In Obama's Post-Racial America "Dissent" is Just Another Word for "Racism"

Once upon a time in those ancient days when the then junior Senator from Illinois Barack Obama declared his candidacy for President many among the Democratic Party’s black supporters and activists questioned whether he was “black enough”. As David Ehrenstein, himself a black man, pointed out in a column he wrote in those bygone days there existed “criticism (white and black alike) concerning Obama's alleged "inauthenticty," as compared to such sterling examples of "genuine" blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg.” Indeed in this column Ehrenstein single handedly revived the notion of the “Magic Negro” now apparently embodied by Barack Obama. As time progressed and the media began getting a tingly feeling running up its collective leg every time Barack Obama spoke the issue of race once again shifted and soon it was no longer whether he was authentically black or not but rather that those who opposed him, even among Democrats, were in actuality closet racists. Looking for racists under every stone seemed to become the past time of the Obama campaign and its supporters even setting its sites on our first “black” President Bill Clinton who correctly declared that they had played the race card on him during the South Carolina primary. Still somehow with this apparent rampant racism tainting our nation, one year ago we elected the first black President of the United States. We now had the bright promise of our first post racial President. This was the man who had first come to prominence at the 2004 Democratic Convention by declaring that “there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddler… There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.” On the day Barack Obama took the oath of office his approval rating was more than ten points higher than the percentage by which he won office: America had hope that he would finally be the uniter we all desired. So I ask you now, as an American, as a Puerto Rican, why am I still declared by so many on the Left as a “race traitor”?

It has become an unfortunate battle cry among too many on the Left that the Democratic Party is THE Party protecting and advancing the causes of minorities and anyone who would stand outside of such a broad tent must either be racist or, if they are themselves a minority, self loathing and or a sellout to “the man”. I can still remember driving on I-75 on the night I heard NPR broadcast an interview with Harry Belafonte in which he compared then Secretary of State Colin Powell to a house slave desperately seeking to please his master. So vitriolic was the partisan/racial divide that rather than acknowledge the historical appointment of our first black Secretary of State Mr. Belafonte felt the need to use what can only be seen as a racist slur; Secretary Powell’s successor Condoleeza Rice did not fair much better treatment from the Left (though I do not recall if the term “Uncle Tom” was feminized into “Aunt Tomasina” for her or not). But this was in the dark days of the Bush administration and we are now in the post-racial, post-partisan era of Obama! Yes?

You know how they say that the more things change the more they stay the same? I’ll do you one better: in the case of race relations in the age of Obama the more things change the more they regress.

From personal observation there was a rather disturbing trend throughout the 2008 Presidential election season in which it seemed Barack Obama’s supporter were so enamoured with him, so convinced of his messianic qualities that the only explanation which they could arrive at as to why anyone would oppose him was racism. As was noted earlier even Bill Clinton of all people was painted with this incredibly broad and unjust brush. (Is it any wonder that Bill Clinton declared at the time “I don't think I should take any shit from anybody on that, do you?”) Upon his election the enamored media began comparing the President Elect to the greatest figures to ever reside in the White House! If Barack Obama was Lincoln, and FDR, and Kennedy and Ronald Reagan all rolled into one why would any American oppose him if not for the color of his skin? Not so long ago in the wake of this summer’s unexpected national uprising against the overreaching and fast paced extreme Left push of the Obama administration vis a vis “healthcare reform” (aka the push for socialized medicine) the race card was played once again. At the height of the summer of revolution when millions of ordinary citizens flooded town hall meetings from coast to coast Carlos Watson declared on MSNBC that “socialist is becoming the new N-word.” Suddenly a new standard in judging the opposition came into play in the era of Obama: don’t judge dissenters on the merits of their opposition but rather judge them based on the color of the skin of the President! The Obamunist thesaurus suddenly seemed to say that “dissident” was just another word for “racist”. There is a clear obsession with race in American politics and it is not on the part of the Right but rather on the part of the Left.

I am perhaps not qualified to write on this topic because I am, as I mentioned at the start, a “race traitor”. Like so many political junkies I have exercised my fingers typing non-stop participating in countless discussions in online forums about politics. Invariably time and again during last year’s campaign and straight through to the present upon it becoming known that I am Puerto Rican some agent of “Hope and Change” from the Party of tolerance and diversity has accused me of siding against my people’s interests and or more explicitly being a race traitor. In the age of Obama there is not the individual, there is simply the mass. To them I am not Manuel Rosado-Morales citizen, I am Manuel Rosado-Morales voting demographic and in bucking the trend I commit a cardinal sin. If I am nothing more than a voting bloc how can I ever believe that they are looking out for my interests? Are they seeking to lift me and mine up or are they seeking to ride our shoulders into the halls of power?

In the summer of 2004 when Barack Obama took the podium at the Democratic National Convention I took notice of him. I opposed then as I do now most his political ideology and his chosen Party yet still he impressed me for he spoke words which could have come from my very own heart: “alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are connected as one people… It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one” I believe this just as I believe that “There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America”. I believe this! This is what all true American Patriots believes; in the hedonistic inebriation of victory and power it has become too obvious that the agents of “Hope and Change” do not.