Racism and the POTUS

Hollywood is full of liberals. As is said, everyone is entitled to his opinion. But in Hollywood, the liberals dominate.

Shortly after Obama's inauguration, when conservatives were attacking him for his health care initiative (full disclosure: I don't know enough to agree or disagree with it, but I think that jobs should have been first on the agenda despite the fact that I don't have health insurance and haven't had any since I lost my job in 2008), a second- or third-tier actress and erstwhile comedienne came out and infamously declared that This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.

Well.

If Martin Luther King's words are correct, we should not judge a person by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin, or words to that effect. Not to put too fine a point on it, but King did not say that a man -- irrespective of his skin color -- could not be judged. But that it should be, to paraphrase, on merit and not looks.

This actress (if you haven't read between the lines...she's white) and some blacks seem to think that by criticizing the POTUS or any other person of color necessarily is a racist act. Racism lurks behind any action taken by a member of the majority that involves a person of a racial minority. Following that logic, I suppose, when we vote for a member of a minority to receive an award, we are ipso facto using race as the reason.

In fact, that we can criticize the POTUS or any other black person should mean that they're being treated as equals. So long as there is no discernible racist bent to the criticism, we should start treating reasoned criticism as being an equalizing, not a polarizing, act. Liberals and blacks who have a knee-jerk reaction that any criticism of the POTUS is grounded in racism need to bring themselves into the twenty-first century and pay heed to King's dictum. Likewise, conservatives had better make sure that whatever criticisms they lodge against Obama or other minority leaders are devoid of racist motives.

There is plenty of racism in this country. We have not eradicated it just like we haven't eradicated HIV and AIDS. But it is high time that we do a better job identifying and defeating true racism and stop being such ninnies and seeing bogeymen behind every opposition.

(c) 2012 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles