Racism Is Destroying America

By James Donahue

Public statements by top Republicans referring to President Barack Obama as “tar baby” and “boy” are beginning to bring to the surface the reason GOP and Tea Bagger-backed legislators are unable to come to terms with the Obama Administration on just about any issue.

They won’t follow because they object to the fact that our president is black. And this is driving the nation and the word economy into disaster.

Colorado Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn isn’t the only one who has used the term “tar baby” in recent weeks, although he made headlines when he did it. Appearing on a Denver talk radio show Lamborn said he didn’t want to have to be associated with Mr. Obama because “it’s like touching a tar baby and you get it, you’re stuck, and you’re a part of the problem now and you can’t get away.”

Lamborn has since apologized for his remarks.

Other Republicans, including Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney have also apologized for using the phrase “tar baby” in reference to government policies. Their comments went almost unnoticed.

The term tar baby comes from the old Uncle Remus stories, and the Disney children’s film Song of the South, were B’rer Fox uses a doll made of a lump of tar shaped like a baby to trap B’rer Rabbit. The phrase has become a racial slur.

Another former Republican presidential candidate and MSNBC personality Pat Buchanan, in a television appearance with the Rev. Al Sharpton, referred to Mr. Obama as “your boy.” Sharpton took issue with the comment and Buchanan has since apologized.

And, of course, the GOP pig radio bad-mouth Rush Limbaugh has had no problem attacking Mr. Obama with phrases like “the magic negro” and even “tar baby.” Limbaugh went so far as to tell his listeners to watch out for Obama to seize the nation’s farms which happened in Zimbabwe, a black nation of Africa.

That comments like these are slipping from the mouths of major political leaders in television and radio appearances is a disturbing indication that the unspoken problem in Washington has been racism ever since the day Mr. Obama took office. And this is a great tragedy. If true, it means that the man elected by a majority of Americans . . . this bright, charismatic and energetic president . . . is being rejected by his colleagues because of the color of his skin and possibly for no other reason.

Racism has been a millstone on this nation since its origins, when black Africans were imported as slaves for the farms along the south and eastern seaboard. The founding fathers, many of the slave owners, knew it was wrong but could not deal with the issue when drafting the Constitution. It took a Civil War that left an estimated 620,000 Americans dead, including President Abraham Lincoln, and nearly another century of conflict before black Americans gained their right to equality when the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.

But tragically, we have all discovered that merely passing a law does not make Americans truly equal. No one can generate love from the heart by merely passing a law that orders us to love one another. While bigotry and racism has been slowly slipping away from the American society on the surface, it still hangs around in the shadows. And this ugly rot is now threatening to destroy us like a cancer, from the inside out.

The latest effect is being seen on world stock markets, which appear to be in free-fall after the Republican controlled House of Representatives and U. S. Senate failed to reach a solid plan for dealing with the national financial crisis and nearly thrust the nation in default on its debts to foreign nations. The compromise reached at the last moment is being viewed by many as a way of extending the fight for yet another year.

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan was spot on last week when he told his television viewers that the big August 4 drop in world markets was a reaction by investors to Washington’s inability to come to terms with this issue.

“We are witnessing well-informed investors conclude future employment and production in the West is in jeopardy as a result of the government’s apparent inability to solve problems,” Ratigan said. “They are seeking to reduce their exposure to the future production of Western countries because it does not appear that these governments can deal with expectations of sustained unemployment and diminished prosperity in a way that is constructive.”

It is due time for Americans to trash their religious, social and political implants and start learning how to love one another, unconditionally. If we cannot do this, the United States is in great danger of collapsing in upon itself from racial rot of our own creation.