Schieffer: Racism underlying Trump's assertions

[cal04]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20058072-503544.html?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea

Donald Trump has moved on from the "birther" conspiracy to allege President Barack Obama didn't get good enough grades to warrant entry to Harvard Law School, an assertion that CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer called absurd on the "CBS Evening News" on Wednesday.

"That's just code for saying he got into law school because he's black. This is an ugly strain of racism that's running through this whole thing. We can hope that kind of comes to an end too, but we'll have to see," Schieffer said.

Trump first raised the issue on Monday with the Associated Press, saying: "I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."


video at link

[Parker CA]

1. Nice to see it on a larger stage. Hopefully more will follow Schieffer's lead. nt

[spooky3]

2. Totally agree.

[elleng]

3. Good to hear this. Thanks for reporting.

[valerief]

4. Uderlying, overlaying, and sandwiching racism. nt

[Glimmer of Hope]

5. I wonder if reporters will start calling Trump out on this.

The BS needs stop.

[UTUSN]

6. K&R #14 for, SHCIEFFER is who bigfooted O'LOOFAH out of CBS N/T

[spanone]

7. k&r for a rare taste of media honesty

[bullwinkle428]

8. K&R for one of the true "old guard" members of the media!

[cal04]

9. Birtherist response highlights racial undertones of ‘debate’

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110427/ts_yblog_theticket/birth-certificate-wont-end-race-related-attacks-on-the-president

(snip)
So what's fueling the dogged questioning of Obama's origins? Many critics of the birther movement say its core tenets--and its stubborn resistance to evidence disproving those beliefs--can be traced to racial hostilities. The fundamental birtherist conviction, these critics say, is that an African-American can't have legitimately won the presidency--and that his elevation to power therefore has to be the result of an elaborate subterfuge.

"There is a real deep-seated and vicious racism at work here in terms of trying to de-legitimate the president," Peniel Joseph, a professor of history at Tufts University, told The Ticket.

"This is more than just a conspiracy," Peniel added. "I think this is fundamentally connected to white supremacism in this country."

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. in early April called for the connection to be publicly drawn between birthers and racism: "So it is time to call this birther nonsense what it is--not just claptrap, but profoundly racist claptrap."



Birthers and the persistence of racial paranoia
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2011/apr/27/barack-obama-obama-administration