The intense vitriol in the public sphere over the past month against President Obama’s healthcare plan—the raucous town halls, insulting signs, the Birthers’ crusade, and Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst—begs to what degree these sentiments are fueled by racism as much as ideological differences concerning the president’s healthcare proposal.
Let’s consider some of the acts and symbols. Protestors have packed guns outside one of Obama’s town halls. Someone anonymously whitened the president’s face and morphed his image with Batman’s Joker character only to make it a common poster at protests.
Others have dressed Obama as an African witchdoctor with a bone through his nose. Signs accusing Obama of being a Muslim appear. Talk radio host Glenn Beck earlier called the president a “racist.” An organized movement claims the president has never proven his status as a natural born citizen. The unprecedented charge of “You lie!” before a national audience came from a South Carolina Congressman, whose state holds the dubious honor of “first to secede.”
Are these acts racist? “I think so,” says Howard University Political Science Chairman Daryl Harris. “It doesn’t mean it’s wide spread, but there’s an undercurrent there. Some [detractors] are really bothered by this notion that Barack Obama is president.”
Even former President Jimmy Carter said publicly, “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.”
Of course, we’re talking about something that cannot be proven, but to the casual, unbiased observer, race has everything to do with this conflict. Harris speaks of the competing memories of blacks and whites. “Blacks don’t forget, and whites don’t have those experiences,” says Harris. “The white attitude—just get over it—is just unacceptable.”
President Obama has brushed off any serious notion that contempt toward him is borne out of race. During his “full Ginsberg” of Sunday talk show interviews last week, he categorically denied that racial animosities fueled his opposition. “We have to remember,” Obama told CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “during various periods, people get pretty rambunctious when it comes to our democratic debate.” And he simply credits the intensity to the government’s new potential role in a healthcare overhaul. He took it down another casual notch on David Letterman, answering the Late Night host’s question about racism, “In case people hadn’t noticed, I was black before the election.”
Not everyone agrees with Obama’s effort to sidestep these accusations of racism. Social commentator and Georgetown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson took Obama to task on C-Span’s Washington Journal, claiming, “We should deal with race as part of the political landscape.” He calls on Obama to use his bully pulpit to help break down the racial animus in America. Dyson said, “We’ve got the hope, let’s get some audacity.”
Harris, too, expresses a concern. “It’s clearly a widespread perception among the circles of African Americans I am associated with that there’s racial undercurrent in these protests.”
But Obama is taking the political course he sees necessary. Much like he ran a race-neutral campaign, he’s keeping his head up and dodging the race question in order to continue with his agenda. He needs no more beer summits. “Any serious discussion on race will doom his presidency,” says Harris.
It’s unfortunate that the leader who could get that conversation going is forced to join the “nation of cowards” his attorney general spoke of earlier this year. But like Daisy Bates instructed the Little Rock Nine, and surely like Obama has practiced throughout his life, he remains focused, ignoring racial tensions while keeping his eyes on the prize.