Race and the Office of the President
Democracy in Action Seems to Include Racist Thinking
Sep 7, 2009
Not every white voted for President of the United States, Barack Obama, in the presidential election. However, almost every black did. The entire city of Gary, Indiana voted for Obama. And for the first time in 60 years or so, Indiana - a Republican state - voted Democrat. Gary is 85 percent black, according to the latest U.S. Census count.
Who Voted for President Obama
Obama won the Presidency on the minority and youth vote mostly, according to a November 2008 U.S. News and World Report article found on the Web. 96 percent of black voters supported Obama. He also drew the votes of two thirds of Hispanics. He drew support also from 56 percent of female voters and 41 percent white males. So is it the remaining 59 percent of white males or the 44 percent of white females who are keeping up all of the ruckus? Is it the 16 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters who didn't vote for the President or the one-third of Hispanics? This unidentifiable group of people who insist on being uncivil everywhere they go, who are they and how do they live?
White presidents have been responsible for every person in this country since it's inception, irrespective of race or religion, because they were president, not because they were white. Rights are protected in this country - abused at times - but still protected and those former presidents were expected to uphold the constitution and the law, regardless of race.
This current president is expected and is doing the same but not without protest. And the din of grumbling has grown louder since the election, all aimed at stifling the current President's freedom in administrating the country.
The President's Speech to Children
The latest complaint is that he apparently cannot or should not speak to school children, according to some. Obama, a former teacher, (law professor to be exact) should not be allowed to speak to the nation's school children freely. His scheduled speech Tuesday has been named an imposition, an attempt at indoctrination and just plain wrong - as if it has never been done by any other president.
Houston Chronicle writers Gary Scharrer and Ericka Mellon say in a September 2, article found on the Web, that the Internet is being used to create opposition to the President's scheduled speech Tuesday. One parent interviewed for the article referred to the speech as "indoctrination" and criticized the discussion questions suggested to teachers by the administration.
The article says for each student pulled out of class on that day, it will cost the district $35 as state funding is based on daily attendance.
Children are not deaf and many may wonder what all of the hoopla is about. After all, it is the President's speech to students and all students have been indoctrinated to believe whatever the President of the United States says is important and should be respected. After all, indoctrination begins at home.
The office of the President is the highest and most sacred office in the United State's government -- for some obviously but not so much for others. Imagine if blacks were keeping up protest in the manner we see on television news while a white man administrated the government? What would the country's reaction then be?
There have never been such vehement distention amongst the people of this country since the Civil War. Reports of people toting guns to public meetings hark back to a speech from the candidate when he mentioned that in times of perceived trouble some people tend to cling to their guns and religion. Apparently, he was correct about the gun theory. There is no religion that prays for a president to get cancer and die.
Democracy in Action
It is almost embarrassing the public outcry, until one thinks of American history and how this country was built. It was situations like these; loud, argumentative, protested gatherings where people sometimes participated in "contact politics," a term used by a Sunday morning political pundit to describe fighting at a public health care meeting. It has been said this display is democracy in action.
This anger, this uncivilized behavior, the disrespect, is all a part of American history because people will do whatever they think it takes to stay free and fight even perceived attacks on freedom. The Boston Tea Party is a prime example. Education of the masses didn't begin until 1800s. Until then there wasn't much interest in it.
Tamara Dietrich of the Daily Press in Virginia points out in a September 6 article that, "in less than eight months, for instance, our president has gone from Traitor to Socialist to Communist to Fuhrer and, finally, to boogieman. The only thing left is the Antichrist."
She went on to wrap her thoughts up with a statement of the obvious. She said the people of the United States - who are shown on television news as being mostly of European decent - are quickly becoming a "vengeful and vindictive people who would rather destroy its village in order to save it."
Fighting the President to stop him from administrating the country seems to be an effort to blot from the memory, the election of the first Black President of the United States as if his stunning win were a fluke or mistake. Democracy, this is not. He will be celebrated and remembered whether parents let their children listen to his speech or not because he is the president elected by and for the people and nothing can change that.
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