FACEBOOK
TWITTER
Birth Certificate just Jim Crow all Over Again
Trump has gone on now to question Barack Obama’s intellectual credentials, which is sort of like Woody Allen questioning whether Arnold Schwarzenegger is actually physically powerful.
Trump now wants Barack’s undergraduate grade transcripts.
—Juan Cole /Informed Comment
TRUMP YOU ARE FIRED!
There isn’t actually any mystery about the phenomenon of birtherism, the denial that Barack Obama is a US citizen and has a right to vote and hold office, or why obnoxious billionaire Donald Trump is resorting to it in his farce of a presidential bid.
Birthers are concentrated in former slaver, former Jim Crow states, which were forced to stop legal discrimination against African-Americans by the intervention of the Federal government from the 1960s, but many of whom retain a commitment to race and caste hierarchies as a way of ordering their societies.
A “Research 2000″ opinion poll for Daily Kos, conducted 7/27-30, 2009, discovered the geography of this myth:
‘Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not? [I am showing here poll results for "no" and not sure only - JC:]…
…No 11
Not sure 12So 11 percent of Americans are Obama-hating conspiracy theorists. How do they break down?
………No… Not sure
Rep …28… 30
Ind ……8…. 9
Dem ….4…. 3South ….23… 30
Midwest …6…. 4
West ……..7…. 6
Northeast 4…. 3 …’
The South can be defined as: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, and South Carolina, which, save for Texas, Florida and Virginia, is still distinctive in having very low rates of interracial marriage despite having high minority populations:
Interracial Marriage, US, 2000
Interracial marriage in Minnesota and Vermont is also rare. But 1/3 of South Carolinians are African-American, and in 2000, only 3.5% of Minnesotans were.
African Americans in the US, 2000
That is, to see the full extent of caste as it operates in the American South, super-impose these two maps on one another.
My guess is that interracial marriage in Texas and Florida is between people of northern European heritage and those of Latino heritage, not with African-Americans in the main; Virginia is skewed by Northern Virginia, which is like the Northeast. African-Americans marrying whites accounts for 11% of interracial marriages nation-wide, but the South clearly lags here.
Low rates of interracial marriage despite high rates of racial diversity map on to prejudice and concerns about racial status. And it is precisely the intersection of these two things that predicts where birthers will be found disproportionately.
Let us compare this geography of the denial to an African-American of the right to vote and hold office on grounds of unclear ‘citizenship’ to the remarks of James M. Nabrit, Jr. in his 1939 journal article, “Disabilities Affecting Suffrage Among Negroes,” The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 8, No. 3, (Jul., 1939), pp. 383-394, this quote on p. 384:
‘It is interesting to note that the states which enjoy the most unhampered exercise of the right of suffrage and impose the fewest number of restrictions are the states which are furthest advanced economically, educationally, and socially; whereas the ten states, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, which have hinged the right of suffrage around and about by numerous restrictions such as reading and understanding tests of state and national constitutions, property qualifications (both real and personal), racial discriminations in registration, are those states of which the President [Roosevelt] asked that a study be made of their economic conditions, since they constitute, in his words, the “number one economic problem in the United States…” ‘
he adds:
“Although registration laws, poll-tax requirements, and reading and understanding constitution clauses have been upheld by the courts as reasonable exercise of legislative power for the purpose of preserving the purity of the ballot, the history of suffrage legislation in the South shows these provisions were not enacted for that pur- pose, but were designed solely to exclude Negroes from exercising the right to vote guaranteed them by the prohibition in the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
Indeed, when you bring up the idea of citizenship and the laws around it, it should be remembered that neither citizenship nor right to vote for African-Americans were considered in the early history of American naturalization law (see Charles H. Wesley, “Negro Suffrage in the Period of Constitution-Making, 1787-1865,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Apr., 1947), pp. 143-168, this quote on 152-153:)
‘ The first Naturalization Law of the United States, which was approved by Congress on March 26, 1790, bestowed citizenship as a matter of right and established a uniform law. It granted this right to “free white” aliens who had resided within the jurisdiction of the United States for two years. This period of residence was lengthened to five years in 1795. The Militia Law of 1792 also contained the word “white.” The act to incorporate the District of Columbia of May 5, 1802, confined the franchise to “free white male inhabitants.” These acts and others indicate that Congressional trends were towards the restriction of citizenship to free white males. This explains in part also why no action is to be found providing for Negro suffrage. Nevertheless, the paradox of citizenship interpretation was still apparent, for a resolution of the House of Representatives on December 21, 1803, stated that the Committee to enquire and report on the effectual protection of Ameri- can seamen, resolved also “to enquire into the expediency of granting protection to such American seamen citizens of the United States, as are free persons of color.” While giving on the one hand some credence to the concept of citizenship for some, there was still the negation of suffrage participation.” ‘
Trump has gone on now to question Barack Obama’s intellectual credentials, which is sort of like Woody Allen questioning whether Arnold Schwarzenegger is actually physically powerful. He now wants undergraduate grade transcripts.
Late night talk show host David Letterman called this tactic what it is, racism.
Questioning whether an African-American can vote and hold office based on his academic accomplishments is again a way of pandering to residual Jim Crow sentiments.
The Georgia State constitution, Dr. Nabrit informed us in 1939, then had the following provision for ability to vote in that state:
‘ . All persons who can correctly read in the English Language any paragraph of the Constitution of the United States, of this state and correctly write the same in the English language when read to them by one of the registrars and all persons who solely because of physical disability are unable to comply with the above requirements but who can understand and give reasonable in- terpretation of any paragraph of the Constitution of the United States or of this State that may be read to them by any one of the registrars;
Just so the test could be targeted to the intended subset of would-be voters, the constitution further provided that:
‘F. Section 34-111 (44) Race to be noted in book. For the purpose of more easily identifying Voters, the officers in charge of the Voters’ book shall note therein, in connection with each signa- ture, the race of the person signing- that is to say, whether white or colored?
Trump is following the Karl Rove handbook, wherein you don’t smear your opponent where he is weak, you demean him where he is strong. Obama is the most cerebral president since Woodrow Wilson, so Trump-Rove (TRove?) decries him as an undeserving affirmative action baby. But where it gets really ugly is that Trump is playing to Old South conceptions of racial discrimination in voting and office-holding.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Juan R. I. Cole, Middle East scholar, is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. He has given many radio and press interviews. He has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. He has commented extensively on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Iraq War, the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Iranian domestic struggles and foreign affairs. His website: www.juancole.com and Informed Comment
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=99228
Posted by Veterans Today on Apr 30 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Corruption, Foreign Relations, Government, Legislation, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
COMMENTS
To post, we ask that you login using Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail in the box below.Don't have a social network account? Register and Login direct with VT and post.
Before you post, read our Comment Policy - Feedback
[...] [...]
In some sense, this article is absolutely accurate in describing the kerfluffle over President Obama’s birth certificate as a modern day Jim Crow message. However, it is a strategy designed to mislead. Donald Trump is anything but a racist- a carnival barker perhaps, but clearly not a racist, despite what the MSM has done in the form of Bob Schieffer and others to incite the unruly mob with histrionics (calling Trump a racist for merely asking for information).
The reason for this overriding strategy by the PTB (Donald is playing the tool to the tea partiers here) has nothing whatsoever to do with Jim Crow per se. It is a contrived and staged racial kabuki dance with none other than Donald Trump playing the role of minstrel/P.T. Barnum. The Donald’s relationship with the New York banking community, his ties to George Soros, and related historical Trump business relationships in real estate and the gaming industry evidence that this whole show is a two pronged attack on the American people- first, to keep the population occupied with nonsense in order to distract them from the major issues of the world and the day- e.g., the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which is estimated to have released the radioactive equivalent of some 2000 nuclear bombs, each the radiation equivalent of some 30-40 times those dropped at Nagasaki and Hiroshima and of course, the various pincer attacks on Chinese and Russian resource assets in Libya and Syria, emanating from the revolutions in the middle east, perhaps to initiate a world war, in order to distract the population from the rapidly collapsing federal reserve/fiat dollar system. The plot has the added benefit of pitting the untermensch against each other, on contrived racial grounds, with added reference and bonus to Whoppi Goldberg and Mr. Schieffer for the assist here.
How splendidly they play their game!
Of course, there are issues with Obama’s birth certificate, perhaps the fact that his real birth father is not Barack Obama, Sr., but rather some other gentleman and the reality that that truth may seriously negatively impact the overriding Obama narrative (Dreams of My Father) used to make him the choice over two woeful challengers (the contrived unknown being the lesser of the two known evils).
The reason why we get live birth certificates coming out of the Obama administration which are, on their face, clear, unprofessional, intentional forgeries, is once again, to deliberately distract the population from the real issues and have them debate constantly the merits of newly forged Live Birth Certificate.
It reminds one of standing around the water cooler in any business office and listening to the mailroom clerks (although, really, any discussion on ESPN can be used as a substitute) discussing with intellectual ferocity and high-leveled statistical analysis the forecast champion of any game of sport that one never knew could be offered from such individuals, given their station in life.
Of course, it is all smoke and mirrors.
You can think about something more useful (and I recommend that you do), or simply enjoy the show!
Mr. Cole’s article conveniently FAILS to mention the case of Oklahoma, a state which has a very high rate of inter-racial marriage. Oklahoma, as you might remember, is now the home of many Native American tribes as a result of the Trail of Tears.
I am one of MANY Native Americans in favor of passage of eligibility bills in every state, in order to make sure that ALL candidates for all political offices meet the test. This should have been done LONG ago. Congress need to do the same thing with regard to candidates for federal office. This issue is so BEYOND one man.
Oklahoma has just this past week passed an eligibility bill, SB91, through first the Senate and then the House. The House voted on April 27, just hours after Obama released his long-form BC. But did you hear about it in the MSM? Come on, everybody! It’s blatantly obvious that Obama was trying to deflect attention from the historic vote that he knew would happen in Oklahoma later that day. Shame on him, and shame on everyone who tries to make the issue seem like it’s about one person.
Trump is being ridiculous. He has never been a very good showman and that is all he is trying to do, put on a show with his false hairdo et al. Probably for the purpose of showing America, what a ridiculous farce they have allowed their electoral system to come to, to even consider such an oaf as he.
There have been some truely ridiculous candidates presented or suggested for the US Presidency, among them Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and now Donald Trump, who seems to trump them all.
They are not taking him seriously, are they?
“I heard that Trump is running as a Republican in the next election. I thought he was running as a joke.” Quote from Mike Myers during the White house party
What irrelevant hogwash!
Let’s say that someone pulls a dirty trick on me, and I decide to get even with him. I hire a private investigator, and he uncovers incontrovertible evidence that the person is a child molester. Does my motive in any way invalidate the evidence?
I don’t care whether or not a large percentage of “birthers” are racist yahoo scumbags. The issue is whether or not Obama is a natural born citizen, not the motive of those who allege that he is not.
Now let me change gears.
Things were so much simpler, just three days ago. The issue then was whether the Long Form Birth Certificate were legitimate or forged. Now that the document has been proved to have been faked, there is a new question.
Given how obviously the document was forged, I wonder:
1) Was the clumsiness of the forgery due to incompetence, or
2) Was the clumsiness itself faked, to make it easy to discover the forgery?
In other words:
1) Was the document meant to be believed, to close off debate, or
2) Was the forgery meant to be discovered, to keep the “birther” distraction going?
Are we being played? Was the faked Long Form released to keep the “birther” controversy alive, to distract us from the escalating wars, the ramping up of the police state and the tanking of the economy?
Bang on, foo!
The birth certificate matches jobless recoveries perfectly.
Everything perfectly what it’s not, re-branded at will.
“Change” that stays the same.
Entire economies designed to milk the life out of all of us using words like “employment opportunities” without laughing.
What’s on paper don’t matter. Presidents have run nothing since about 1963.
But at least we knew roughly who they were…
I am not a Donald Trump fan but he is at least “Legal” to hold office. Had Obama brought the birth certificate to the fore front at first asking, there would not be as much doubt about his legitamacy. Regardless of whom you believe to be behind all the digging, every American citizen has the right to know. That’ the law!!!!! We all live under the same Constitution and Bill of Rights. And for crying out loud, stop all these accusations of racism. The more crap you put in these aricles about people being racist because they reside in one part of the country or another is pure BS. How do we ever expect to move forward if we keep stirring these emotions. My being an Irish American doesn’t give me any more rights than anyone else nor should it. One’s ancestry is very important, but we should be Americans first. If we aren’t then we should move on to someplace else. There should be no intentional effort to offend anyone that chooses to make America their home. Nor should there be apologies for our Religious beliefs or what we stand for as Americans. It is blatantly obvious the term “Political Correctness” is an oxymoron. There ain’t no such animal.
Should not some one who “takes office” be concidered SANE …first”
Let’s see now. He is ‘judged’ by someone in authority to have been born in Hawaii and eligible to be President, but a rich ‘thing’ with a college education (Trump), questions his birth certificate. Students, How would YOU think he felt, since the Dept. of Justice (being the all knowing, all seeing…etc. in everything ‘LEGAL’, has already looked at it and gave their approval), but someone else, having NOT one iota of authority, questions it for his own despicable ends? How many ‘other’ Birth certificates have been and will be called into question? What we have here, plain and simple, is a case of Prejudice, Discrimination and/ or Bigotry, started by one person (a sore loser) two years ago and grown by others until the President has to stop it, plain and simple. Let’s give another example students, of how Prejudice, Discrimination and Bigotry can and WILL affect decisions.
I have been judged by the Military (too disabled to reenlist, but why would I?), the VA and the state’s Rehabilitation Service as being Disabled/ Handicapped. That is three authorities. This entitles me to park in the handicapped/ disabled spaces, try to find a lob while being handicapped (not an easy task by no means) and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (two spinal operations so far with at least one more coming)…etc, etc, Christ, how much more ‘devotion’ do I have to give? Well, wouldn’t you know it after working at different jobs for a couple of years, I found a job working for the DOD again (a WG-11 position) and ended up working in a place where they thought the employees should NOT use the handicapped places there! So I thought to myself, “Humph, I have my Doctor, state and federally granted handicapped placard, I am Disabled and I paid for it in blood, so I’m gonna park there”. This went on for a while and I was asked by my Boss “are you disabled?” and I answered, “yes I am, but I am still able to work” and I showed him my VA disability form signed by a doctor. This problem did not go away though and kept coming back until finally the folks that started this idiocy said to me, “there will be a meeting to determine how the union will give out handicapped places and who you have to ask…etc”. Mind you, my placard was given to me by a doctor, the state and with the authority of the Department of Veterans Affairs to sign off (federal) and I do NOT need ANY union official to sign anything, which I stated to them when I went to the meeting. They countered back with “according to Texas law, if you can walk 200 ft. unassisted, you are not disabled”. so I looked in the Americans with Disabilities Act and found the following in Title 29 Labor, para 1630.12, (b), “It is unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, harass or interfere with any other individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, or encouraged any individual in the exercise of, any right granted by this part”. I submitted a copy of this to my Boss and sent it down the line, me thinking it would finally die on it’s own now. Well, wouldn’t you know, they came back with “the State of Texas laws are the laws that we go by”. After other such juvenile behavior that went back and forth, (I countered with “Federal laws outweigh State laws, check Brown v. Board of education 1955 please”) they started a ‘constructive discharge’ on me putting me in one useless job after another to get me to quit, but before they did that I resubmitted the paperwork to go out on a disability retirement, even though my evaluations were “outstanding and excellent” and I could still use my Knowledge, Skills and Abilities in other areas, just not with explosives anymore, my hands go numb (I worked in other jobs before DOD and I am early retired from the military). So two years after I retired, I was looking for a job in another state and the Veteran’s Employment Representative there said that he could get me a job working on a base in which my pay would be as a GS-14 instructor with the pay twice as high as my old WG 11 position I had before. Looked good, EXCEPT I would have to give up my disability retirement from civil service (not much loss there), my VA disability would be recalculated (a lot more loss added), my disability benefits would stop (more loss added) and I would back in the hopeless hamster wheel that essentially got rid of me BEFORE because they didn’t want a ‘Disabled’ person working for them, it didn’t matter how good or how smart they were for employment there.
Three things are obvious here: 1.) Discrimination within places of authority is still rampant 2.) Prejudice is bred into it and is thriving because this was done in 2006 and 3.) Bigotry is alive and well. Students. The color of my skin is identified as ‘Caucasian’ on my birth certificate from the state of Georgia, I have had honorable military service and I have retired from it. I have served as a juror on a trial and I have HAD to weigh both sides of an accusation with 11 others before we came to an agreement, so one person’s opinion can not and will not have overall authority. I can also prove every one of my claims I am writing here IF YOU ARE ABLE to weigh both sides and make a judgment.
How do you think I felt when my disabilities were called into question by people with Zero authority to grant or deny handicapped privileges and my life was made a living HELL until I went out the gate? How do you think I felt when I would be offered a job by the SAME arm of the DOD (the ARMY), making twice as much two years later? Do you think I didn’t send out applications for jobs and doctor’s requests for transfer? I sent many of them- all were shot down.
How do you think President Obama felt about this ignorant rant by a very, very select few that have been hypnotized by other people that should know better, BECAUSE THIS WILL CHEAPEN THE OFFICE OF THE HIGHEST POST IN THE LAND? How many Presidents will be thrown out of office before we say ENOUGH!
And the VA wonders why I don’t like people, don’t make friends and generally DON”T want to be a part of anything ‘Bigger than Myself’ because I view it as being cannibalistic in nature.
Now, I’m going to go camping now, while the rest of you (still working), can think about next week at work. Happy trails.
wow…………..the weirdest shit keeps showing up lately on VT
I love this ” Obama is the most cerebral president since Woodrow Wilson, …”
The teleprompter boob makes no more important decissions than selecting his shoes or a breakfast menu……….he controls NOTHING – he is a carefully-crafted P-R creation to dangle before the Amerikan public, just as the Bush crime family, Klinton, Red Ronnie etc
” Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. ”
Aesop
Alton,I don’t mean for this to come as a surprise, but Trump is not the only one with questions of legitamacy concerning Obama. He just happens to have a few more bucks than most and is in the public eye enough to gain attention. As i said before, I’m not a fan of Trump and I’m not defending him as a person. I am defending him as having a right to ask for proof of citizenship just as any other American citizen does. The President of the US is an employee of the American people just as those you referred to as having the power to decide among themselves his legitamacy to hold office. As far as your disabilities go I am truly sorry for you and all who have suffered during their service to this country. I , like you, have sevice connected disabilities and have been in battle with the VA for 2 years. I will continue the fight not only for me, but you and all the others who have served and will serve. Thank you for your service to this country and may God bless, Gary
Ok, fair statement. Let’s make it a Law. Everybody in the USA, MUST carry their long form Birth Certificate at all times and all points in their lives so that everyone can be sure they are truly ‘Americans’ (heck, maybe we ought to tattoo it on our chest too). They will have to show it to any Tom, Dick or Harry that asks for it, no matter how much or how little his authority is. This will prevent all the illegals getting from getting all the jobs, working at less than minimum wage, driving a car, sewing up their wounds from knife fights, having anchor babies…etc and holding any public office at any time in their lives. Think it’s pretty stupid? Just made the President of the United States show his. If you can not trust the officials of those appointed and working over and for you, then you need to quit. He showed his to the Dept of Justice, that’s enough.
For my disabilities, the DVA just sent me a copy of what the doctor’s wrote on the REMAND. The physc. eval. said I’m not nuts (three other ones before her said I was), but the back doctor said my back was a train wreck, which everybody but the VA agrees with. So here is a question. If the MRI stated I had “osteophytes impinging on the cord”, and “Stenosis of the Spinal canal less than 6 MM”, the doctor said my ‘disc’ wrapped around my spinal cord and I showed a picture of me at age 45, bending over so far I could put the palms of my hands flat on the floor, why did the VA call it “Limited Motion” even if I submitted valid and true documentation of the surgery and the fact that I was unable to work for five months? Of note: according to the coding, if the patient is more than 12 weeks out of work, the disability IS a higher code. Answer, they wanted to AND still want to deny me just compensation for honorable service. Even had to get a second Spinal operation in another part of my back (no worries, same diagnosis) and it is STILL denied. Now SSDI says it is “Scoliosis” which means I had it all my life (a doctor wrote this long ago as “born with a bad back-developed thru life” in my record), but do you think the VA will accept it? That’s what a Veteran’s lawyer is for, reducing the Depression and Frustration of dealing with the disabilities, trying to find a job AND dealing with the VA to a somewhat lower level. And the VA doesn’t make the connection right?
In your case, you have just got started. I have been despising the VA for 14 years, probably with more coming. Don’t know why I didn’t make the VA my “hospital of choice” for my care, can you figure it out?
Suggest you go to http://WWW.NARA.gov and buy Title 38 which is supposed to be what the VA uses to accept (NEXUS) or reject claims and go to their web site to look up the WARMS manual and the 21-1 which might be the same I can’t remember anymore. I am not ranting at you, I am ranting at the system which makes us fight for crumbs and thinks we are too stupid to see what is the truth.
O Bomb’em all grabs crotch shows Trump/Chump his long Form. Trumps wife is impressed with with O Bomb’em all’s long Form. Resulting in Donald’s “duck” lid blowing a gasket into the sunset and Trump/Chump proceeds to become apoplectic because he bas no Form to show.
His intention is to upstage Charley Sheen by demanding a TV monitor and $10 million for a no Form Trump/Chump”brand”.
Sayonara Saps
Hey, you got it all wrong. When Osama was on the deck of the ship that was taking him back to the land of the round doorknob (AKA the states), and he was taking his morning stroll on deck, one of the sailors said to him (and I quote), “Wanna see where the Whale bit me”? While he was bent over looking at it, another sailor introduced him to the Navy’s size thirteen ‘Brogan’ and he went overboard. Since he was carrying 40 pounds of gold chain necklaces, he didn’t stay afloat very long either. When the investigation started, the perpetrators stated under oath, “I’m sorry sir, I thought he looking at the ‘Sea Bat’ inside the box there and well, you know, that’s how we initiate young sailors to the ancient orders and mysteries of the deep. I didn’t think he would go flying like that”. The investigator then stated, “Worst case of suicide I ever seen. Anybody got a beer? It’s Miller time you know” ? Alas, the plot sickens.