I was somewhat taken aback when I was watching a clip and heard someone basically call President Barack Obama a liar. I thought to myself, “It’s just par for the course.” My mind was preoccupied at the time, so when I later heard that it was Senator Joe Wilson of South Carolina, and that he called Barack Obama a liar on the Senate floor, I was quite surprised, but not shocked.
That’s just how many white Americans are when it comes to the way that they view, regard, and/or treat black people: with an undertone of disrespect, if not outright disdain. Of course their feelings—if they tell you the truth—are based upon the understated racism that has been entrenched in their psyches by growing up and living within America.
Yes, in my humble opinion (which is based upon years of experience living and working as a black man in America), Senator Wilson was allowing his loathing for Obama—the first black president of the United States—rear its ugly head, because the South Carolinian just can’t stand the fact that a black man is leading the free world. I am sure that many would disagree, but Senator Joe Wilson would have never spoken to a white president in the same manner. And before Obama, during Wilson’s many years of public service, he never had addressed the president in that manner (and, indeed, no senator has ever called the President of the United States a liar on the floor of the Senate). Joe Wilson not only disrespected Obama, the Senator also disrespected the the hallowed halls and the institution of the Senate itself.
I am 100 percent positive that Wilson has had disagreements with other presidents, and probably even believed that they were lying, but he gave them the respect that the President of the United States deserves. I ask, ‘What is the difference between them and Obama?” Is it the political party lines, or Obama’s tackling of the problem that is the cost and availability of health care in America? There have been many contentious and emotionally charged issues during Senator Wilson’s tenure, as well as throughout the entire history of America. The reason that Wilson felt free to call Obama a liar is because Wilson, a conservative Republican from the Old South—Dixie—has beliefs about blacks based on stereotypes and racism in my estimation.
Indeed, many Americans are allowing their racist notions—feelings that have resided right below the surface of their consciousness—come to the forefront of their minds and actions in the form of irrational hatred and anger towards Obama, the man, but more importantly, Obama, the black man. This is the only logical rationale as to why for the first time in history that the President of the United States was called a liar on the floor of the Senate, as well as the first time during my lifetime that I have witnessed such disrespect and vitriol directed towards the president of the United States.
