Is it really about policies?

The sign posted by a Facebook friend of the conservative persuasion
said, "It's not the color of your skin but the content of your policies."

My response:

Oh, you mean like preventing a recession from becoming another Great
Depression? 

Preventing the end of the American auto industry?  Catching and
killing Osama bin Laden?

Sending SEALS to rescue Americans and others held hostage by
pirates? 

Or is it the refusal to give in to rightwing blackmail after trying
to compromise with them for three-plus years?
 
Or maybe it's the idea that every American is entitled to affordable
health care and health insurance.

Let's be real here for a minute.  The vast majority of Americans
have applauded many of the things Barack Obama has done or tried to
do.  Which of his policies do you disagree with?  And are you aware
that many of those are the same policies that Republicans were all
for when they were proposed by other Republicans?

Many say that this is proof that they hate a black man in the White
House.  I disagree.  It's proof that they hate a Democrat in the
White House.  It's proof that they no longer care about the will of
the people but cowtow to the will of their corporate masters donors. 
It's proof that their Party is on a fast downward spiral into moral
and ethical oblivion.

The supporting evidence?  Barack Obama has taken the same basic
tack as Bill Clinton: he's tried to push through ideas that Republicans
only talked about and said they support but did nothing to pass.  They
hate Obama for the same reason they hated President Clinton.  But
they're to cowardly to admit it, or to even admit the truth of why they
hate both men.

You want proof of racism?  Look deeper.  Put it all together.  No
other President has ever had to deal with the massive level of
disrespect, innuendo, accusation, prevarication and intentional
misrepresentation as has this President.  No other President has had
to deal with an absolute refusal to compromise from an entire
opposition party.  None other has ever had to even defend the fact
of his citizenship as a prerequisite for holding the office.  None
other has had to put up with a total refusal to accept evidence that
none of the accusations had any validity.

The tone of the claims against President Obama is telling.  Kenyan. 
Muslim.  Food stamp President.   Blatantly racist terminology and
images portraying him and his wife and children as monkeys,
watermelon eaters (I don't get this at all; who DOESN'T like
watermelon?), and more.
 
If all of that combined isn't enough to prove an overall tone of
racism toward this President; if you still, in spite of all of this,
don't see the racism, both blatant and covert, then perhaps you need
to take a good look at yourself.  It's as clear as day to anyone who
has half a brain.

This is not to say that all who oppose President Obama are racist. 
Indeed, there are some who honestly disagree with many of his
policies.  I, for one, am not happy with some of the things he's
done as President.  But nobody is going to be able to please
everyone, or to even please one other rational person all the
time.  So to those who claim to not be racist, I suggest you state
clearly exactly what it is you dislike, and why you dislike it,
especially if it's something you agreed with when someone else
proposed it.  Someone white, perhaps.

In other words, as the gamblers of old said, put up or shut up.

© 2013 Donald C. Rice Jr.