Less than 18 months into his presidency, Barack Obama is arguably the most targeted commander in chief in American history. The threats against his life are said to be double that of the next most-targeted president.
Yet, America has fallen in love with the preposterous term, “post-racial America,” as if at the very moment Obama was anointed with the presidency, all vestiges of racial animus majestically dissolved around us — like something out of the The Wiz — and evaporated like the morning mist the day after the inauguration.
Mainstream America does not like to discuss it, but Obama is the first non-white president this nation has ever had, and that the increasing threats on his life correspond with his darker hue. But then again, the floodgates of threats against Obama were opened when he still a junior senator. The most visible one is the white supremacist that was just sentenced to a decade in the slammer for plotting to kill scores of blacks, and commit various crimes, culminating with Obama’s murder.
U.S. District Judge J. Daniel Breen sentenced Paul Schlesselman of West Helena, Ark., to a 10-year term. Schlesselman’s co-conspirator, 21-year-old Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tenn., awaits sentencing after also pleading guilty. The pair plotted to kill 88 African Americans, behead 14 others and then try to take down Obama. The numbers, 88 and 14, are symbolic in the white supremacist movement. Fourteen represents a 14-word phrase attributed to an imprisoned white supremacist “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” Eighty-eight symbolizes the letter h, which is the eight
h letter of the alphabet. The use of 88 in combination reportedly means Heil Hitler.
But it doesn’t begin or end with these two maladjusted misfits from backwater America. We have never witnessed such blatant, open displays of disrespect to the office of the presidency. Before, when non-whites complained of injustices, whites told us that if we didn’t like it, to move back to Africa.
But now those same hypocritical whites have taken to hurling racial invectives and anti-American and anti-presidential threats against Obama with impunity. And it seems to be tolerated by the Republican Party and encouraged by the loony leaders of the far right. That’s how a gubernatorial candidate for the state of New York, Tea Party candidate Carl Paladino, can audaciously and freely passes around e-mails depicting the president and first lady as a pimp and prostitute and still think he’s a viable candidate.
It’s how a congressman from Tennessee can liken the first lady to a gorilla. It’s how the supporters for Obama’s health care reform can be openly spat upon, and called the N-word and the F-word.
If this is what post-racial America looks like, I don’t want any part of it. –terry shropshire
