Newspaper Page Text
PERSONAL TRAINING
GET 30 MINUTES
OE PERSONAL TRAINING
FOR ONLY $ 10
(5 SESSION MINIMUM)
‘ Gin C ERTII IC AT ES AVAI LABLI
CHRIS ROBINSON, PERSONAL TRAINER
160 TRACY STREET * ATHENS, GA 30605 • 706-224-8779
CTOBER 4
ONLY!
A MONTH OF
AND ENGAGING FILMS
AT CINE, HOTEL INDIGO AND UGA
IT'S ABOUT OUR LIVES
October 2-30,2009 } ecofocusfilmfest.org
« hotel EPJ Odum School [term. a A a ffaannlo
INDIGO EllSgtogy sundance §_ nagp0le
IrLYNDHURST
if FOUNDATION
TS/m/
George
&CeSa
Fon,aif>0 TT TT A
CABLE
ADVERTISING
A THE 8E0D0ME
QgQ taftni |NI
!
athens printing company WORKS
l.M.
farm
j:, irrwi fg
4^ t er«f*« kcmi
RBasin
II FLAGP0LE.COM • SEPTEMBER 30,2009
CALL RACISM WHAT IT IS
Folks in the South know racism. We know
how racism really works. We know the coded
language and unwritten laws that enforce
effective racism, even after its nominal aboli
tion. Can't no Georgian tell me he didn't grow
up on the white side of town or the black side.
That's why when President Barack Obama,
then Senator Obama, began attracting the
most outlandish accusations and conjuring
in people's minds the most bizarre paranoias,
we Southerners knew what was up. A storm
began spiraling around this Obama fella. The
trend grew until, many months into Obama's
presidency, it became apparent to most that
Obama's loudest critics sounded an awful lot
like racists. The willful naivete of a "post-
racial" America had given way to a sober con
frontation of racism, 21st-century style.
When did it start? First I can remember is
the glee with which Barack Obama's middle
name "Hussein" was discovered
and circulated. Barack Hussein
Obama! A wing of the conserva
tive movement simply couldn't
remind us enough that the guy's
middle name was "Hussein," just
like the evil leader of the coun
try we demolished! Nevermind
that George W. Bush shared
the middle name "Walker" with
John Walker Lindh, the American
turned Taliban fighter! But there
was something different about
this guy Obama, something that
made these crazy associations
stick.
A wave of accusations fol
lowed. Obama the Muslim,
trained in a jihadist madrassa.
Obama the militant black
nationalist. Obama the Reverend
Wright-styled liberation theolo
gian. My favorites were always
the ones which relied on the
notion that Obama was effec
tively a one-man sleeper cell,
snuck into the nation's citadel •
in a bulrush basket from some
African, Muslim, socialist den of
jihadism. Trained in the intricate
social art of American Average
Joe-ism (shooting hoops, beer
at the White House), Obama would sweet talk
the populace and wrest power democratically
to set the evil plan into motion. That was my
favorite paranoiac flight of fancy.
It was now an elephant in the room. A very
racist elephant. But nobody really said much
about it. Now, people said a whole lot about
the cause to celebrate a black president. There
was much self-congratulation around, much of
it appropriate. But there was something brew
ing all along that was being ignored.
There's no ignoring it now. A race mob
now barks loud enough to influence and even
frame debate. The health care reform debate
has been obstructed and detoured by the radi
cals on the racist Right suggesting that virtu
ally any health care bill constitutes nothing
less than the destruction of America. Members
of Congress returned home to town hall meet
ings commandeered by an emboldened sect of
American zealots. Medicare recipients wailed
about their "America being taken" from them.
Young men played cowboy and brought their
weapons to greet liberal members of Congress,
even bringing automatic assault rifles to one
of the president's events. This is what scared
white people look like.
Obama knows too much history not to
know how open racial conflict unfolds. At
best, it will likely infect all future debates,
obscuring the matter at hand. After all, health
care reform, the president's political pride
and joy, has already become the occasion for
outlandish cries about Obama's citizenship
or his Hitler-inspired will to place whites in
Americorps-run concentration camps. Obama
understands that each of his policy aims can
not possibly endure the sort of peripheral non
sense accompanying health care reform. So,
he says nothing. (Isn't that how it's always
been: racism is really working when even black
men of status and wealth must remain silent?)
But maybe there's hope. This may be the
final round of the American racist saga, as this
time the irrational emotionalism of racism is
affecting far more than this minority or that.
Millions of white Americans, much in need of
health care reform and Obama's other policy
aims, are beginning to learn how the losing
end of racism feels, how the most pristine rea
son and cogent defenses cannot assuage the
beast of racism. White Americans are learn
ing first-hand how elements of racism work,
because we find ourselves at the mercy of
racists. It's becoming easier to imagine that,
harring a kumbaya epiphany on the right,
each of the president's future attempts to
enact pro-worker, pro-middle-class policies will
be greeted with the same sort of outlandish
claims that health care has attracted.
The coming battles will require the courage
to call out racism when it affects and infects
debate. It will also require close attention to
the real matters of debate so that the charge
of racism is not leveled at those with honest
and legitimate policy disagreements, of which
there are many. This will likely be an uncom
fortable season in American politics. But this
nation has faced down more formidable obsta
cles than these wild-eyed relics of our more
racist past. Let's put these very last few nails
in the coffin of racism and bury it for good.
Matthew Pu.ver
This image has been making the rounds of right-wing blogs against
health care, where it is no doubt considered fair and balanced.