President Obama, viewed through a racial lens

By Colbert I. King,
WashPost
Published: May 20

What is it about Barack Obama’s race that makes some people act crazy, if not downright vicious? The latest sign of unchecked insanity turned up in the recent anti-Obama diatribe of Princeton professor Cornel West. The president of the United States, said West, is “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” Now isn’t that a tad bit nasty and delusional?

But such rantings are not limited to West. Nor do they start with him.

Diane Fedele, a California local Republican leader, displayed her own meanness in 2008 when she included in her party’s newsletter a picture that showed the face of Obama surrounded by watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken. The photo, which was shaped as a currency note, had the inscription “Obama Bucks” under his picture.

Associating black people with poverty programs is a shopworn tactic of bigots. The same year Fedele produced her pictorial, a joke circulated on the Internet that listed American presidents and the currency denominations that bore their faces. It read: “Washington, $1 dollar bill,” “Jefferson, $2 dollar bill,” “Lincoln, $5 dollar bill,” “Hamilton, $10 dollar bill,” “Jackson, $20 dollar bill.” Then it said, “Obama, Food Stamps.”

(More here.)