One thing that cannot be said enough about birtherism, afterbirtherism, and all its myriad forms: it is racist at its core. An argument that Obama cannot be who he is — an intelligent, accomplished, American president — because he is an African-American.
Why does the right push the meme that Obama wasn’t born here? Because to admit that he was born in America is to admit that an African-American man, the son of an American woman and a Kenyan man, born in America, is as American as any other American. Why does the right claim that Bill Ayers wrote Dreams From My Father? Because no Black man could possibly have written such an affecting book, because…well, you know. Why does the right still harp on Obama’s use of teleprompters, which have been de rigeur since the Eisenhower Administration? Because obviously Obama isn’t as smart as he so obviously is, because…well, he’s not white, is he?
This is the sick, beating heart at the center of the right’s assault on Obama’s legitimacy. Not their assault on Obama’s policies — though the right is wrong on policy, such disagreements are why we have politics. But their assault on Obama’s very right to serve in the office of president, because that is an office that, though they dare not say it out loud, the believe is reserved for white people.
Let us state this clearly, and let us not shy away from it: those who peddled the birther myth are racists. Those who continue to cling to it, and who cling to all its myriad facets, are racists. Those who have and who continue to insinuate that a man born in America is not a real American are racists.
They are racists. They are racists. They are racists. And if they don’t like being called racists, they should stop being racists. They should be ashamed of their conduct, apologetic for their actions — not “honored” as Donald Trump claimed to be. Their actions bring shame on this country, on Americans as a people, and most certainly, on themselves.
But it does not bring shame upon Barack Obama. As I wrote in 2004, after hearing his address to the Democratic National Convention, his tale is uniquely American. The son of a foreign student and an American woman, born in a nation where Jim Crow still ruled the South, Obama rose to become a state senator, then U.S. senator, and now president. That is the promise of our nation, our country at its very, very best. And the frenetic reaction to his existence by those on the right — that is our country at its very, very worst.
I close, not with my words, but the words of Baratunde Thurston of Jack & Jill Politics, who spoke on his dismay at yesterday’s events.
Omguh! I feel almost the same way. Although when I called out birther-baggers for their racism on “The Atlantic”, someone said I was being too harsh on them.
I actually have a slightly different interpretation of the issue. It’s not so much that Barack Obama is black, because he certainly doesn’t match a racist’s perception of blacks, but that he was born in Hawai’i. Some people, especially the birther-baggers, feel that a place with minority pluralities like Hawai’i or New Mexico are not “truly” part of the union. Never mind that they have stars on our flag, but it upsets them that they are successfully handling their states without the need to be dominated by white people.
There is nothing uniquely American about Obama’s story. The idea that only in America can minorities rise to the highest political office is a form of American exceptionalism.
Although I guess the Jim Crow part of the story is uniquely American.
Why does the right push the meme that Obama wasn’t born here? Because to admit that he was born in America is to admit that an African-American man, the son of an American woman and a Kenyan man, born in America, is as American as any other American.
Why hasn’t the right pushed any similar meme against Herman Cain, Jesse Jackson, JJ Jr., Colin Powell, Angela Davis, Condoleeza Rice, or any other black candidate or potential candidate?
The birthers were crying ‘foreigner’ from pretty much day one of Obama’s candidacy. Why him, and why not all these other black people?
Why does the right claim that Bill Ayers wrote Dreams From My Father? Because no Black man could possibly have written such an affecting book, because…well, you know.
It is a tiny group of people who pushes this story, not “the right”. A larger but still small group finds it plausible in theory, in no small part because the President’s verbal coherence today seems less ringing and genuine than what he putatively wrote in private. And Obama’s serious and serial dishonesty about his relationship with Bill “just a guy in my neighborhood” Ayers adds a patina of plausibility to any conspiracy story that involves Ayers.
Why does the right still harp on Obama’s use of teleprompters, which have been de rigeur since the Eisenhower Administration?
Because it’s an easy score against him; he uses them a lot more than previous Presidents did, and in much more routine speaking environments.
For the benefit of anyone who is deaf, or on a computer with no sound or crappy sound, a transcript of the video at the end of this post is here.
I’m guessing it’s more that they have more of a problem with his Kenyan father than his blackness. This is still racism, but a different kind of racism to what Jeff suggested. (Although I doubt that people would have the same problem with him if his father had been a white, European immigrant rather than a black, African one.)
No, I doubt it. Although that said, I think Arnold took some flak in the gubernatorial race IIRC.
Part of it is that Obama’s dad was black. More of it I think is that Kenya is “different” from the U.S. in some pretty significant ways, so it’s easy to play up those differences. The interesting comparison would have been if his father had been a white NON-European immigrant, preferably from some other country which was viewed as very different from us. Perhaps a blond Russian from Moscow? (What other country could you suggest?). I have to say that giving the right’s willingness to entirely make shit up (swiftboating, anyone?) it’s nor clear they wouldn’t use the argument in such a situation.
Obama’s speeches aren’t as good as they were when he was campaigning, but I charitably (and I think reasonably) assume that he’s busier and has more things on his mind now.
we have different memories. as i recall, several republicans forced a national conversation (though a short-lived one) about whether we should amend the constitution to allow naturalized citizens hold presidential office.
so who has the venn diagram showing the overlap between those who question obama’s citizenship and those who wanted to allow ahnuld to become president?
It’s certainly possible that IRW* but I think IRC, at least in the conversations that I was involved in.
I’d like to see that Venn, though.
*I Recall Wrongly
I don’t have the diagram, but here’s a point: I don’t think Ahnuld should have been allowed to run, and I don’t question Obama’s citizenship.
I think that we ought to allow foreign-born citizens to run for president. And, of course, I never questioned Obama’s citizenship.
—Myca
gin-and-whiskey @9: You’re probably thinking about Gray Davis’s crack that before Arnold became governor of California he ought to learn how to pronounce it. I don’t recall even the most rabid Arnold-hater thinking that was funny. It probably wasn’t the only reason Davis was booted, but it was definitely a big factor.
“so who has the venn diagram showing the overlap between those who question obama’s citizenship and those who wanted to allow ahnuld to become president?”
Probably not many. The birthers would probably have seen Arnold as a RINO, for his belief in the existence of global warming if nothing else.
Foreign-born citizens are currently eligible for US presidency, as long as they are also natural-born citizens. It is naturalized citizens who are not eligible. Yes, it is possible to be a natural-born citizen of the US even if you were not born in the US.
Good point.
I think that naturalized citizens ought to be eligible for the US presidency.
—Myca
Well, as Robert pointed out, “the right” didn’t – a small number of people did. And it seems that the idea was originally pushed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, hardly a bastion of the right. Do you figure, then, that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was infested with racists too?
I think why the whole issue got legs and became a controversy was that candidate Obama tried to sidestep the question by either ignoring it or calling into question the motives of the questioner. When a political candidate is asked a question and he or she tries to redirect it instead of answering it, it fuels suspicion.
Myca:
Why?
Good luck on getting that one past 3/4 of the State legislatures, BTW.
Ron, I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to say that Hillary Clinton’s campaign started the birthers. Some of her supporters did, but as far as I know there is nothing solid linking Mrs. Clinton to the effort.
Pingback: The End of ‘Birtherism’? « Dialogic Magazine
Hm. What did the candidate know and when did she know it? But that’s a fair enough qualification and I accept the correction.
RonF: Clinton’s campaign also ended the legitimate inquiry into Obama’s birth – that is, in the dirt-digging process, found that yes indeed, he was born in Hawaii, and dropped that particular line of attack. Astonishingly this wasn’t, and still isn’t, enough for birthers.
RonF at 10. I don’t have the time this evening, but I would enormously suspicious of a blog post without anything other than vague cites and name dropping, without links, and with comments disabled. The article looks like linkbait to me, and not legitimate news. I’ll be verifying the Snopes claim at the very least. The rest of it looks like the same old mish mash of birther garbage that I’ve already debunked sufficiently, and which has no actual evidence to back up any of the claims.
And Amp. Hell, yeah, it’s racist. Nauseatingly, abundantly racist in that special, special American way. How the hell anyone could see “the Donald” as a legitimate candidate for anything higher than dog catcher astounds me… but that the guy got traction by going after Obama’s legitimacy disgusts me.
Me:
RonF:
Because I think that the choice someone’s made to adopt this country as his or her own is more important than an accident of birth, and I think fears of foreign-born cuckoos infiltrating the highest reaches of our government are paranoid nonsense of the sort that only the most gullible sort of buffoon would entertain.
I’m not talking about the likelihood of this passing any sort of vote or amendment (as the birther conspiracy proves, America is full of gullible buffoons ready to believe the most transparent bullshit), and it’s not a big deal or much of an important issue for me, but yeah, I think that naturalized citizens ought to be eligible.
Incidentally, the only naturalized citizen I’m aware of who’s expressed any interest in the presidency is Arnold, who I wouldn’t vote for, so this isn’t about any specific candidate for me.
—Myca
Maureen, I agree with your evaluation of The Donald. I actually do get sucked into watching The Apprentice once in a while. It’s entertaining. But how anyone would see him as Presidential material is beyond me. I wouldn’t have thought that his birtherism was particular racist – his ego is so inflated that it would have sufficed to account for his pursuit of this issue. But I’ve heard other things about his attitudes that at least leave open the possibility that racism on his part might account for some of it.
If you think there’s anything special about racism in America you need to travel outside this country for a while.
Myca, back in Nixon’s day, especially after Spiro Agnew resigned the V.P. spot, there was talk of how replacing him with Henry Kissinger might have moved forward if he had not been ineligible due to this Constitutional provision.
Sure, it makes sense that the provision would have prevented some bad people from seeking office. It’s also almost certainly prevented some good people from seeking office. And I’ll emphasize again that this now makes two cases in which this would have aided my ideological opponents, and none that I know of where it would have helped my allies, so this isn’t partisan for me.
What it comes down to for me is two relevant questions.
1) Do we want to be a democratic republic, or what? If we do, then when most of our citizens want someone to be president, I think he ought to be.
2) Do we think that your choices or your parents’ choices are the most important thing about you? I pick your choices.
I’m in favor of the residency requirement and a general ‘citizenship’ requirement, because I think if you want to be president you need to unambiguously ‘choose’ the US, but I just don’t see any dangers a naturalized citizen might present that a natural-born citizen wouldn’t.
—Myca
Myca:
There’s a lot of people who don’t like the idea of someone becoming President who, citizen or not, spent much of their formative years growing up in a non-American culture. That’s what makes a lot of people uncomfortable about Obama. Sure, some try to paint him as a sleeper agent for socialism or Islam. But that’s a very (vocal and) small minority. But there’s a much more broadly-based view that this affected him to the point that they just don’t think he’s committed to American culture as being the best in the world. That effect would be even greater for someone who wasn’t born as an American citizen at all.
People choose to become American citizens for all kinds of reasons. It’s safer to live here than a lot of other countries. Water is cleaner, property rights are much more strictly observed. You can make money and raise your kids. But as any cop in a big city with a lot of immigrants can tell you, that doesn’t mean that they buy into American culture or are committed to the values called out in the DoI or the rights defended by the Constitution.
Yeah, I don’t think I’d have wanted Mr. Realpolitik to become President either.
Good grief. It’s the immigrants who become the rabid flag-waving My Country Right Or Wrong types, as any cop in any big city with a lot of immigrants can tell you. Or anyone who’s not a cop, really. The last time I lived in a place where most of the neighbors were browner than me, on the Fourth of July you couldn’t turn around without bumping your head on a red-white-and-blue somethingorother.
As for loyalty to the Old Country, nobody today mutters darkly about the divided loyalties of the Irish with their enormous St. Paddy’s Day parades.
That said, I don’t have a huge problem with requiring ‘natural-born citizens’, if only because the requirements for naturalization are so prone to change and abuse. It’s also another argument against abolishing birthright citizenship.
As for loyalty to the Old Country, nobody today mutters darkly about the divided loyalties of the Irish with their enormous St. Paddy’s Day parades.
I do. Fucking micks, coming over here a hundred years ago and taking our jobs.
I don’t have any commitment to that idea — more to the point, I strongly disagree with it — and I was born in New York City, which is as American a place as you can find.[*] Being born here is no guarantee of nationalism.
[*] Like everyplace else in the USA.
Robert @27: I know, right? Waving all those green flags instead of the good old Stars and Stripes.
But as any cop in a big city with a lot of immigrants can tell you, that doesn’t mean that they buy into American culture or are committed to the values called out in the DoI or the rights defended by the Constitution.
Some of those cops don’t buy into the rights defended by the Constitution either.
http://www.theagitator.com/2011/04/29/when-donald-trump-didnt-need-proof/
Why Trump really shouldn’t be President– he did a lot to amplify irrational fear of teenagers, with destructive consequences.
Sure, and those choices and the reasons for them can get evaluated at the ballot box. I do think that actively making the choice to be American is a point in favor of naturalized citizens.
Me, you, Ampersand … we’re all just American through an accident of history. It costs us nothing. We’ve had to pass no tests. It took literally zero effort for us to be American. Someone who sets out, studies the constitution, weighs their options, and decides that being an American citizen is better than the alternatives? That sounds like exactly the sort of person you’d want to be president.
—Myca
I just keep coming back to this statement and staring in disbelief.
I’m still trying to imagine why a cop would know the opinions of anyone on her beat about whether or not troops should be billeted in people’s houses.
Oh those immigrants, they don’t believe they should have 4th amendment protections against searches and seizures. They don’t believe that they shouldn’t be forced to testify against themselves. They don’t believe they should be free to practice their silly foreign religions, to assemble in public, or to have freedom of the press. They don’t think they should be allowed to organize a militia. They don’t believe in speedy trials by jury, and they’re in favor of cruel and unusual punishment. Any cop could tell you all that.
Yeah. The remark sounds suspiciously as if it’s suggesting something along the lines of “they won’t speak English and they eat weird food and don’t play Top 40 radio so clearly they don’t support American values.”
From Salon: Is Obama “American” enough for the far right now? It’s worth a read.
Fucking immigrants, always insisting on quartering soldiers in private homes during wartime!
Elusis @34: It’s not suggesting, it’s getting on top of a mountain and shouting it with a bullhorn.
Taken from this article. Emphases mine.
Best. Comment. Ever.