White Racism, the Greatest Force Against Obama

Arizona radio host Barbara Espinosa (Courtesy of the Raw Story)

In his blog at the Atlantic, Ta-Nahesi Coates takes on a right-wing radio host's comments about the president and says he won't stop taking about racism until it ceases to be a significant force in our politics.

One thing I've never seen is a bigot cite actual racism as a defense against their own racism. Enter the bizarre case of Barbara Espinosa, a right-wing radio host in Arizona who said the following of Barack Obama:

    "I don't believe in calling him the first black president," she said, "I voted for the white guy myself. I call him a monkey."

When confronted with the fact that what she said might be racist Espinosa insisted that "with a last name of Espinosa I'm anything but racist." ...

But over the course of the Obama presidency I have become convinced that no single force exerts a greater pull on his presidency than white racism. Not white resentment. Not white populism. White racism. I don't know how else to explain a health care denounced as reparations, the rather continuous disrespect, the sense that he is a Kenyan illegitimate or all of the attendant theories. I do not know how else to explain a state like West Virginia, arguably the most racist in the country, where delegates are now refusing to endorse the president.