A southern conservative lawmaker breaks decorum and hollers “you lie,” at the president in Congress. Protesters display guns at venues where the president is speaking. And a movement arises alleging that the president’s birth certificate is forged.
To some, it is clear that the burgeoning opposition to US President Barack Obama is rooted in racism, driven by whites’ discomfort with the fact that the US is now led by a black American president.
A series of Democratic lawmakers and political columnists have pointed to the trends — the heckling, the gun-toting, the preachers leading congregations in prayers that Obama will die — and warned of the danger therein.
‘HATRED’
“There’s something loose in the land, an ugliness and hatred directed toward Barack Obama, the nation’s first African American president, that takes the breath away,” columnist Colbert King wrote in the Washington Post.
To New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, the South Carolina Republican’s cry of “You lie!” showed that Obama is “at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension.”
“This president is the ultimate civil rights figure — a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe,” Dowd wrote.
Searching for the root of angry outbursts by white, middle-aged to elderly Americans at lawmakers’ town hall meetings on healthcare reform over the summer, Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel also pointed to racism.
“Some Americans have not gotten over the fact that Obama is president of the United States. They go to sleep wondering, ‘How did this happen?’” Rangel said earlier this month.
Other black Democratic lawmakers have concurred.
But to Obama opponents, whenever a Democrat cries “racist,” it is nothing more than a political ploy to muffle dissent.
‘INTIMIDATION’
“It is an intimidation tactic. When you make that attack and call someone racist or homophobic it is a way to kind of silence them,” said Brendan Steinhauser, grassroots coordinator for FreedomWorks, which organized the first large-scale protest against Obama in Washington over the weekend.
“This movement is made up of people who oppose big government,” said Steinhauser, describing the tens of thousands of protesters who converged on Washington.
“The idea that people are trying to bring race into this is absolutely ridiculous,” Steinhauser said.
Some at the protest carried posters depicting Obama as The Joker character from Batman or wearing a mustache like Adolf Hitler’s, and there were signs decrying the arrival of socialism and banners pledging to defend the nation against government intrusion.
No personal weapons were on view, but one protester was seen hoisting a sign that showed a picture of a handgun, and the words: “Come and get it sunshein [sic].”
Those kinds of displays, even though they come from a minority of the movement, concern some experts.
“Clearly they are trying to portray Obama as an ‘other,’ as a foreigner who is going to try to hand the country over to aliens,” said Gary Weaver, a professor of cross-cultural communications at American University.
“That means from their point of view they are defending the country. They can dehumanize Obama,” he said, warning that such sentiments can encourage fringe radicals to act out.
“People who have used violence for political reasons are people who are afraid and believe somehow they are protecting their nation and their God,” he said.
PRO-MILITIA
The Southern Poverty Law Center last month released data that shows a resurgence of the “Patriot” and pro-militia movements of the 1990s, a period marked by the deadly standoff between arms-hoarding Branch Davidians and the FBI in Waco, Texas, and the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.
“A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man,” the center said.
But one of the protesters at the weekend, a black American fellow with the black conservative group Project 21, said she saw no cause for concern.
“All of this started with the bailouts last fall, the government takeover of the banks and the auto industry. Now they are trying to co-opt health care,” said Deneen Borelli, dismissing talk of racial overtones as “utter nonsense.”
The White House has also downplayed the question of racism in the opposition movement, much the way the politically savvy candidate Obama did when seeking presidential office.
Asked on CNN on Sunday whether the president agreed with those who say attacks against him are based on race, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs replied: “I don’t think the president believes that people are upset because of the color of his skin.”
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
RSS