Your email address is safe with us. View our Privacy policy.
Author Bio:
Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page began his career in journalism as editor for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Inquirer, and received his ...
Read more about By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services.
Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page began his career in journalism as editor for the Middletown Journal and Cincinnati Inquirer, and received his ...
Read more about By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services.
A Health Care Race Card from the Right
By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services
I thought slavery reparations were a dead issue by now. Glenn Beck set
me straight.
The radio talk show host and Fox News Channel star says President Obama's proposed health care overhaul is really "stealth reparations," a form of racial payback in Beck's world by another name.
I am not making this up. On his radio program last month and in a video floating around the Web, Beck argues that Obama's announced opposition to reparations is only a smoke screen for his "stealth" support.
How does Beck know? Through his own tortured logic, he takes Obama's argument for color-blind alternatives to color-conscious concepts like reparations and affirmative action and turns the argument on its head. He is happy that Obama opposes reparations, Beck says, but he dislikes Obama's reasons for opposing it.
Try to follow Beck's logic here. It's not easy.
When asked about reparations and affirmative action during his presidential campaign, Obama said he preferred programs that targeted poverty, education and other social problems based on need, not color. Beck correctly quotes Obama as saying programs like "universal health care ... will disproportionately affect people of color because they are disproportionately uninsured."
The same is true for programs aimed at improving education, housing and job opportunities. Obama's reasoning is hardly in dispute. Polls and the November election show that Obama's belief in helping those who are most in need regardless of race, creed or color is the sort of common-sense approach social policy that most Americans support across political party lines.
In fact, since low-income whites outnumber low-income blacks overall, even though a higher percentage of blacks are in poverty, more whites would receive help than other Americans would.
Yet Beck insists that Obama is pushing "universal healthcare, universal college, green jobs as stealth reparations." Why would Obama do that? Because, says Beck, "It's a much less obvious route to reparations."
Less obvious? You've got me there, Glenn. Your conspiracy theory makes about as much sense as the 98-pound boxer who hopes to beat Mike Tyson by tiring him out.
Beck is not alone in his twisted logic. Rush Limbaugh, the Big Kahuna of conservative radio talkers, declared in a June 22 broadcast that Obama's "entire economic program is reparations," although he did not explain why he things that way. The mere mention of the R-word is enough in Limbaugh's logic to condemn Obama's "wealth redistribution."
How can something as quaint as mere facts or logic stand a chance against eyes that are determined to see racial preferences in programs carefully designed to eliminate racial preferences?
Do such not-so-subtle race cards have an effect? One example may be Richie Drake, a disabled sheet rock installer in Bristol, Va. He was unemployed and his children were on Medicaid, yet he told a National Public Radio reporter in a local coffee shop last month that he wants no part of the Obama overhaul. "Minorities are going to get more attention than the whites and stuff like that," he said. "That's the way I take it from what the news was talking about."
Add to Drake's misimpressions the rising prominence this summer of the birthers, who insist against all evidence that Obama may not be a natural-born citizen.
Add the "tea party" protesters who appear to have reemerged to help disrupt town halls intended to answer health care questions.
Amid the headline-making mayhem, one can be forgiven for thinking Obama's lofty vision of a post-racial, post-partisan presidency in "not Red State or Blue State but the United States of America" seems to have gone the way of twice-a-day mail delivery.
Still I am an optimist. Just beneath the noise of town hall protesters there's a real health care debate going on. It is only hard to separate the folks who have legitimate questions from those who are intent on re-fighting last year's election campaign.
In the meantime, if there is any justice regarding the broadcast demagogues, it could be in the reported departure of about dozen companies who have withdrawn their commercials from Beck's Fox News program. The mass exodus reportedly came after he said on that channel last month that Obama was a racist with a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." Again, Beck had more innuendo than evidence to back up the charge.
It is encouraging sometimes to see confirmation of my parents' warning: If you keep throwing mud, some of it is going to splash back on you.
========
E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.
(c) 2008 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
This news arrived on: 08/16/2009
Printer Friendly Version | Send this page to a friend | Post Comment
Rate This Story:
Great - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - Bad
Posted Comments:
08-20-2009 21:42
JCE wrote:
It strikes me that if one man has way too much, another a little extra, another just enough, and one not nearly enough, and if you want to make sure that everyone has at least enough if not more, then you are just following the Bible. Not according to the far right. They have been racist so long, and denied equal opportunity, that the whole idea of everyone in the country having it at least as good as the poor white man is abhorrent. If the minorities get more, it is because they don't have enough. In this great country, it is a national disgrace that our minorities need so much to just catch up to those who wish they had more. I checked out the list of Fox sponsors, and while I already didn't do business with most of them, now I don't do business with any of them. How could I support racism, terrorism, and oppression of democracy and human rights?
08-19-2009 00:10
JCE wrote:
Catharyne
Again, I must disagree. There are a whole lot of Mormons who most definitely approve of child molestation. They are constantly in the news. They just disagree with the laws protecting children. Please feel free to go online and type in Mormons, incest, and child abuse, or substitute Catholic for Mormons. You will quickly see that while the churches are dealing with this huge problem, they don't want it to be more common knowledge than it is. Unlike the KKK, and other white supremacists, who want the sick way of thinking to spread.
While I too look at individuals, there are indeed group whether you like it or not, and there are things in general common to those groups. And like the molestations, there are subgroups. So you have groups among the Mormons who molest children. You also have small groups of politicians who want to do what is right for the people, but in general, they are there for the big corporations, and not for the people. Sometimes, for such an intelligent and enlightened person, you choose to be blind to the bad side of humans. In general, we are a pretty mixed lot. When we choose to be good, we are generally good. When we choose to be bad, we are generally quite bad. The same with intolerance and indifference. One must accept the truth, and that means the good with the bad. For too long, the voter has said that their politicians were good people, yet, historically we can see that in general, they have not been so good. People tend to believe good about their groups, be it religious, or political. But one can easily see that if those thoughts were true, we wouldn't be in the mess we are, which comes from trusting our civic and spiritual leaders, who have, in general, let us down, and not been what they claimed to be.
One thing I really like about you is how you look for the good in everyone. But ignoring the bad is how we end up with bad things, whether it is the holocaust, slavery, child abuse or racism. I am just being honest. Sorry.
While I too look at individuals, there are indeed group whether you like it or not, and there are things in general common to those groups. And like the molestations, there are subgroups. So you have groups among the Mormons who molest children. You also have small groups of politicians who want to do what is right for the people, but in general, they are there for the big corporations, and not for the people. Sometimes, for such an intelligent and enlightened person, you choose to be blind to the bad side of humans. In general, we are a pretty mixed lot. When we choose to be good, we are generally good. When we choose to be bad, we are generally quite bad. The same with intolerance and indifference. One must accept the truth, and that means the good with the bad. For too long, the voter has said that their politicians were good people, yet, historically we can see that in general, they have not been so good. People tend to believe good about their groups, be it religious, or political. But one can easily see that if those thoughts were true, we wouldn't be in the mess we are, which comes from trusting our civic and spiritual leaders, who have, in general, let us down, and not been what they claimed to be.
One thing I really like about you is how you look for the good in everyone. But ignoring the bad is how we end up with bad things, whether it is the holocaust, slavery, child abuse or racism. I am just being honest. Sorry.
08-18-2009 23:09
Catharyne Stauffer wrote:
To JCE and Per , Social ills are always with us but the one thing we can have a blessing in is that fewer people suffer from such ills in many respects.
JCE no one condones child molestation and any that do are not following the laws of our land nor Jesus's teachings . You are often quick to generalize and label people and in doing so you often create your own form of injustices that you so apparently find abhorrent .
I know good and bad people from every walk of life, ethnic background, and religious affiliations . I look at people as individuals and not as a group especially those I find fault in or who offend my senses.
JCE no one condones child molestation and any that do are not following the laws of our land nor Jesus's teachings . You are often quick to generalize and label people and in doing so you often create your own form of injustices that you so apparently find abhorrent .
I know good and bad people from every walk of life, ethnic background, and religious affiliations . I look at people as individuals and not as a group especially those I find fault in or who offend my senses.
08-18-2009 14:59
Ann wrote:
Add to Drake's misimpressions the rising prominence this summer of the birthers, who insist against all evidence that Obama may not be a natural-born citizen.
I believe Obama is an American citizen but Mr. Page mispoke when he said ALL evidence has been probided. Why, when "birthers" are scoffed at do the scoffers not give a good reason for Obama's solid relunctance not to provide the original birth certificate? Wouldn't it put an end to these "birthers"?
I believe Obama is an American citizen but Mr. Page mispoke when he said ALL evidence has been probided. Why, when "birthers" are scoffed at do the scoffers not give a good reason for Obama's solid relunctance not to provide the original birth certificate? Wouldn't it put an end to these "birthers"?
08-17-2009 20:42
PER wrote:
Catharyne,
You also must realise that the Mormons granted privileges to Blacks was when they figured that the BYU football team could get better runningbacks. Suddenly, the black race was not the devil's spawn. SURPRISE! SURPRISE!. And, HHJ, Bless your heart, judging from your reportings, misspellings, bad grammar and all, maybe the fact that your son, having grown up with your guidance, may not, actually, be a victom of anything. All the best to your family, however they turn out.
You also must realise that the Mormons granted privileges to Blacks was when they figured that the BYU football team could get better runningbacks. Suddenly, the black race was not the devil's spawn. SURPRISE! SURPRISE!. And, HHJ, Bless your heart, judging from your reportings, misspellings, bad grammar and all, maybe the fact that your son, having grown up with your guidance, may not, actually, be a victom of anything. All the best to your family, however they turn out.
Comment archive | Comment FAQ's
 |
 |
View Clarence Page ezine stories by date or visit the complete archive |
The ArcaMax Politics channel is one of 70 content categories offered by ArcaMax Publishing on this ... |
VideoSquares.com
