A different perspective…
A contributor thinks some of the most virulent and irrational reactions to Obama ought not be attributed primarily to racism. Perhaps as economic worry turns from anxiety to fear to near panic, people are jumping at shadows and are looking for something to attribute their terror to. The whole post is excellent, but I’ll excerpt a chunk:
I would like to think that this is what happens when a power vacuum leaves Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Glen Beck in charge of the Republican party, combined with my parents’ prolonged economic stress. They probably feel powerless, and politics is an outlet for them to vent their frustrations about life. So unless “Democrat” is a race, my parents aren’t racists. They’re just religiously Republican.
Whether the propensity to believe everything they hear from Rush Limbaugh comes from some deep, unintentional racism on their part, or whether it’s because they are so distressed by an economy that has completely failed them, I can’t say for sure. They will deny that they’re racist in any way until the day they die… but it does look mighty suspicious. I can’t imagine them being so hysterical about a “socialist” President Joe Biden. Maybe if the president was anyone else they would still direct their anger at China/Iran/North Korea. Obama’s “otherness” makes him an easy target. I can say that I don’t think they would care so much about what’s going on in Washington if they felt they were self-sufficient, if my dad had a job to occupy most of his time, if my mom felt she had a stable home base to build on and wasn’t spending all her time and effort on making sure things don’t fall apart. They seem to think evil forces are attacking them.
