Is it racism or is it really xenophobia?

[begin_within]

Republicans were able to accept both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State, seemingly with no problem. Attacks on Obama seem to me more about his origin and early life outside the U.S. (Indonesia and some foreign place called Hawai'i or something) and that he's an Arab or a Muslim or from Kenya or something like that - underlying all of these is the implication that he's non-American. Is this what it's really about, that he's somehow "not American" or is it really about his racial background?

[endarkenment]

1. Wait a sec my dog wandered and I need to go whistle her in.

It is the n-word. Making obama into an a-rab is just amplifying the 'not one of us' dogwhistle.

[Zuiderelle]

2. Americans didn't vote for Powell or Rice. I think it's definitely racism, but ...

it's racism against him being African American (true) AND Arab/Muslim (false). Bush has made it ok for right-wingers to be racist against Muslims, so now they have an excuse to express the extreme racism that they actually feel anyway, even if there was NO fear of Obama being Muslim.

[begin_within]

3. fine, except that Muslim isn't a race

I could convert to Islam and that doesn't change my race

[Zuiderelle]

8. Gee, that's why I said Arab/Muslim. I didn't say that Islam was a race.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. So you're just being purposefully obtuse?

Where do you expect that to get you?

[dmallind]

5. I tend to go with the OP more I think

The concept of race is certainly not absent but I think it's deeply subordinated to the "not one of us" Unamerican blather. Black men and heck even black women are OK to MOST (not all) Republicans as long as they are evangelically Christian, overtly patriotic to the point of jingoism, and have a caricature-like attitude toward Muslims, Europeans and anybody who has read more than a couple of books. Heck Rice for all her faults is a genuinely intellectual person. Powell is no way a dumbass either - but they are both (and so are white equivalents so no racism in this detail at least) valued and respected because they eschew nuance and introspection in their pronouncements. I think the anti-Obama stuff is far more based on his downright treasonous ability to actually think about global issues in more than one dimension than because he's not entirely Caucasian.

[Median Democrat]

4. Xenophobia - Foreigness - Also Allays Republican Fears of Latino Immigrants

[noiretextatique]

6. it's both

there have been some great articles about the rw's attack on the civil rights movement and its leaders. the attacks on obama are just a continuation of that cultural war.

[Solomon]

7. Aw jeez, here we go again. What is it with people in this country?

The whole world knows what and who we are: the last bastion of white supremacy on the planet. Only in the heart of white supremacy can there exist doubt as to whether we are racist.

One of the great tricks of white supremacy: name a Clarence Thomas, Condaleeza Rice or Colin Powell to something and then sit back and watch people's head explode about whether there's racism anymore.

What a joke.

Let me ask you this. Do you think the republicans are great feminists since they appointed Palin as Vice Presidential nominee?

Jeez Looueze. There are racism deniers just like there are holocaust deniers.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

14. While I agree with you

that we are racist, we are hardly the "last bastion of white supremacy". Go to France or some other European countries and see how Arabs are treated there. It's just as bad if not worse than Arabs and blacks are treated here.

[onetiredmom]

9. I agree. And thank you for saying this.

Of course, there will be alot of people who don't vote for him because he is black.

But in my area, they won't vote for Obama because he is a Dem. They wouldn't vote for ANYONE who is Dem, no matter how qualified or how famous or charming or if he/she was white or whatever; it's the DEM they don't like, not the Black. They may really believe in McCain, or they would vote for anyone running as a Repub. I don't think you can just state across the board that anyone who doesn't vote for Obama is a racist.

There are also people who will vote for him simply because he is black, just as there were those who voted for HRC because she was a woman. It cuts both ways.

[TooRaLoo]

10. Both. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Barack Obama is neither Arab, nor Muslim, nor Kenyan.

It's racism.

[SKKY]

13. 6 of one, half-dozen of the other...

[AlCzervik]

15. racism thinly disguised as xenophobia?

[Zuiderelle]

19. Exactly.

I could have used so fewer words than I did. :thumbsup:

[dchill]

16. It's racism, it's xenophobia...

it's fear-mongering. It's anything to cover up what it really is: Class war against most of us.

[rucky]

17. Racism couched in xenophobia, shrouded in bigotry, nestled in hatred. n/t

[political_Dem]

18. Both.

It is also a backlash against multi-culturalism. Just think that it took forty-four years before some white people got a little testy about civil rights when there was more than 400 years of enslavement on the parts of people of color.

[onetiredmom]

20. I thought this was an interesting column about the election and race

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/falkenberg/6056712.html

[Hansel]

21. Same difference.

Have you ever heard them complain about European or Canadian immigrants?

[LooseWilly]

22. Is it racism/xenophobia on whose part?

As far as the Republican leadership is concerned, it seems to be mostly just that Obama isn't willing to take marching orders from... them. Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice have shown themselves to be quite willing to "pimp themselves", so to speak, out to the "Establishment". In other words, they are willing to play along and fit themselves into the "machine" that is the Republican Party, and all the affiliates that ride along with the Republicans.

As far as the call to the rank and file mouth-breathing Republican masses, it's both racism and xenophobia... which, in my opinion, is really just two sides of the same coin. One includes foreigners, and the other includes "domestics" who don't look like one. Realistically, both are knee-jerk hostility reactions to "other-ness". It can be color, ethnicity, religion, nationality... hell, it can even be gender or sexual orientation (at which point it can even apply to members of one's own family).

Of course, that sort of intellectualizes it. To put it into specifically Afro-American terms (since you're citing specifically Afro-Americans), Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice fit the metaphorical mold of "Uncle Tom"s (allusion to a character from harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin"), while Obama, by not bothering to get the approval and not working within the "Establishment" as have Rice and Powell, is "Other".
On the other hand, if Obama had worked diligently for a Bush, then he'd obviously not be the scary community organizer/Boogey man that he has chosen to be. I mean, if he hasn't worked for a Bush, how can we trust him?...

[onetiredmom]

27. So are you saying

that anyone who doesn't vote for Obama is racist? What if they vote on social issues like abortion or gay rights? Or what if they have always voted a straight Repub ticket? There's only one answer for not voting for Obama?

[LooseWilly]

28. I'm not saying racism is the only factor.

I was just trying to get at the issue of racism vs. xenophobia with regards to the anti-Obama excitement/enthusiasm(?) that's currently being fanned.

If they vote on issues like abortion or gay rights, and they vote against Obama, I am perfectly prepared to hurl a variety of epithets at "them", though racism would probably not be amongst said epithets (I do still think xenophobia would apply in the case of a gay rights oriented voter).
If they've always voted a straight Repub ticket, then they obviously aren't bothering to think about anything... intellectual laziness and racism/xenophobia are not the same thing (though, they are certainly not mutually exclusive). If they're voting Republican because they're hoping for the implementation of a set of Jeebus-Freak policies... then "their" intolerance isn't a racial matter, so much as a religious bigotry.

I could go on. There are probably innumerable reasons not to vote for Obama. I can't help but suspect that the vast majority of PUMAs who won't vote for him are being influenced by racism... but I certainly wouldn't rule out other possibilities.

After all, in 2000 I voted for Nader. Not so much because I liked any of his policies (he's not a candidate who seems to be able to make his views coherent without a hell of a lot of intellectual work bordering on contortion on the part of those wanting to support him), but because
A) I believed in doing my part to combat the straight jacket that is the 2 party system in this country, and
B) Because Gore's wife went on a crusade against the "offensive" musicians that I was listening to at the time... and he never apologized.

[elkston]

23. Its racsim. Period. Obama is running for the TOP job. To be the LEADER ...

and representative of America. Its different from someone being appointed to a subordinate position.

[Carolina]

24. No the difference is Obama is not republican

and he's kickin repuke ass. If he were in their camp, they'd love him like their few other tokens.

Thurgood Marshall had utter disdain for Clarence Thomas. It was a black for a black but Uncle Thomas wasn't fit to occupy Marshall's place. In fact, Marshall likened Clarence Thomas to a snake, saying a snake is a snake -- black or white.

Obama is like Justice Marshall while those liars Colin and Condi are snakes... just as duplicitous, slimy and evil as the repukes they have alligned themselves with.

[quakerboy]

25. is there some reason

it can't be both?

[elkston]

26. No reason, I suppose. 30% Xenophobia, 70% racism

...Amongst those who arguments against Barack is that he is a Muslim / Scary / Secretive, etc...