CBC staff: opposition to Obama is racist!

**Posted by Phineas

That’s from Angela Rye, Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus. She continues:

“I think that a lot of what the president has experienced is because he’s black. You know, whether it’s questioning his intellect or whether or not he’s Ivy League. It’s always either he’s not educated enough or he’s too educated; or he’s too black or he’s not black enough; he’s too Christian or not Christian enough. There are all these things where he has to walk this very fine line to even be successful.”

She said that “a lot” of conservative opposition is racially-charged, citing the use of the word “cool” in an attack ad launched by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS superPAC.

“There’s an ad, talking about [how] the president is too cool, [asking] is he too cool? And there’s this music that reminds me of, you know, some of the blaxploitation films from the 70s playing in the background, him with his sunglasses,” Rye said. “And to me it was just very racially-charged. They weren’t asking if Bush was too cool, but, yet, people say that that’s the number one person they’d love to have a beer with. So, if that’s not cool I dont know what is.

She added that “even ‘cool,’ the term ‘cool,’ could in some ways be deemed racial [in this instance].”

When you can’t control the narrative on the merits, call someone a racist. Who’s using the dog-whistles here, Angela?

Here’s the ad in question:

Sorry. I watched a lot of Blaxploitation films back in the day and I don’t particularly hear the strains of “Shaft” or “Super Fly” — or even “Foxy Brown.” This is simple satire, subjecting the president to what we inflict on every candidate in every election. I suspect what Ms. Rye objects to is that Obama is no longer getting the kid-gloves treatment he enjoyed from the McCain campaign. And it’s a fair blow, hitting him on his evident love of appearing (I know it’s racist to say this, but, still…) “cool.”

The real racialist here is the one who sees race behind every tree and bush.

via Mark Hemingway

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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