{"id":10733,"date":"2012-08-31T09:07:50","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T16:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=10733"},"modified":"2012-08-31T14:58:33","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T21:58:33","slug":"what-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=10733","title":{"rendered":"What Fire?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reference yesterday’s post<\/a>, a conservative friend on Facebook asks where all this racism is … he’s never seen any.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sorry, couldn’t resist responding to the comment. \u00a0You know, though, you hear this on the right, and you hear it a lot. \u00a0What racism? \u00a0We’re not racists! \u00a0Don’t you dare call us racists! \u00a0We love Gabby Douglas!<\/p>\n

I’m not kidding about Gabby Douglas, by the way. \u00a0I listened to a Tucson conservative talk radio station during the Olympics a couple of weeks ago and actually heard a host threaten to punch the next liberal who called conservatives racist. \u00a0Conservatives aren’t racist, he said, because Gabby Douglas is America’s sweetheart and that proves it!<\/p>\n

Well, racism wasn’t dead at the Republican National Convention two nights ago<\/a>, when delegates tried to drown out a Puerto Rican speaker with a Spanish accent by shouting “USA! USA!” and “Go home!” \u00a0It wasn’t dead when two other delegates threw peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman and told her “This is how we feed animals at the zoo.” \u00a0It wasn’t dead\u00a0last night<\/a>, when Romney tossed a bone to the birthers during his acceptance speech.<\/p>\n

One can disagree with Obama’s policies and actions without being racist; I personally disagree with much of what he’s done. \u00a0Making up lies about Obama taking money from Medicare to pay for Obamacare is just politics … dirty politics, for sure, but it’s not racism. \u00a0Making up lies about Obama getting rid of work requirements for welfare, on the other hand, is meant to stir up racial resentment among uneducated whites who think all welfare recipients are black, and that is racism. \u00a0Birtherism is racism. \u00a0Calling Obama a Kenyan Muslim is racism.<\/p>\n

Oh, and America’s love affair with Gabby Douglas? \u00a0Before she won gold at the Olympics, it was a rather different story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sure, racism cuts across the American political spectrum. \u00a0But it’s mostly clumped on the right side these days. \u00a0I’ll say it again, and then hold my peace: the Republicans are playing with fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reference yesterday’s post, a conservative friend on Facebook asks where all this racism is … he’s never seen any. Sorry, couldn’t resist responding to the comment. \u00a0You know, though, you hear this on the right, and you hear it a lot. \u00a0What racism? \u00a0We’re not racists! \u00a0Don’t you dare call us racists! \u00a0We love Gabby […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,10,8],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-10733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-politics","tag-racism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10733"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10740,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10733\/revisions\/10740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}