Are attacks on the
president’s health care proposal racist?
Of course, but that is not the whole story. There are those who are legitimately concerned about
features of the plan. The way to
tell the difference between the racists and those who are issue-driven is to
measure the volume, the inflammatory words they use and whether they disseminate
disinformation.
For example, would Joe Wilson have heckled Bill Clinton addressing a joint session of Congress? God—and everybody else--knows that Clinton was vilified by Republicans at a level beyond anything before seen in the modern era, but no-one shouted back at him when he addressed Congress. Race may not have motivated Wilson’s opposition to health care reform, but it gave him that extra little push when Obama was speaking.
Similarly, would Kanye West have taken the microphone away from Rihanna or Janet Jackson? Of course not, but a white country singer did not deserve the same respect. Racism is all around, and does not even have to be in the front of our minds.
I learned about the subtleties of discrimination in high school. Ours was a consolidated school that drew students from three towns. It was also all white until the school accepted a couple black students in my senior year. My government class was all white. This was the situation when my teacher asked me to select students from the class for parts in a role-playing exercise. I studied the class roster and very carefully picked those individuals that I thought would do the best jobs. When I handed in the list, my teacher glanced at it and asked me if I was aware that all of the people I had selected were from my town. I had not realized that. Where they were from had even entered my mind. There had been no discrimination in my heart, but by picking those whose virtues I knew best, I had in fact discriminated. So, I made up a new list, and was gratified at how good the people were whom I had inadvertently slighted before. The moral is that discrimination is proven by the results of an action, not by the stated intent.
Racism has become a very nasty charge. For instance, I continue to be confused by those who deny the holocaust. Denial is not only an offence to those who perished, but also to those who worked so hard for their extermination. I would think that those who hate the Jews, the Gypsies and the assorted other targets of the holocaust would claim that the millions who were murdered was a good start, a splendid effort that was stopped too soon. But, look, the anti-Semites who speak out do not praise the Nazis for their efforts, they claim that the Third Reich is misunderstood and blamed for things that did not occur. That is how ugly the charge has become, that even those who promote and plot the murder of other races and ethnicities today deny the achievements of the most successful pogromists of all time.
The people who do not want illegal immigrants to be benefited by the health care bill aren’t really worried about the expense. Down deep, they do not want non-English-speaking, dark-skinned people to receive health care at all. Shut them out of our hospitals and let them die on the sidewalks, or go back where they came from and starve there. Even the most vocal of the health care opponents will deny that that is their intent, but it is the effect they seek.
Not all conservatives are racist. Neither are all liberals. Not all whites and not all blacks. But, look at the downstream effects of what people promote. As I learned in art school, your work is what you intend it to be, and it must stand on its own without explanation or excuse.