For months, I have been puzzled by the “birthers,” unwilling to believe there were that many gullible fellow citizens who believed the President was not born in the U.S. According to one poll, more than 40 percent of Republicans held that view. I thought to myself: Why go out on a limb for such an extreme view when all the President has to do is to release a copy of his birth certificate? It made no sense.
Then, all of a sudden last week, things began to click. It’s not really about the birth certificate at all because even when the President announced the release of his birth certificate – long form, no less — showing he was born in Hawaii, some “birthers” didn’t back down. Comedienne Paula Poundstone quipped that now they were demanding the placenta. Some claimed that the certificate was a forgery, but others, led by Donald Trump, just shifted ground: They are now questioning the President’s intelligence and academic qualifications.
Trump reportedly alleged that Obama was not a good student and, if so, then how did he get into Columbia and Harvard, he asks? And how did he become President of the Harvard Law Review? Hard to believe that Trump could come up with something so bizarre, but attack politics has always played out in the twilight zone. And I would bet anything there are a sizeable number of people who are now going to jump on that bandwagon.
In case that doesn’t work, though, there’s always the Muslim card to play. Case in point: Fox News recently reported that the President failed to issue an Easter Proclamation although he did issue statements on major Islamic holidays during 2010. Fox failed to note that no President over the past 20 years has issued an Easter Proclamation. Nor did they mention that the President had a Prayer Breakfast at the White House on Easter, and he and his family attended Easter services at a local Baptist Church.
Do you think this line of questioning would be happening if the President were not African-American? I think we all know the answer to that. What this campaign of vilification is all about is de-legitimatizing Obama’s right to be President of the United States. Social etiquette no longer allows us to say he is not qualified because he is African American. So, the racists have to come up with other reasons for accomplishing that same goal: Questioning his citizenship, his academic credentials, his religion, for example.
While at the FAA, I remember listening to a Civil Rights champion of the 1960s — whose name I have forgotten — speaking at a Black History Month celebration. She said racism was still very much with us. It had just gone underground and gussied itself up with the exterior trappings of social correctness and thus was harder to spot. It’s almost easier to face the fire hoses and Bull Connor’s police dogs, she said; at least you knew who your enemies were.
Still, they’re not that hard to spot — especially the extreme cases — if you’re paying attention at all. But, it’s one thing for opponents to question the President’s birthplace, but when they now shift ground and question the intelligence of arguably the most intellectual President we have ever had, certainly in recent memory, they’ve let their mask down and revealed who they really are.
As heavyweight champion Joe Louis once famously said, “They can run but they can’t hide.”
Gerald E. Lavey
Don't know if you recall, but in my time at FAA the office had two outstandingly competent African-American secretaries. I asked a personnel specialist, herself African-American, to meet with the three of us. My object was to put together a training program that would qualify them for professional jobs (air traffic control among them). But neither of them followed through. My suspicion was that as mothers they were too short of time and/or money. But it's also quite possible that they had been so conditioned to low self-esteem by a racist society that they were afraid to try for something that they doubted, wrongly, that they could manage. Anyway, sad story.
ReplyDeleteRIGHT ON, BROTHER!!! Well said and point well taken. My sentiments EXACTLY!!!
ReplyDeleteAnn
Jerry -- I don't recall the specific case you mentioned,but I'll bet if I thought long enough I could come up with the names of the two secretaries you tried to help. I think your point is well taken: Even in the mid to late 70s when you were at the FAA, the idea of an African-American woman moving up to a professional position from a secretarial slot would have seemed unrealistic to an African American. I remember an African-American woman, Vi Flowers, who had a law degree -- but not, mind you, from one of the "acceptable law schools" and didn't "qualify" for a position on the Chief Counsel's staff. She labored at some kind of elevated secretarial position, as I recall. Sad time.
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