It’s a Great Time to Be Racist
It’s a Great Time to Be Racist
By Nsenga Burton
The racial climate is suffocating and getting worse. Every other week, another politician or pundit is apologizing for making what he or she keeps calling inappropriate comments about President Obama. But what these people call inappropriate, insulting or partisan, I call racist — a term that describes abusive or aggressive behavior toward a member of another race based on the belief that some races have an intrinsic superiority over others. If this is not what we’re witnessing, then I don’t know what it is. — Nsenga Burton
Racists have officially lost their minds. In recent weeks, the venom spewed at President Barack Obama would leave one to believe that we are in the midst of a racist renaissance. “A dick,” “jackass,” “tar baby, “your boy” — you name it and the president has been called it. For some reason, some people are so enraged by how this country is purportedly being run that they cannot separate a real critique of the president’s decisions from mean-spirited name-calling related to his race.
Yes, the country that likes to pretend that it is far removed from its racist past has engaged in the verbal equivalent of a throwback jersey. Some people have reached far back into that Reconstruction-era closet, pulled out that dingy jersey adorned with racial slurs, shaken it out and put it on proudly. Elected officials have reduced themselves to behaving like petulant children, storming in and out of meetings and running to the media to lob personal attacks at the president, then offering lame apologies shortly afterward.