Your e-mail is racist

Your e-mail is racist.

One of the chain e-mails I received this morning gave me pause. It was typical anti-Obama fare from one of my conservative Republican friends. Obama lacks experience. He’s just a community organizer who hit the big time. He doesn’t know how to run an organization or balance a budget. Etc.

The source opined freely about Mr. Obama’s lack of presidential fiber, his Marxist rhetoric. And like many flywheels from the political right, its author went out of his way to refer to President Obama as Barack Hussein Obama. (Hint: he’s a muslim and a terrorist.)

In all, just more uninspired, unremarkable GOP talking-points invective.

And patently racist.

Save the “Hussein” mention, in substance the e-mail made no inflammatory remarks about race. It was above board and without bigoted overtones. It never even alluded to the fact that Mr. Obama is half African-American.

But racist it was. The e-mail was quoting a speech made by Congressman Allen West and his subsequent defenses of the speech on TV and radio.

Allen West, you see, is a black guy. How do I know? The e-mail creator went to the trouble of wrapping the text around a headshot of the Florida Republican.

That picture was speaking 1,000 words, loud and clear. “See …” I could hear it, yelling. “See. Even black people think Obama’s doing a crappy job. Even this black guy went out of his way to call him a Marxist terrorist. If a black guy is willing to criticize Obama, he must truly be evil.”

Why else would they bother to include his photo? If it had originated from Trump, Boehner, Gingrich or Gohmert, do you think for a second they would have taken the time to code in a photo?

My friend who sent the e-mail is not a racist. I doubt for a minute he harbors any ill will towards Mr. Obama over the fact that he was born half black. But the work of the e-mail’s original creator is another declaration of hate, a celebration from those bigots who revel in the thought of a black man criticizing a black President of the United States.