. They are alien to the myth of the American Dream and as such "must" have a foreign origin.

Whenever federal governments make policies like Roosevelt's or Obama's, accusation of foreign infiltration spring up.

Roosevelt was accused of being influenced by pointy-headed Russian agents.
(And when Truman, after twenty years of democratic policies, left the White House to the Republicans, McCarthy sprang up to "clean up" after him.)

Kennedy, we are often reminded, was accused of taking his orders from Europe (the pope).

Now Obama "must" be a foreign agent himself; otherwise he would not entertain these visions of his.

I do not think that Mr Obama's perceived race is a major factor here. It's rather that some people value the American Dream over real and present nightmares.

* I say: myth, because for every self-made man, ten others were elbowed into poverty. (And that includes all the women, minorities, who were consciously cut out of the possibilities of the American Dream)

[kestrel91316]

18. A thoughtful post, but I think you're dead wrong. I know a few too many McCain supporters

who have come right out and called Obama a n----r.

[Betty Karlson]

34. But, while the birthers are (almost) all supporters of Mr McCain,

not all supporters of Mr McCain are birthers. The racists and the birthers may not be the same people.

I would rather think that Islam has taken the place of communism as a thing to panic about, and that the religion of President Obama's father is equally suspicious to the birthers as a communist father would have been in the age of McCarthy.

Even people stupid enough to use the N-word usually know that African-Americans are, in fact, natural born American citizens. They may be prejudiced against them, but fellow Americans they are.

But this particular African-American has seen a lot of the world. He received his education in Muslem countries (Indonesia), where he carried a different family name (Sutoro, I believe), was conceived by a Muslem father from a country with a more than substantial Muslem minority. And then he comes up with ideas that contradict some of the central theses of the American Dream.

I'm sure they would love to trade the n-word for an equally scathing expletive related to Muslems. The English language seems to lack one. How unfortunate for them.

Now, I do not mean to oppose your view that this has to do with racism. Prejudices have a nasty habit of combining forces, and then keep Fear and Loathing company. I just propose this idea as a thesis to explain the viciousness and the prime motivation of the birther movement. What is at its core is, to my far-away eyes, more than the ususal racism.

Lastly, an afterthought. In times of economic turmoil, extremism of all kinds increases. So the viciousness of the birther movement may be explained in three ways:
1) nationalism takes an extreme course. The woes of America must be blamed on something foreign - hence the desperate need to prove the foreign-ness of the newly elected president. Native son George Bush must not be blamed, for the sake of the myth.
2) racism takes an extreme course, shedding its usual-ness.
3) racism AND nationalism take an extreme course, join forces and have a merry time in Scare Town.

[undeterred]

20. I wonder if the reaction would be more or less intense

if Barack Obama were a direct descendant of slaves instead of the son of a Kenyan man. What do most people in the US know about Kenya? Absolutely nothing.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

21. Maybe....

but if Obama's father had been Dwayne Smith and was a native Canadian, I don't think we'd be seeing so much drama.

[undeterred]

24. So he would be Barack Dwayne Hussein Smith?

A nice Canadian name. :hi:

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

28. I don't trust the Canadians....

There just....up there. Doing....something.

They're too quiet, I tells ya.

[undeterred]

33. Probably plotting to take over our health care system.

:shrug:

[Imajika]

11. Very clearly racist...

An attempt to argue that Obama "isn't one us".

A lot of them just refuse to believe the US elected an African American President, so this conspiracy fits their world view. Some may not view themselves as racist, but ofcourse they really are.

Most of the rest are just out and out racists and are using this and anything else they can come up with to give more people a reason to dislike Obama that they can somehow feel good about, ie, they can view themselves as somehow being Defenders of the Constitution.

Ofcourse there are a few hardcore conspiracy types out there that latch on to pretty much anything.

[obliviously]

12. It is just people that can't deal with reality

Some can never except defeat. sore losers!

[JI7]

13. yes, and anyone says no is a racist

[yellowcanine]

14. Does the Pope Bear poop in the woods?

[davidwparker]

15. No. It is ignorance. Sheeple.

[kestrel91316]

16. Is the pope Catholic??

[frogmarch]

17. Absofuckinglutely it's racist. nt

[InvisibleTouch]

19. Have to say Yes.

Their kneejerk response seems to be, "He doesn't look like us, therefore he can't be one of us."

[4lbs]

22. Almost nothing was made by these birthers about McCain being born in Panama.

Let's see that Congressional waiver.

Have him produce it to prove he was eligible to run for President!

[undeterred]

23. Panama, sheesh. Its less of a state than Hawaii.

:hide:

[MajorChode]

25. I'm going with the minority that it's NOT racist

It's just another nutty wingnut theory. It's not any different than when they said Vince Foster was murdered by the Clintons, or that the Clintons murdered the kids at Wacko, or dozens of other batshit crazy bullshit they dream up on a daily basis. One dipshit wingnut sends out a chain letter and it spreads like wildfire to all the wingnuts. Then no matter how many times it's debunked, they still won't let go of it.

[bridgit]

26. yup

[Hekate]

29. And scary nuts.

[backscatter712]

30. FUCK YEAH!!!

They ignore the facts that.

1. Factcheck.org indeed saw and verified the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate. http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html

2. Hawaii's Health Director and registrar of vital statistics have looked up the original birth records in the State of Hawaii's archives. (same link)

3. The press has even looked up the birth announcements for Barack Obama in Honolulu's newspapers. (same link)

4. Obama's mother was an American citizen from Kansas, meaning Obama would be a natural-born American citizen even if he was born on Mars. Go ahead, birthers, try and see if the courts will apply Jim Crow era citizenship laws without striking them for being discriminatory.

5. The ultimate arbiters of whether a person is qualified to be President of the United States, and fulfills the Constitutional requirements are the American voters. Guess what. We had an election. He won. That means the voters decided he fulfills the requirements, and the birthers will always be told by the courts to suck it!

The birther meme is completely irrational, and is used simply because the birthers can't openly use the n-word.

[fishwax]

32. I think in this case it's really more about class

:sarcasm: