No.
First,
consider the biological reason. The brain physiology underlying our minds has
not evolved appreciably since the stone age. Not only every race but every
tribe considered itself chosen by God to kill the others. There has not been
enough time for our brains to have undergone significant biological evolution. We
have their stone age brains.
Second,
the cultural reason. Surely we have evolved beyond ancient mindsets by cultural
evolution? I am afraid that the answer here, also, is no. Certainly, we have
made progress in the past 150 years. But we have not left racism behind.
Instead we have just pushed it into our subconscious minds. It still calls the
shots in many cases, and often determines what we do, but we may not be aware
of it.
The
major example of which we Americans, and observers from around the world, are
aware is the utter determination of the Republican Party (which is
disproportionately white compared to the American population) to destroy Barack
Obama. They were confident that Mitt Romney would win the 2012 election. When
Obama won re-election, the Republicans went to Plan B: destroy Obama. I
consider their subconscious motivation to be racism. Here’s why.
Obama
is a lame duck. There is no political need to destroy Obama; if Republicans
succeed, they will have President Joe Biden. (Similarly, Democrats held back
from impeaching George W. Bush, not wishing to have President Dick Cheney.) If
there is no political reason to destroy him, then there must be a personal
reason.
How
do we know that the Republican attacks on Obama are not merely politically
motivated? We know this because we can scientifically test this hypothesis: If
the Republican hatred of Barack Obama were politically motivated, then they
would hate him less than they hated Bill Clinton. But, as it turns out, they
hate him much much more.
And
the evidence for this? There are, as I see it, three differences between Bill
Clinton (while he was president) and Barack Obama. They are as follows.
First,
Barack Obama has high ethical standards than Bill Clinton did as president.
Instead of having a Monica Lewinsky hanging around him, Obama is a morally
upright husband and father. The Obama family is the picture-perfect American
family. (In this way Obama also compares favorably to John F. Kennedy.) This
should be a reason that Republicans, who claim to be God’s representatives of
purity and morality upon the face of this sordid planet, would like Obama
better than Clinton. Therefore the ethical
difference between Clinton and Obama cannot be the reason for Republican
hatred of Obama.
Second,
Barack Obama is more politically and fiscally conservative than Clinton. Republicans
decry Obamacare as socialist, but it is much, much less socialist, and
incorporates more market forces, than did the ill-fated 1993 health care plan
proposed by Bill Clinton. Republicans reacted strongly against the Clinton
plan, but not with the ferocity of their attack on Obama. Obama’s comparative
fiscal conservativeness should be a reason that Republicans would like Obama
better than they liked Clinton. Therefore the political difference between Clinton and Obama cannot be the reason
for Republican hatred of Obama.
A
third difference is race. Clinton is white and Obama is black (actually,
biracial, but he identifies with his black heritage). This is the only reason
that I can think of that would make Republicans hate Obama worse than they
hated Clinton. And it is clearly a personal, intense hatred.
Of
course, Republicans forced a government shutdown during the first Clinton
Administration also. The federal
government shut down all but emergency services twice: from November 14 through
November 19, 1995 and from December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996, a total of 28
days. As of tomorrow, the 2013
government shutdown will have reached the same number of days as the first
shutdown, in November of 1995. Republicans appear resolved to continue the
shutdown even if it means defaulting on contractual funds on October 17. And
this time, we have all seen evidence of the extreme antipathy that Republicans
have showed toward Obama. They have shown him the kind of disdain that slavery
advocates—from the Union states, the confederate states having seceded—showed Abraham
Lincoln in 1865.
As
further evidence that Republican antipathy is not merely political, consider
that the Republicans could achieve their aims in a constitutional manner. They
could pass a bill repealing Obamacare in both the house and senate, and have
the president sign it. He won’t, because he won re-election in 2012 largely on
the issue of Obamacare. The constitutional way for Republicans to have their
way would have been to win the 2012 election. Instead, they pass laws creating
programs then refuse to fund those same programs.
I
believe that in the long run American history will evaluate Obama the same way
as it depicts Lincoln. At the time, many strong voices attacked Lincoln as a
dictator who wanted to ruin the United States by giving black people the rights
of citizenship. Today, those voices are buried in the dustbin of history under
a patina of disgust. Similarly, I believe, the Republican voices of our day
will be derided in the same way as are the 1865 voices in support of slavery.
The party of angry old white men, and a few angry young white men, and a very
very small number of angry Latinos and blacks, will dwindle into an
insignificance from which their stockpiles of guns cannot resurrect them.
There
are other ways in which Republican positions have racist effects. Global
warming is caused by carbon emissions from human activity, for which white
industrial nations are largely responsible. But most of the burden of famine
and disease will be borne by nations dominated by people of color, especially
in Africa. Republicans, I assume, do not hold their global warming denialism
with racist intent. But subconsciously they might be thinking, who cares about
a bunch of Africans?
Of
course, Republicans will claim they are not racists. And they may honestly
believe they are not. But I conclude for the above reasons that racism is
operating in their subconscious minds. We are all cavemen in modern clothes,
some of us more than others.
