Race. There is nothing you can say to a conservative on this topic that will not inspire an immediate kneejerk reaction that race shouldn’t be the topic. Over and over again, conservatives tell us that race has nothing to do with it when they flip flop on Obama’s Libya actions (Newt Gingrich wanted bombing before Obama did it, then “wouldn’t have intervened” after he did it), or when Donald Trump says the President should show us his birth certificate which the Governor of Hawaii has already made available, or even when Mike Huckabee says Obama has a radicalized view of America since he is from Kenya, not letting the pesky fact that Obama isn’t from Kenya get in the way.
Everyone from Glenn Beck—who any given day of the week can be found making some outrageous claim about race—to Rush Limbaugh talks about race on a semi-regular basis. Except that they don’t really want to talk about race. They want to mention it, even if opaquely, but they don’t really want to talk about it. Newt Gingrich might want to take a dig at Obama’s citizenship, his “Kenyan” worldview, and even talk about “ghetto language” as he has before. But if the other side shows up for that conversation to actually have a dialogue on race, then it’s “Let’s not make this about race.”
What conservatives really want to do is have a conversation about race with other white people that agree with them, and then abruptly change the subject if anyone black, liberal, or otherwise not invited to the party shows up. Thus them mentioning race without really mentioning it, which is pretty much the entirety of the Birther movement.
The basic reason for this is that until the other side shows up, they can’t be called racist. Two white guys might be sitting in a bar right now talking about how white people are better suited to be President or—more likely—white quarterbacks are better than black quarterbacks because they have the “brains” required (as if it is quantum physics level science to see an opening and throw the ball to that opening). Until somebody black or white liberal enough to call them racists shows up, they aren’t racists as they see it. To them, they’re just a couple of guys having a conversation about politics or sports, not even having one about race really.
This is what’s behind Mike Huckabee saying Obama has a “radically” different worldview than the average “American.” And that most Americans grew up with rotary clubs and boy scouts, not Islamic schools (which of course Obama didn’t either). Then when somebody says he’s wrong, it’s “Let’s not bring race into this. That’s so typical to try to make it about race.” Of course, if it wasn’t about race why would he say Obama has a “radically” different view of America because he grew up in Kenya (which of course Obama didn’t)? He is talking about race. He is sending out the subconscious message to likeminded white people that there is something African about Obama. The ones who think the same hear it. But the ones who don’t and want to argue about are “making it about race.”
So if Republicans don’t want to talk about race, they should drop this birther bullshit, stop labeling Obama as a foreigner, quite bringing up illegal immigration (another race topic we don’t have the paragraphs to cover how the GOP have talked it to death) and affirmative action, and saying ACORN won the election for Obama, amongst a hundred other things. If they would like to talk about race, then let’s have a real conversation about crumbling inner city schools, black people without health insurance, the real reason ACORN was put out of business, GOP targeting organizations that help African Americans for their spending cuts, and a hundred other things, instead of saying “Let’s not make this about race.”
Jolly good sir