Obama Disrespected by Racism

When Oprah Winfrey, noted as the most influential woman in the world, spoke out about race-based disrespect of President Obama to the BBC, Will Gompertz, flares can be lit. Winfrey, 59, used the example of Republican congressman Joe Wilson shouting out "you're a liar" during a 2009 speech President Obama gave. "Remember that?" she asked Gompertz. 

Oprah Winfrey has never been one to hold her tongue. 

   The question that remains, do what degree do racism exists? How do it effect our politics? Or when blacks or any minority is in office, how do race motivate his or her colleagues? We all know racism exists. It's a virus that is growing clever at avoiding detection. Race consciousness is real. Racial assumptions and prejudices are real. Sometime expressed in slights and innocent opposition, other times coming from a source of organized race hatred that still exist today. But these realities can operate without articulation and beneath awareness. Sometime dubbed by black nationalists as the Great White Consensus. Oprah gave us an indication of this when she stated,  

"There's a level of disrespect for the office that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he's African American," she said. "There's no question about that. And it's the kind of thing no one ever says, but everybody's thinking it." Indicating subtlety of a race struggle that still exists. Growing up in the south myself during the 80's, I never witnessed too much racism. But of course to my understanding, Dallas was a commercial metropolis that never experience alot of racial tension. But we know it still exists in the shadows of obscurity. 

    And this was certainly expressed by Oprah when she sat down with 

BBC's Will Gompertz and detailed how no one is above the racism that still exists in this world today … not even the President of the United States, .Barack Obama. And of course we can't leave out what happen on the 4th of July, when a float featured at the annual Independence Day parade in Norfolk depicted a figure resembling Mr. Obama standing outside an outhouse, which was labeled the “Obama Presidential Library.” Neither the float nor the truck pulling the float identified a sponsor,” the Omaha World-Herald reported. The Nebraska Democratic Party also issued a statement, calling the float one of the “worst shows of racism and disrespect for the office of the presidency that Nebraska has ever seen,” as reported by Omaha World Herald. And even though complaints was submitted to Mayor Sue Fuchtman, the Chamber of Commerce, the Norfolk Daily News and the Norfolk Odd Fellows Lodge, which coordinated the parade, the most disturbing effect was the laughing and clapping of the crowd as the float passed by. It is this type of public display that expresses that underhanded consensus that I mentioned earlier. And for this very reason that awareness will continue to expose it. Just as NDP  Executive Director Dan Marvin stated, “There is a level of respect for the office of the Presidency which should not be crossed,” He continued, “It’s beyond disappointing the City of Norfolk, its officials and citizens would allow such a thing.” But in the end, together as a diverse nation that we are, we shall overcome!!!!