A couple of weeks ago, I published a very controversial post titled “Maybe We Should Have Elected a White President After All” about the ongoing, possibly growing racism in connection with Obama’s presidency. The idea that a lot of the anti-Obama, including anti-health care reform, rhetoric and action was racially motivated was understood by some and rejected by others who seem to not want to see any significant racism in the mix. This was parallel to the head in the sand reaction to my earlier post on the the arrest of Skip Gates in Cambridge Massachusetts last July.

There are those of us who have been saying all along that racism has played a role in anti-Obama sentiment. Does this mean that we think people who supported Hillary instead were all racists? No. Hell, they were Democrats. The vast majority were not orienting their politics in an overtly racist manner, choosing Clinton over Obama because Obama is black (though some were, as you will see below). Does it mean that we think that every objection to an Obama policy is racist? No. There are many valid objections, depending on one’s point of view, to various policies by Obama. Hell, Obama is a smart guy. He probably objects to some of his own policies! Does it mean that we think that every utterly unprecedented outburst of “You Lie!!!!!” in congress by a known racist from South Carolina during a Presidential address to the Joint Session of the House and Senate is a racist act? Well, duh…

Over the last few days the left of center and centrist/moderate wings of the mainstream press have gotten on board with this and have begun to discuss issues of racism in the current health care debate. As usual, the liberal blogosphere leads!!!

Anyway, I thought it would be fun (in a “this whole thing makes me kind of nauseated” kind of way) to compile a random grab bag, ordered in time, of racist bits and pieces from way back before the election up to recent times. Even more recent bits and pieces on this important discussion can be found by just paging back through this blog over the last two days or so.

The reason for doing this is to have a post to point to when people say “Oh yeah? What racism!!!11!!”

Here we go:
Continue reading A Trail of Shame: Racism and the Anti-Obama Movement →