Senator John McCain’s campaign accused Barack Obama of playing “the race card’’.
I really do feel as a black man that if Obama wants to comment on being black, he does have that right. The fact that Lilly white conservatives can speak from the white side about being black really goes against all the rules. Day in and day out the conservatives just can not understand how blacks are being over looked on anything. The fact that black people can show proof of the discrimination against blacks means nothing...Except that was something that happened in the past. It looks like McCain has finally decided to shed his last bit of dignity. I’m sure his strategists pointed out how well race-baiting divisiveness worked for the Clinton campaign. While the Clinton campaign was at their height of race-baiting polemics, John McCain tried to stay above the fray, but it looks like desperate times have called for desperate measures.
It is a shame that most people don’t realize what a despicable, shameful term “race card” is. It was coined by right-wing extremists to devalue and minimize claims of racism. There is no race card. Black people did not fabricate centuries of slavery and oppression as part of their secret plot to pull out the ultimate weapon…. the race card.
“Race card” is a bigoted, reprehensible term. If you think a claim of racism is illegitimate, say that, but do not spread the toxic meme of the “race card,” which implies that any claim of racism is illegitimate. Racism is very real, and still a disturbingly widespread, systemic problem.
Anyone who thinks that Obama’s claims weren’t absolutely legitimate hasn’t been paying attention. The outlandish racism of the far right is not just limited to Fox News conflating Obama with Osama and referring to Michelle as his “baby mamma.” Right wing media is literally blanketed with astonishingly bigoted, fallacious rumors and muckraking.
Obama was exactly right in his assessment that the far right is trying to appeal to people’s worst instincts (their prejudices and ignorance) by exploiting his name and ethnicity. For McCain to call Obama’s unassailably accurate assessment “using the race card” is an absolute disgrace. It is an embarrassment to the world to have a major Presidential candidate capable of such a level of ignorance and lack of character. Shame on John McCain.
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