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Race continues to be a factor in the presidential campaign this year and in recent weeks has been raised as an issue in ways that have led observers to analyze the issue through historical lenses.
Nicholas Kristof, in an Op-Ed in the New York Times noted that there was a "push to 'otherize' Obama." Kristof describes some of the forms this otherization is taking:
What is happening, I think, is this: religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it’s not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate’s skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian.
This type of othering has moved from email rumor campaigns to much more explicit and public expressions. The Mayor of Fort Mill, South Carolina sought scriptural backup for the rumor that Obama is the antichrist. In North Carolina a real estate agency put up a sign reading "Obsama-Obama. Not American. Not Welcome." Karen Tumulty, in Time magazine, reports that The Virginia state GOP chairman urged volunteers to compare Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden as they go campaigning door to door. Recently at a John McCain town hall appearance a woman told McCain that she could not trust Obama because she read that "he's an Arab." McCain did take the microphone from the woman and say that it was not true but unfortunately did so in a way that implied that Arab people are not decent family people as BlogHer member, ManagementProf noted. And Rochelle Nelson at Sagacious Rambling reports that the woman who made the statement about Obama remains unconvinced despite McCain's rebuttal.
As the economy crumbles, McCain-Palin campaign rallies have become hotbeds of racism from subtle to overt from audience members, campaign surrogates and Sarah Palin herself. At recent campaign stops surrogates introducing the candidates have referred to "Barack Hussein Obama" and audience members at the mention of Obama's name have yelled out "terrorist" and "kill him." They've yelled at an African American sound man for a television network covering the event to, "Sit down, boy." A man displayed a stuffed monkey with an Obama sticker on it and then passed it off when he realized that he was on camera. They've accused Obama of "treason." (Stephania Pomponi Butler has a round up of racist smears and denouncements at MOMocrats)
And it is not just at campaign events where such sentiment is being heard.
Debbie Gorman at MOMocrats reports that at her workplace she has heard from two people that they would not vote for "a black" or a "goddamn ni**er" (Oh, and Palin's "a babe").
At an Oregon university "a life-size cardboard reproduction of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was hung from a tree on the campus, an act with racial undertones that outraged students and school leaders alike."
Republican Party spokesperson, Didi Lima was removed from her role in McCain's campaign after making "racial remarks"
Maud Newton shares the story of a Florida teacher who taught his seventh-grade social studies class that Obama's call for change stood for "Can You Help A (expletive) Get Elected."
TPM reader libgirl reports that two young men yelled "N***** lover" at her (and her six year old) while standing in her yard which displays and Obama sign.
Conservative observers have compared a video of young men performing step dancing while expressing how Obama has inspired them as like "Nazi Youth" or as an example of Obama's training of "militant radicals."
Some watchers of the most recent debate wondered if McCain's response to a question asked by a young black man was subtly racist when McCain assumed that the questioner probably hadn't heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac prior to the current economic crisis. The young man responded on his Facebook page and he too wonders:
In defense of the Senator from Arizona I would say he is an older guy, and may have made an underestimation of my age. Honest mistake. However, it could be because I am a young African-American male.
And, perhaps most frighteningly, there are reports of incitements to and threats of violence, property damage and, in one case, actual violence (a man was shot for wearing an Obama T-shirt).
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