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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
Not necessarily an lgbt issue per se but an important one as far as I am concerned.
Turns out that President Carter's statement about how racism plays a part in the criticism of President Obama has a supporter – Bill Cosby:
I agree with President Carter that racism is playing a role in recent outbursts against President Obama. During President Obama’s speech on the status of health care reform, some members of congress engaged in a public display of disrespect. While one Representative hurled the now infamous “you lie” insult at the President, others made their lack of interest known by exhibiting rude behavior such as deliberately yawning and sending text messages.
Health care reform is the most important domestic issue facing America today. Disease does not discriminate. African American, White, Asian, Latino, Republican, Democrat, no one in America is immune. So it seems obvious that a debate on health care reform should not include views born solely of partisanship or bigotry.
Various polls prior to the election indicated that between five and ten percent of Americans would never vote for an African American president. That number, of course, only includes those who actually admitted to their prejudice. How many others harbored such feelings but did not respond honestly when asked the question? And how many people oppose Obama’s plan because the President is African American?
In “Birth of a Nation,” D.W. Griffith used white actors in black face to portray black legislators as having low intelligence and acting like fools. Today, we have a band of real life congressional fools seemingly bent on blocking any meaningful reform of the health care system. But if we allow even one American to die simply because he or she cannot afford treatment, we are creating a shameful scenario that could aptly be called “Death of a Nation.”
Cosby, because of his harsh assessment of some behaviors of my fellow African-Americans a while back, had been a cause celebre of some conservatives. In several speeches he has come down hard on some black parents concerning the morals instilled in their children and also has made criticism regarding the goals and aspirations of some black youth.
Those on the right salivated over the idea of a black man criticizing his own community, quickly placing Cosby as a “substitution” for such black leaders as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, while ignoring the fact that both Jackson and Sharpton have also made the same type of statements regarding the black community.
No doubt Cosby's recent statements will end the love affair that some on the right have with him.
Of course reasonable people will assess Cosby's past and present comments as proof of the complexities of race and self-empowerment in America.
Too bad there seems to be a dearth of reasonable people in America these days.
11 Comments
But they’ll lose funding if they don’t…. PS I want to tell everyone with medical bills they cannot afford to send copies to their Congressmen.. Imagine what would hit their offices.
It’s an LGBT issueas long as people think it is okay to excoriate, mock or even act violently against someone who (not all that) different from ones’ self. Likewise. To paraphrase,
Dignity denied anywhere is dignity denied everywhere.
Ultimately, it’s a human being thing. Dammit, we should all understand!
It’s also an LGBT issuebecause (as Alvin has pointed out before) you could substitute the word “black” for the word “homosexual” in their critiques. The arguments are almost exactly the same.
While I strongly agree with both Jimmy Carter and Bill Cosby, I also don’t like the turn this is taking because of the possibility that it could descend to the “all criticism of Obama and his policies are racist” argument.
Definitely an LGBT issueThis is most definitely an LGBT issue. I’ll often here arguments in our community where someone will say things like…we need to be concerned about ‘our own’ issues before we deal with others like race or minority concerns (usually made by a caucasion).
The thing is, that kind of ignorance mutes voices in our communities and denies the true make-up that includes people of many different ethnicities, races, religion, etc. So yes, this is most certainly and LGBT issues.
As I’ve noted before,there are plenty of sound, valid reasons to be unhappy with Obama. It speaks volumes about the “teabag” pinheads and their surrogates in congress that they don’t seem to know what those are but instead seem to spend every waking hour fabricating thinly-veiled (and some not so thinly-veiled) racist nonsense about socialism, czars and all the rest.
Rachel did a good piece a few nights ago about the way these reactionary fools have crawled out of the woodwork to attack every Democratic president in memory. But I’ve never seen a level of viciousness and entrenched ignorance that could approach what we’re seeing now.
Cosby, lord knows, can be smug, condescending and arrogant to the point of abrasiveness. But he sure has this one nailed.
I don’t mind the socialist argument at all, in factI mean, Obama is far from a socialist, but FDR (as Obama has pointed out) was accused of being a socialist. If they could strictly stay on the socialist theme, then the “racist” part of the argument could only go so far (and in fact there was a subtle racial undertone even to the arguments made against FDR).
But what that has to do with Obama being an “Indonesian Muslim terrorist” (to take simply one of many many examples) is…nothing but racism.
The thing with republicansthey have blatant racists
they have silence condoning the blatant racists
and NONE who are denouncing the blatant racists.
Obama and his surrogates need to stick the blatant racists on the hip of those silent Republicans, and point blank demand they denounce it.
If they refuse, there is public record of their refusal.
And they have closet queensTONS of Closet queens
I think that’s what is most offensive to meas a white person: There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be leveled against this administration’s policies.
I am embarrassed for my race by this ‘Indonesian Muslin terrorist’ crap. Because all it screams is, ‘I’m too stupid to read a bill or even a summary of its effects’.
Racial thinking as a substitute for actual thinking? Not our proudest moment.
I mean, even (and especially) from a conservative viewpointthere are legitimate criticisms of the Obama Administration’s policies. Hell, break out with the playbook from the Clinton Administration. Or any Democratic Administration going back to the time of FDR.
The problem is that ALOT of the argument, even the policy based arguemtns, have an element of racism. There is dinfately racism being hurled Obama’s way, but it also lies at the heart of much of the policy based anger comming from the right. Its just that no one is talking about that part of the problem.
White resentment is choking the life out of every aspect of our political discourse and the GOP is exploiting it for its own purposes.