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Marc2b -> RE: What I predicted last month has started, no end in sight. (11/9/2008 11:15:48 PM)
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Thoughts of this nature have been on my mind for the last few days so I thank you MzMia for a chance to rant a little.
I started paying attention to Presidents and national politics during the Carter Administration. I was pretty young back then (I was eleven when carter took office and thirteen when the Iranian Hostage Crisis made me sit up and take real notice of national and international politics for the first time) but, through five Administrations (two Democratic, three Republican) two things have held true: The speech from the party not holding the Presidency ranges from reasoned criticism to raving lunacy. The responding speech of the party with the Presidency ranges from reasoned counter arguments to raving lunacy. The Obama Administration will see nothing different save for two significant exceptions: Some of the raving lunatics on one side will make genuinely nasty racists remarks. Some of the raving lunatics on the other side will scream “RASCIST!” at any criticism of President Obama’s policies and actions.
Your contention that there has been some vitriol aimed at President Elect Obama is correct – there are some sore losers out there. I haven’t seen any outright racist attacks. It is a big message board, I’ll grant you, but in the threads I’ve visited I’ve yet to have a post jump out at me and make me say, “Whoa, that was blatant racism.”
Slvemike4u mentioned some threads where he felt that the “the prospect of assassination is discussed rather lightly” and where “one poster suggested recalling the newly elected President 70 some odd days before he takes the oath of office.”
I don’t recall seeing the thread about recalling President Elect Obama but that just sounds like sour grapes to me. I do recall some posts discussing the possibility of assassination and here the matter of perception comes into play. I didn’t see them as treating the subject lightly; I saw them as simply making a dispassionate analyses of a very real possibility. Let’s face the facts: there are some real looney tune, white supremacist nutballs out there. Klu-klux-klan types, and neo - God gave America to the white man – nazi types, and the white militia types that like to run around the forest with guns preparing for the great race war. They will look upon this election as the beginning of Armageddon. People have been taking shots at presidents for a long time but this time, whether we like it or not, there is the added element of racism. It is a topic of legitimate discussion as well as legitimate concern. We can only hope that the Secret Service (and probably the FBI as well) will keep a sharp eye on the looney bastards (in fact, I'm willing to bet that some very brave souls are currently - and probably already have been - at work infiltrating these groups).
The question for anti-racists though is: do we expect everybody to post disclaimers that they are not racists every time they discuss our new President in any way that can be perceived as negative? It seems most unfair to me to expect that of people. It is a form of bigotry in its own right. Short of blatant racism (racists words, crude racial stereotypes, etc.), people should be given the benefit of the doubt.
So where do we go from here? Actual, obvious racism should be called for the bullshit that it is. Of all the human banes racism is the most stupid. It is unscientifically supported (when it comes to humans there is in fact only one race - the human race). It is an ugly left over from our ancient tribal past when anything unknown, anything different, was consider dangerous, or at least suspect. An inborn attitude that may have serve our species well when we still lived in caves and every day truly was a struggle to survive but now inflicts us with the social maladies of not just racism but a whole host of bigoted attitudes. Human beings, however, are not just a collection of animal instincts. We also posses the unique ability to reason and reason shows us that racism is not only unethical but a self defeating attitude for a society.
Likewise I think we should call bullshit on those who fling the racist label around without any foundation to do so. Ever since I joined Collarme, I have seen people fling words like stupid and ignorant around quite casually – particularly on the Off Topic Threads. I’ve given into the temptation myself a few times (I never ever make any claims to purity or perfection), but it is par for the course. People can get quite heated about politics and everybody has button issues. Hell, I once got called ignorant for dissing a particular State’s strawberries. You have to let that kind of shit roll of your back. Besides, if you think about it, since none of us is omniscient, all of us are ignorant about some things. Calling, or even implying, somebody is a racist is something else again. It is an attack upon their character and needs to be supported. It has already happened to me once and if it happens again I will call bullshit on it again. I find it particularly offensive because to call me a racist is to tell me that I don’t love certain people in my life that I love dearly. Not just close friends but family as well (some by marriage, some by birth and some by adoption).
I’ve said this before folks but I’m saying it again: if you only know a person by what they post here on the Collarme Boards then you only know a tiny piece of them – which means you don’t really know them at all. There are people on these boards I generally avoid getting into political discussions with because I know that we will just end up spinning around and around, rehashing old arguments and neither convincing the other of anything new – but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be good company to sit on a back porch and drink beer with.
Thanks again MzMia for giving me a chance to vent a little. I envy you a little being able to attend the inauguration live (I presume you are) because the simple fact of the matter is, the inauguration of America’s first black President is a historic event. I plan on taking the day off from work and watching on t.v.
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