Racism and the Religious Right

There has been a fair amount of debate about the part race has played in the town hall meetings about health-care reform. Jack Cafferty of CNN said the notion of race being a part of the rancor and bitterness we've all seen is nothing more or less than nonsense, an opportunity for people to play "the race card."

But Jack Cafferty, with all due respect, is wrong. The underlying element in all that we are seeing and hearing is racism. People saying that they "want their country back," the accusations of President Obama trying to make the United States a socialist country, and the comparisons of the President to Hitler and other hated figures is racism at its finest.

When the furor over the President speaking to school children erupted, I could hardly contain my anger, and when I saw a white mother crying because the President was going to speak to school children, I was incredulous.

Oh yes, Mr. Cafferty, it is racism. We have seen and are seeing a carefully orchestrated hate campaign organized by the Conservative Right, based on racist ideology and expert at feeding into white fear. It is a dastardly, cowardly and reprehensible movement, and be clear, it is a movement, a political movement. The furor is not about people not wanting a government option as much as it is about them not wanting an African American to lead this country. They do not trust him and they do not like him.

When asked about the President speaking to the children of the nation, one woman on television, a young mother, was actually crying at the very thought.

Are you kidding me?

While the President tries to mollify his opposition, he is losing ground and support among people who voted for him. People are incensed that the White House let Van Jones go because of remarks he made a long time ago. Some call it "spineless," comparing Jones' fate to that of Rev Jeremiah Wright. The Conservative Right is pulling the strings, and in the process, good people are getting thrown under the bus.

It is by design.

The question I pose is, "What do we, what can we, do about it?" How can the "Liberal Left" fight this well-funded, well-organized racist movement? Surely, there is something we can do? Surely, there is something we can say and do to level the playing field.

What I do not understand, racism aside, is why the Conservative Right is so against good things, fairness, being done for "the least of these." I do not understand how anyone can call him or herself a "believer," (which people on "the right" do with some amount of bragging) and NOT be concerned for the poor, un-served and under-served, but instead choose to blame them for their conditions.

Is that the door through which the Left must walk, and work that thought so that people begin to think about what being a "believer" is?

There is no room for this racism in God's kingdom, not if one reads the Gospels and understands them. Even if one skipped the Gospels, one cannot deny what Paul wrote in Galatians when he said, "there is neither slave nor free, male nor female, Jew or Gentile." The egalitarian personality of God seems to have gotten lost in the theology of the Conservative Right, and the sad thing is that President Obama is trying, I think, to follow his Christian beliefs, and is getting bamboozled by darts from the right and the left.

I just think that those of us with a different voice than the Conservative Right ought to step up. The Gospel of Jesus the Christ faces opposition; nobody like what he was saying when he was alive saying it. It is no more popular now than it was then...but Jesus went on teaching that Gospel and he ultimately died because of it.

Just because death or opposition is possible by living the sharing the Good News does not mean we should be silent.

Not now. Please, not now.

By Susan K. Smith  |  September 9, 2009; 4:28 PM ET
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