Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything
Eric Garner’s dying words “I can’t breathe” could have been President Obama’s cry for help during the last 7 years. Like other black American men in Tea Party/Fox News America, the President has been choked by right wing hate. But he has also been strangled by liberal’s inability to deal honestly with racism.
In fact when a cop kills a black man with impunity liberals helped set the stage. Like the right they too blame the victim, in this case President Obama.
What chance does an anonymous black man choked to death have of fair treatment when the former editor of the Harvard Law Review is being disrespected just because he’s black?
Face it: our culture is racist top to bottom. Face it: liberals have not had the courage to tell the truth. Liberals also set the stage for the tone of the right wing response to the startling exoneration of their killers by these 2 grand juries.
Republican congressman Peter King said if Garner had been healthier, he would not have died. So it wasn’t the cop’s fault. “If he had not had asthma, and a heart condition and was so obese, almost definitely he would not have died from this,” King told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer during an interview.
Rand Paul had this take on what caused the death of Eric Garner. On “Hardball” Paul blamed taxes for Garner’s death. Garner was accused by cops of selling “loose,” untaxed cigarettes. Paul said taxes were the “larger issue.”
How was a black man choked on a sidewalk in even “liberal” New York going to get a fair shake from a grand jury when it’s okay to shout “You lie!” at a black man delivering the State of the Union address to Congress?
How was he going to get a fair shake in a country where white liberals have blamed the first black president for being lynched by white right wing members Congress?
As writes Timothy Egan writes in the New York Times “From the day he took office, his legitimacy has been challenged, his American birth has been suspect, and he’s been personally insulted, lectured, yelled at and disrespected in public, by public figures, in a way that few if any American presidents have ever faced.”
Liberals are to blame as well. They’ve been gutless. Where have President Obama’s liberal defenders been? Why haven’t they called racism what it is?
I’ve watched liberals blame the president for being vilified. They excuse the Republicans for obstructing the president at every turn by saying “Obama’s not reaching out enough” or “he’s too cold.” It’s the equivalent of assuming that the black man being choked by a couple of thug cops must have “done something.” Yes, right, just like women who are raped must be wearing skirts that are too short!
Chris Matthews a famous “liberal” commentator, wrote a book on how Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil could disagree and still be friends. Why, he asked on many a TV show promoting his book, couldn’t President Obama be like that?
Because, I yelled at the screen, those two men were white Irish Americans and part of a ruling white oligarchy.
We have a lot to do to heal this country of the damage done by the right wing Obama-haters and the liberal pundits who did everything they could to excuse the “choking” of a presidency, as anything but a racist reaction by white leaders and their followers. We’d be living in a better country if liberals had spoken clearly about the real reason why Obama has faced a level of disrespect and hatred that only points to one thing: race.
Enough with the excuses for ourselves! Race is THE issue. Period. May the real discussion begin.
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Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace
Available now on Amazon
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