The Black Elephant in the Room and the White Lion on the Rooftop: Why People Won’t Say They Hate Obama Because He’s Black but Will Say They Hate Him Because of His “Religion”

“I am uncomfortable with a black President.” You won’t ever hear these seven, direct words uttered out loud about Obama, but you will hear people say everything except it. I have heard people hate him. I have heard he’s not really black (although he’s black enough for the same white people to never let him in their house). I have heard there’s just something…not right about him. I know what people mean when they say that and I know what they’re really telling me when they pick far flung reasons out of a hat to hate him, but they are just not going to say it directly.

Eventually, they’ll tell me they don’t think he should be president because he’s black but they aren’t going to tell someone they don’t know that. Usually, it will start with “I’m not a racist but…” which lets you know you’re about to hear something racist as hell. “I’m not a racist but a black man shouldn’t be President.” “I’m not a racist but black people don’t have the mental capabilities it takes to be President.” “I’m not a racist but I hope my kids never date anyone who’s black.”

People saying this don’t think they’re racist. They really don’t. America just has this way where race bleeds into everything in such a subconscious way people aren’t even aware of it. A Palestinian might tell you “Yes, we hate Israelis and all the damage they’ve done to us,” but a black guy/white guy/Hispanic guy in America might see a “competitor” of another race and think “I’m not a racist, I just hate that that guy has a job/girlfriend/house I should have.” When a white guy dates a black woman, a black man might hate it or when that black man gets promoted a white guy might feel he was robbed of the same position. People feel like something is being taken from them that wasn’t theirs to begin with.

That’s why even though we’ve had 43 white Presidents, the inclusion of one black President makes some Americans line a health care rally—where the President is trying to get THEM better health care—and scream to have “their” country back. He ran the longest and most competitive Presidential campaign in history. He won that race by the widest margin since the first President Bush beat Michael Dukakis back in ’88. And still I have heard some people say ACORN stole the election for Obama.

That’s part of a larger pattern of painting Obama as illegitimate. Even though he won by the largest electoral percentage in 20 years, he somehow didn’t win. Even though the Governor of Hawaii has offered to make Obama’s birth certificate public, ten percent of Americans still believe he wasn’t born in the United States. The most persistent rumor about Obama is that he’s a Muslim.

Even though I haven’t heard anyone say they hate Obama’s skin tone I have heard plenty say they think he’s a Muslim and would never support a Muslim President. Many think he’s a Muslim “like his dad.” Others think he’s an atheist “just like his mother,” and a stealth member of the communist party. And almost 15 percent of Americans believe it’s possible Obama is the anti-Christ. I think you have to pick your crazy. Is he non-religious/communist, Muslim, or satanic?

The answer for anyone who believes that way might be “What’s the difference?” Religious discrimination has always been closely linked to racial discrimination from the crusades to the Nazis to the bygone days of the Ku Klux Klan, who thought they were a devoutly Christian organization.

People that won’t ever cop to hating Obama’s skin tone are more than ready to hate his “religion,” even if they don’t accurately know what it is. Hating a closet Muslim/closet atheist/anti-Christ terrorist sympathizer (Sara Palin repeatedly says Obama pals around with terrorists, neglecting to mention she means the so-white-it-hurts Bill Ayers of The Weather Underground instead of a jihadist) is much easier in the heavy Christian stronghold of the South than outwardly hating a black person. But hating a man with a name that carries a slight whiff of being from the Middle East is just a smoke screen for the first thing they really see: his skin.