Racism in Politics

Sometimes you just have to call it like you see it from your own perspective in the world and I see racism in this election process for President. Something that most die hard liberals would love to concede as a war won in the late sixties and seventies but I dare to disagree and believe it has survived into the new Millenium.

In this great land we all love so much there is extreme racism and it is alive and well in the minds of the elite politicians on the right side of the political aisle. Dare I even say that it goes all the way up to the RNC candidate for President in 08? You can almost sense the “N” word coming out of the mouth of their candidate as if to say how dare he even try and compete with me? All of his commercials play that way? Tell me they don’t? Insert the “N” word wherever he mentions his opponent and you have the message sold to people that simply can not accept the fact that a Harvard graduate at the top of his class is not worthy of being President of the United States because of the color of his skin.

Where did the RNC candidate graduate in his class? Dare I say third from the bottom? Can we raise the bar on the education level needed to be President of the United States from third from the bottom of your class?

And yes, I am playing the race card simply because the Republican Party and their candidate is playing the sexist card. Tit for Tat or is that a sexist comment too? Dare I say Lipstick on a pig is still just a pig when it comes to describing a political issue? A phrase going back decades before Obama was born and used repeatedly in heated Republican debates over many issues in decades past. Is that now a sexist phrase banned from the English political language now because only white, rich, influential and Republican’s politicians can only use it? When your campaign has to reach to the lows of push polls against Jewish voters, Catholic voters, and any weak link in the democrat base that might have well as come from a phone bank of the KKK then I can not vote for John McCain. Even if he had nothing to do with the polling, people backing him did it, are doing it, and will continue to do it. That is not an America my children need to grow up in and it is not something I could ever condone.

Racism is alive and well over at the GOP and it is not just over the color of your skin but the income level you live. They have managed to separate Americans in multiple levels to declare us against them but somehow mask themselves as them when the push polls are issued and warranted in the need to raise votes?

This whole election is coming down to money and the tax cuts for the mega rich that need to be protected and defended at all cost. Or is it more than that? No, I’m pretty sure that Obama cutting the taxes on 90% of the people in America that is going to offset it by returning the tax rates of Bill Clinton is what it is all about. The top 2% of income earners like Warren Buffet (Democrat) will finally pay more percentage points in taxes than someone making $40,000 per year.

In my own life I have been blessed to live among people of many nationalities, colors, and just a diverse community of people. Our children play with our neighbors who are black, white, yellow, green, and blue. Yes, Papa Smurf also lives in my neighborhood and he and I are the best of friends because we do not see the color of a persons skin but the integrity of their heart. I love them all like family and they think the same simply because we are a well knit community of families looking out for one another. It’s the same thing your parents had in the sixties and seventies only the parents and friends just don’t all happen to be white. Their children are my families concern and my children are theirs. No race relations or disharmony here. With us, it’s our kids future and not racial problems of any magnitude. What we have here in the smaller neighborhoods of this major city is something that needs to be built up from the bottom up. Trickle down politics will never instill the spirit needed to foster a neighborly concern and love for all children amongst us. From our young children comes the growing together of the parents and the issues that separate us all that slowly will diminish, fade away, and disappear.

There are serious reasons why people like myself that are middle of the road voters no longer blindly follow one party or the other and it is the mudslinging crap that both sides in this election are so guilty of. Lately, it seems the McCain camp is intent on throwing tons of mud and hoping just one ounce sticks to the wall in one last ditch hope of scaring the electorate into voting for him. I’m not buying it and I voted for Ronald Reagan twice! Bill Weld as Governor, and Mitt Romney as Governor. At least Reagan had the guts to fight the elections on the damn issues and not lies. That is something John McCain is not doing and he is playing cards that he really does not want to hold in his hand as a Maverick. You can’t win a poker game when your Democrat opponent has legitimate cards to play based on the issues and the best you can do is bluff poorly.

When the election is over I hope and pray that we as Americans vote our pocket book and our children’s future. One candidate is offering them one, the other wants to enlist them in the next hundred year war. Not my babies, I hope?

Papamoka

Obama on Racial Tension in America

Maybe I’m just an idiot that just does not or will not ever understand how anyone can be a racist in America. We as a people have come from all shores in our immigration based nation and yet in every couple of generations going all the way back to the first Pilgrims we have always had racism in America? Why? America is the land of opportunity for all so why does hate of a persons heritage exist? Why do people look at the color of a persons skin and stereotype them as the bad guys regardless of never actually getting to know them.

This nation was founded for one nationality and that is that we all are Americans. You can be an Irish American, a Polish American, an English American and an African American and one thing you have in common is that you are all Americans! Your neighbor, your coworkers, your fellow church members, and your elected leaders are all from diverse backgrounds that have made this nation great not because they cherish their personal heritage but because they believe in an America for all.

If you were running for President, would you be liable for what a friend says that for the most part in fact is true but is a divisive topic? Barack Obama is fighting that ownership and I have to agree with the Senator. We are a melting pot society and sometimes the hate surfaces to the top of the pot and spills over. Over at the Washington Post they have this on Obama and the Reverend Wright issue…

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 18, 2008; 2:15 PM

In what his campaign billed as a major speech in Philadelphia, Obama tried to come to grips with the issue of race in his run for the presidency and to reinforce his primary theme that he can help bring fundamental change to the nation. His remarks were aimed at repairing the damage his campaign has suffered from his association with Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and addressing what he called a "particularly divisive turn" in recent weeks as videos of the fiery pastor's sermons have circulated.

Saying that America remains stuck in "a racial stalemate," the Illinois senator said he was not naive enough to believe that the divisions could be overcome in a single election. But he said Americans working together "can move beyond some of our old racial wounds."
He described his own heritage as a biracial American married to a black woman "who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners."

"I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible," Obama declared.

Jumping Ahead…

"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community," Obama told supporters at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." - Washington Post

If you want to call Reverend Wright a racist then by all means do so. That title comes to the Reverend with years of experience of living as a black man in a white mans world in the cheap seats of his local community. While he works to make a better world for his fellow man he has seen the injustices of the world against his fellow man and they are his flock. If I were in his shoes I would be screaming at the rafters in disgust and his pointing this fact of life out is and should be the news. America needs to change its overall look on who Americans are and face the fact that people of color, African, Mexican, Peruvian, Cuban or any other color than white are Americans too!

I for one am a firm believer that you never forget where you came from and Senator Obama’s refusal to send his friend Reverend Wright to the dogs is admirable. Most politicians would have thrown Reverend Jeremiah Wright under the bus as they speeded off to the next campaign stop. What Obama said today is true of the American spirit and that simply is American’s never forget our past and our allies! If that isn’t a hint of Presidential qualities then I do not know what is.

I find it intriguing that people of the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Baptist faith are not bound by the labels that our Pope, Pastors, Rabbi’s, or Ministers are voicing from the pulpit as an individual but Barack Obama is? This was a bomb that was politically motivated to send the same message as the Bush 2000 race. Divide and conquer the voters and it backfired. America is changing year by year and those that refuse to accept that change will look to the past to bring down the leader of change. As the messenger of change in our American government Barack Obama has been the light and the hope for a better tomorrow. He has handled this issue like a true statesman and that is proof of how he will act as President of these United States of America.

Racism is an ugly word and it has no place in what America can be for all of its people. I’m personally blessed to have many people of many different nationalities that are Americans as friends. You get those friends by simply starting off with a hello and enjoy the conversations from there. Much like Smokey the Bear‘s message, only you can end Racism in America.

Papamoka

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Cross posted at MichaelLinnJones.com and Bring It ON!

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