The two faces of conservatism in America.

Last year the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Sexuality decided to conduct a survey of conservatives to determine if indeed the driving force behind the Teabaggers was racism.  Wanna guess what they found?

To capture the difference between the two camps, we asked whether or not people thought the following proposition true: “Barack Obama is destroying the country.” If Tea Party conservatives were as extreme as some suggest, we thought asking a question of this type, i.e., fairly extreme, would tease out differences between the two camps. The data suggest the two conservative factions are divided on this question. Under these circumstances, 6% of non-Tea Party conservatives believe the president is destroying the country versus the 71% of Tea Party conservatives who believe this to be true.

With such a wide disparity in the sentiments held toward the president’s stewardship of the country and his policies, we sought to identify other possible sources of difference. To do so, we took advantage of a battery of questions in which we probed respondents for their knowledge of the president, including whether or not he was born in the United States, has a birth certificate, is a practicing Muslim, and a practicing Christian. Again, differences between non-Tea Party and Tea Party conservatives emerge. When asked about President Obama’s religious orientation, 27% of Tea Party conservatives believe that Obama is a practicing Muslim compared to 16% of non- Tea Party conservatives, both relatively low; nevertheless, an 11-point difference. More conservative type believe the president a practicing Christian, 27% of Tea Party conservatives versus 46% of non-Tea Party conservatives, but the gap here is even larger: 19%. When it comes to President Obama’s national origin, 40% of Tea Party conservatives believe that Obama was born in the U.S. compared to 55% of non-Tea Party conservatives. Additionally, 26% of Tea Party conservatives believe that President Obama does not have a birth certificate, while 17% of non-Tea Party conservatives believe this to be the case.

Don't forget that if 46% of Teabaggers believe that Obama is a Christian, that leaves a whopping 54% who do not, and that over a quarter of them believe he is a follower of Islam despite all evidence to the contrary. The data also demonstrates that an amazing 60% of the Teabaggers, and 45% of regular conservatives, believe the President was NOT born in this country, and is therefore not eligible to be our President. And that is AFTER President Obama volunteered his birth certificate for examination, something that NO other President has ever been asked to do.

I recently became curious and dug up a copy of my own birth certificate and found that it matches President Obama's almost exactly.  Oddly enough nobody has ever suggested that it is a forgery or that I needed to provide a more comprehensive version.

But just in case this data is not enough to convince you of the deeply ingrained racism that runs through the Republican party, and the even deeper vein that runs through the Tea Party,  perhaps this next bit of information will.

Since we had such a high number of people saying that they either had no opinion on these questions, or didn’t know the answer, we checked to see if whether or not the perceived race of the interviewer (it’s a telephonic survey) affected the likelihood of offering a “no opinion” or “don’t know” response. It matters. If the interviewer was perceived as white, conservatives were less likely (to) say “don’t know” or “no opinion” than if the interviewer was perceived as non-white. In the latter case, respondents were far more likely to opt for these options. We also found that conservatives were more likely to view President Obama as alien if they believed themselves to be interviewed by someone white than a non-white interviewer.

Look let's stop pretending that the majority of the crap coming this President's way is not motivated by the fact that he has too much pigment in his skin, because it is.  He has been called a socialist, a terrorist,  a Muslim, the anti-Christ, un-American, a liar, a Nazi, and that is just to name a few.

But if you got right down to it, the REAL reason that he is constantly called those names is because his critics are too timid to call him what they really, really want to call him. Which is a nigger!

Did reading that word shock you?  Did it make you feel angry? Upset? Embarrassed? Well good, that is exactly how it should make you feel!

But also know that it is BECAUSE that word elicits such a response from you  that the Teabaggers, and certain conservatives, don't use it. You can bet your ass they use it when they don't think anybody can hear them, but out in public they choose code words instead.

You know the code words don't you? Like socialist, or Nazi, or Muslim, or, if they are especially cowardly, they simply question whether his birth certificate is real or not.

That's right, I said it.

John McCain was born in Panama.  Did a group of angry Americans rise up demanding HIS birth certificate? No they did not.

Did he have to answer endless questions about whether or not he met the requirements to be President of the United States. Of course not.

Why?  Because John McCain has so little pigment in his skin that he gets a new bout of skin cancer every time he stands under fluorescent light bulbs for too long, that's why!

Now ask yourself what would have happened if Barack Obama had been born in Panama? 

See my point?

No other President has EVER been asked about his birth certificate. Does anybody really believe it is just a coincidence that the first one questioned like this is an African American?

Look people can tell themselves any lie they must to help them sleep at night. But if you find yourself looking for a reason to think of Barack Obama as "the other," or non-legitimate in some way, then, as I suggested before, you need to stand in front of a mirror and watch yourself make the argument for why you want to believe that Obama's mother would have smuggled him into America after giving birth in Kenya, why two newspapers would have printed his birth announcement, why even after he provided a copy of his birth certificate these questions were not put to rest, and why his place of birth was ever questioned in the first place.

If after you have made your argument to yourself, you are not completely embarrassed and feel like slinking off into a corner, then you need to further probe the question as to why you so desperately cling to the theory that Barack Obama is undeserving of his position.

After all of that if you find yourself still firmly in the "Obama is not a real American" camp, you need to honestly ask yourself if there isn't a word that is tickling the back of your throat, just dying to come out, that would sum up your feelings about this President better than just "un-American," or  "non-Christian," or "socialist."

Come on, you can say it.  Or are you just a coward?