The Tea Party is not just about getting Obama out of office; it's also a front for Corporate Right's fight against public welfare and public employees.
and it's an anti-regulatory front, which means anti-environmental. They talk a good show about being anti-bankster, but don't do very much.

But on those issues Obama supporters have a tough time showing how Obama differs from the teabaggers. Easier to just call the opposition racist. Yeah that's gonna work, Sure.

Why are CD editors wasting time defending Barrack Obama?
Most of us who read articles and post comments on this sight will not help re-elect that Judas to the working-class regardless of how badly the Republicans or Tea Partiers mistreat him.

support for 0 because of his skin colour is not racist?

Obama has been called the new "Shaka Zulu" of the people.

Mr. Freeman needs to examine the facts on the ground.

Maybe he should check out "http://blackagendareport.com" or the movie "Lifting the Veil" @ http://metanoia-films.org/compilations.php

Perhaps he should also check out Cynthia McKinney's comments about Obama.

Obama is indeed getting it from the Left and the Right, just like Bill Clinton did.

Bill Clinton was also called a socialist.

Obama is suffering a harsher treatment that Bill Clinton did on TV & AM news channels because these medias are more concentrated and lean more to the right post 9/11. It's not because of racism of Republican voters.

I agree with Abby here: this is a fantastic cut. Freeman so confidently, fluidly exposes the racism that is embedded in much of the standard "pro-diversity" or whatever one might call it shallow mainstream political correctness in the US, which is especially prominent in our public schools. "Black history is American history," says Freeman. I take him to mean not that African American history is to be subsumed into and disappeared into mainstream elite European American history, but that U.S. history needs to be approached as history of all the people involved, and I would add also nearly all the people of the world, who have also both shaped and been shaped by U.S. history.

I work with Black youth, and I want them not only to learn African American history, culture, philosophy, political development, mythology/religion, but to learn European American history, philosophy, political development, mythology/religion, etc.--for, to my mind, this is a tradition that is also theirs, also part of their roots, and needs to be grappled with and understood in order to be most powerfully transformed, to better take us where we need to go.

I don't think any careful observer can deny there is a strong strain of racism in much of how Obama is treated by the press and by his political opponents--as well as his "supporters"! This racism is often not intended so much to affect Obama himself but rather how he represents, in a certain way, undeniable Black power (while at the same he participates deeply in a system working to weaken, kill, and maim Black people). It's complicated. The Tea Partiers' guns that were showing up everywhere Obama spoke as a big MSM news story for a while, I think, are one example of how the Black Commander in Chief image of Obama was reacted against in a racist way with the implicit consent of the whole political establishment and media (in this day, they never would have allowed Black people to brandish guns and make critical comments at places where a White President was to speak) as a way of sending the message that Obama would need to serve white, mainstream (and of course elite, corporatist) status quo rather than his being President would let him threaten this status quo in a serious way.

There is much more to say and explore on this subject.

this dialog touches on the essence of things america left and right is not ready to understand / media are the tube about colors, deprive humanity of unity

I go out of my way to understand right wing hate of Obama (and I voted Nader!)....I have never, ever been able to get ONE specific and rational reason for it. He's destroying the country, he's un-American, on and on---but they can't even say he raised their taxes! I truly, politely ask for specifics and get nothing but emotional screaming or avoidance. Answer? I have no choice but to assume it's racism, and they're too ashamed of it to say so. If you can't say it aloud or rationally, what else can it be? His hairstyle?

removing names of slave owners from american street names would be a first sign of sanity / never even heard of it though

I don't get it.
When people were saying how cool it was, and "how far we've come" by electing a "black" President, nobody called THOSE folks racist.
It's only when you criticise Obama because of his POLICIES (same kind of policies that were criticized when Bush did them), THEN you're a racist???
Sounds like double-talk to me.

Now there's certainly a racist thread in American history and culture. And all decent people -- and I think that's a LOT of people -- are ashamed of it and find racism repugnant. So the trick is to manipulate these people into falling in line in order to avoid being labeled "racist."
That's pretty despicable, in my opinion.

sj

Our society has labeled me "white" and others "black". Chalk is white. Charcoal is black. Neither I, nor any human being I've ever seen, looks like either of those two substances. Thus do we buy another of the lies that drive the tyranny of language, thought and ultimate injustice. Because it's just too damned inconvenient to think.

But thank you, Mr. Freeman, for sneaking in an unanticipated bit of truth to startle Mr. Wallace and, perhaps, some portion of the audience.

"The other day Morgan Freeman charged, entirely logically, that the right's antipathy to Obama is 'a racist thing.'" I have no idea what causes "the right's antipathy to Obama". I know what causes mine, and it has no more to do with racism than did and does my antipathy to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton, Dick Cheney, GWBush, Kissenger, and so forth. This "it's a racist thing" is repugnant, in the same way that "it's anti-Semitism" is a repugant defense of Israeli internal and external actions. If people think that Obama (or Israel) can be defended on the merits, let them undertake the defense. "It's a racist thing" or "it's an anti-Semitic thing" is not a defense.

Somehow i only got less than a minute of video here. But i totally appreciate what M.F. said to Wallace, although Obama didn't even come up yet.

There's a great deal of denial on this thread, and frankly a lot of zero-summing. Honestly, I would think a lot of you were unable to hold two seemingly opposing thoughts in your head at the same time. Just because there is--and there IS--a discernible amount of racism from the Right towards Obama does not mean that taking exception to his policies on substance is also racism. Neither does the fact that people from the Left and Right have legitimate gripes with him mean that there is no racism in some of their criticisms, and pointing this out does not make me an apologist for Obama or the Democrats.

I am bitterly disappointed in Obama because whatever his race, it certainly did not prevent him from being just another pandering fund-raiser as opposed to the visionary statesman that this country desperately needs. Saying that does not make me racist, nor does it negate things that have been said that are racist, or even racist feelings left unexpressed. It is simply a statement of my feelings about his performance in office totally apart from who or what he is personally.

Be that as it may, the forwarded emails I received in the days after the 2008 election, many of them, sadly, from friends and family, were most certainly racist, overtly so, and embarrassing for more reasons that I care to articulate. These themes showed up repeatedly at the Tea Party rallies--many of them direct references to the emails I received. I would be shocked if many CD readers didn't receive many of these same emails. Of course, living in Texas might have some bearing on it, but, contrary to rumor, Texas does not have a monopoly on small-minded bigotry. Sadly, neither does either side of the political spectrum. It seems, unfortunately, to be woven into our DNA, this deep-seated need to demonize "the other." We can--and should--dream about a post-racial USA, but we are most certainly not there.

Granted, racism is a factor in some of the opposition to Obama, but...

Does anyone think the right's response would be any less virulent for any other Democratic President? Remember how Clinton's time in office was characterized by unrelenting attacks about Monica Lewinsky, the supposed murder of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster.and Whitewater? Remember Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, whose investigation of Monica Lewinsky and every right-wing fantasy led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton?

And Clinton gave them NAFTA. So I think it's an error to assume that race is the central factor in right wing (and left wing) attacks on Obama.

Racism is undoubtedly motivating some of the antipathy toward Obama, but I would seriously question any all encompassing "blanket" claim.

In particular, I don't beleive it is justifiable to claim that "the right's antipathy to Obama is "a racist thing" . In other words, that everyone on the "right" (whatever that means) who dislikes Obama dislikes him simply because of his "race".

First, such all encompassing claims are rarely (if ever) accurate). (As my high school math teacher said. "Always be skeptical of "always" claims".) The claim completely ignores those folks who actually don't like Obama because of his POLICIES.

It may be hard for some people to fathom, but some folks on the right may not like Obama because they don't like his polcy on "assassinations". or they may simply actually believe that he is a "socialist" and not approve of that (whatever it means). They may not be "correct" in their assessment, but that does not mean their decision was based on "racism".

Second, I would just note that racism and prejudice are not the same thing -- though they are obvioulsy related AND often confused (sometimes quite purposely)

Prejudice is about "prejudging" a group of people based on whatever criterion one happens to choose: ethnic background. skin color, political party affiliation, etc.

To say that "the right's antipathy to Obama is "a racist thing" and imply that everyone in the Tea party is motivated by racism is itself a kind of prejudice.

I support Ron Paul,,, why?

He is pro-constitution, anti-patriot act, ant-war, and anti-FED.

What more is there to say, we wont have a country or Freedom , if we dont address and correct what is really tearing our democracy , civil liberties,economy and pocket books part.

They hate him for the two most important reasons in the right wing thought process: the first is that they are told to hate him by people they trust to form their opinions. The second is that he carries the stain of the D...:) This is just how the right works. If Obama were Clinton, they'd hate just as much. Maybe even a bit more.

Then there is Herman Cain.

How do you explain his growing popularity?

...I know Mike Wallace as a moron. ;)

"Obama followed in the footsteps of Clinton, whom everyone loved after eight years of GW Bush. Unfortunately, La Clinton and the other Clintonites performed their neo-liberal magic for the U S of A and President Obama. The President and the people of the U S of A were whipsawed. The result as we can now see is that the people of the U S of A are now even more nuts than they were. They have a black man to blame for their own mistakes. Really nothing new is it?" - S. ffolliott

The best evidence that the right hates Obama out of racism is that they hate him even though he espouses their own agenda.

Now, that's no reason for Morgan Freeman not to tell off Mike Wallace, but it's also no reason to imagine that one opposes racism by supporting Obama.

.

While it's true that many, if not most of the Teabaggers and the Birthers most definitely are racist, accusing people who criticize and don't vote for Obama because they dislike his policies, of also being racist obscures an extremely important point; Much, if not most of the criticism of Obama's policies is legitimate, whether people realize it or not.