Racist Attacks Against Barack Obama Began Straightaway

It took only 31 minutes for the Republicans to start the racist attacks against Barack Obama. At 7:27 PM, January 15, 2007, Irregular Times wrote about a leak from a staffer of then-Senator Barack Obama indicating that Obama would be running for President of the United States in 2008.

At 7:58 PM, an anonymous reader added a comment to that article, declaring that that Barack Obama’s campaign for President is just “typical black behavior trying to “move up” in the world before he knows better to really do it”.

31 minutes. People do not typically come up with a new idea in 31 minutes of reaction time. This was an on-the-spot reaction dredging up an old idea, an idea as comfortable as old socks to the Republican Party in its opposition.

Opponents of progressive policies are ready to appeal to the most ugly aspects of human nature in order to hold onto their power. Progressive values are firm on this matter: Ethnic hatred is morally wrong. To what camp do you hold allegiance? The camp that instinctively reacts with exclusion or the camp that instinctively reacts with inclusion? The hateful, unthinking, knee-jerk and frankly outdated attacks against Barack Obama by the American right wing should repulse us. I hope they do.