Current Events –
Black Bias Toward America’s
Black President?
Did you know that an 8 year term for the President of the United States is only valid for 7 years? It is if you ask congressional Republicans when it refers to the presidency of Barack Obama. For some, the GOP’s high stakes game of attempting to diminish his authority when it comes to a Supreme Court nominee is about more than just politics — but is a clear case of black bias.
Current Events
African-Americans have been paying attention to the Republican scheme to make all things Obama fail. After all, it’s been their mantra from the very first day of his presidency. They’ve also paid attention to all the covert and even overt racial hatred/black bias slung at America’s first black president. So, it should come as no surprise that many Black Americans are deeply irritated with Republicans who are hell-bent on blocking President Obama from selecting Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement on the Supreme Court.
“They’ve been fighting that man since he’s been there,” Edward Gadsden said of Mr. Obama, before pointing at his forearm to explain what he said was driving the Republican opposition: “The color of his skin, that’s all, the color of his skin.”
He is not alone in his theory.
A growing chorus of black voices are openly expressing their belief that such a refusal to even consider a Supreme Court nominee would never occur with a white president.
“It’s more than a political motive — it has a smell of racism,” said Representative G. K. Butterfield, a Democrat from North Carolina and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
“I can tick instance after instance over the last seven years where Republicans have purposely tried to diminish the president’s authority,” Mr. Butterfield added. “This is just really extreme, and leads me to the conclusion that if this was any other president who was not African-American, it would not have been handled this way.”
The thought of black bias continued.
“Our president, the president of the United States, has been disrespected from Day One,” said 61-year-old South Carolina resident Carol Richardson. “The words that have been said, the things the Republicans have done they’d have never have done to another president. Let’s talk like it is, it’s because of his skin color.”
These opinions go well beyond a Republican attempt to halt President Obama from fulfilling his constitutional duty in nominating a new Supreme Court Justice.
For years, African-Americans have looked on in horror as political opponents called the president a secret Muslim, questioned his faith, questioned his birthplace, demanded to see his birth certificate and even put into question his eligibility to be president. They saw the most horrific level of disrespect displayed toward a President of the United States, when a member of congress shouted “You lie!” at Mr. Obama during his State of the Union Address. Now, after 7 years in the White House and 2 resounding election victories, Republicans want to erase a full year from Mr. Obama’s 2nd term — and African-Americans are furious.
“You hear the thing about: ‘He’s not a citizen. He over steps his bounds. He’s divisive.’ One thing after another,” said Democratic Representative Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio. “This has been going on since the day he was elected in 2008.”
Current Events
Despite the feelings of many in Black America, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn and several top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have all doubled-down on their promise against the president, saying that not only will there be no confirmation hearings on a Supreme Court nominee, but they will not even meet with any nominee from Mr. Obama for even a courtesy visit.
“We believe the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment rather than a lame-duck president,” Cornyn said on Tuesday as he left a meeting of top Republicans discussing how to handle the White House’s promised nominee.
If Republicans truly believed their own words that “the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment,” how does their selective memory allow them to forget the elections of 2008 and 2012? Americans DID decide who should make such an appointment, when they twice elected Barack Obama as President of the United States. Yet, Republicans would much rather forget this fact and diminish Mr. Obama’s presidency, even with a year left in office.
Is this politics, or is this black bias?
According to former South Carolina State Representative Bakari Sellers, he has likened the Senate treatment of President Obama to the 18th century constitutional compromise that counted black men as equivalent to three-fifths of a person.
“I guess many of them are using this in the strictest construction that Barack Obama’s serving three-fifths of a term or he’s three-fifths of a human being, so he doesn’t get to make this choice,” Mr. Sellers said. “It’s infuriating.”
Republicans seeking this short-term victory against Mr. Obama may not have fully considered the long-term consequences, particularly with the GOP’s poor attempt to attract African-American voters. The anger and outrage Mitch McConnell and his Republican counterparts has touched off among African-Americans could have implications for the presidential election. Leading African-American Democrats are already planning to use it to motivate rank-and-file blacks to vote in November.
“Anger becomes action when it’s directly tied to a moment, and the moment now is the election on November 8th,” said Stacey Abrams, a Democratic state representative and the House minority leader from Georgia. “Congress is denying our president his rights as a president, but, more than that, they’re denying the legacy of his presidency,” she said. “That will animate Democratic voters across the board but especially African-Americans, who realize more than many voters how great an impact the Supreme Court can have on freedom.”
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton echoed those sentiments.
“Now the Republicans say they’ll reject anyone President Obama nominates no matter how qualified,” Mrs. Clinton said in remarks before a predominantly black audience in Harlem. “Some are even saying he doesn’t have the right to nominate anyone! As if somehow he’s not the real president.”
She then reminded the audience that these Republican acts are nothing new, but are in keeping with a longstanding pattern of mistreatment.
“They demonize President Obama and encourage the ugliest impulses of the paranoid fringe,” she said. “This kind of hatred and bigotry has no place in our politics or our country.”
Ok now DJ you've gone and done it. As my grandmother used to say, tell the truth and shame the devil. Repubs have never liked this black president. They tried to bait him into one trap after another but he always stayed classy and above BS. They never liked him sitting in their white house so of course they are going to try and cut his term short. He wasn't supposed to have one term to begin with, let alone two. I know he has a trick up his sleeve for them though. He always outsmarts Repubs. I can't wait to see how this all turn out, especially in November.