I have grown up around rednecks all my life so I have met and known many bigots. Not all rednecks are bigots but I would say many are. Some are decent people, even if they are ignorant about many things. They may be the kind of person who would give you the shirt off their back but then they might tell you not to bring a black person into their house. Most, just voice their dislike of different minorities when they believe no one is listening who does not share their hate or fear.
What I have observed over the years of my long life is that many of these people have never had African-American friends or even Hispanic or Asian friends. Any media they listen to, websites they visit or friends they make are all ultra-conservative. Their attachment to the rest of the world is with skepticism and a fear of people who are not white and those who are not like them, though it is skin color, religion or sexual orientation.
If a person that is within that community voices his or her support for racial equality issues or gay rights issues, that individual will become radioactive to the other members of that community. From personal experience, if a conservative church discovers you are gay you will quickly be ostracized until you no longer feel welcome enough to stay.
To the extremes, some of the more religious Obama-Haters see the president as the Anti-Christ and that somehow, he is going to take over the world and everyone - except their little church of course - will worship him. I would like to see the surprise on their faces when President Obama and his family ride off in a helicopter to wherever their new home will be, once leaving the White House in 2017.
Misinformation about Obama fuels much of the fear and hate that has permeated the right wing since he took office. The internet is loaded with anti-Obama websites and all sorts of conspiracy theories involving our president are flying through emails, Twitter and Facebook postings at a steady pace. Of course, President Obama is not the only president who has had websites dedicated to conspiracy theories about him along with the hate-filled commentary that goes with those sites, but there is an overwhelming amount of vitriol for Obama compared to any other president, which is obvious to anyone who has observed closely enough.
Let me add here that from my perspective, President Obama has been a typical Democratic president in most of his actions. His signature health care law the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, was something this country needed with 50 million people without health insurance. Yet, it has been presented by certain unreliable conservative media outlets in such a negative light and with such misinformation that many of those who will even benefit from the program are instead fearful of what the program will bring upon them.
Obama and his administration also have been accused of trying to take guns away from law-abiding citizens. Nothing he has proposed in gun control legislation to this date, has even suggested he wishes to take away guns presently in the homes and possessions of Americans. The only legislation that has been introduced to Congress is to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them, such as the violently mentally ill and criminals who were convicted of violent crimes.
President Obama has done nothing to warrant the kind of attacks he has received from conservative corners, which not only attack his presidency, his politics and decisions but him personally. The rise of the birther crowd, and the suspicion that he was somehow a secret Muslim, have all been out of fear that Barack Obama is some form of Satan incarnate that had come to take over the world, starting with the United States.
Certainly, there are real hate-mongers who spin these tales about the evil Obama, but fear drives those kinds of tales, not truth. In the eyes of those who can see no further than their fear or hate of Obama, anything the President does will be seen as either fulfilling part of his evil plan, or doing it to cover up his evil plan.
It is that fear of President Obama that those who hate him, use to motivate those who really just fear him, enough so that they will vote in mass numbers in elections. Its effectiveness is limited, which is why the Obama haters failed to overturn his presidency in 2012
If those who hate him or fear him, actually paid attention to the man, perhaps they would see whom Obama really is along with what he actually is trying to do as president, instead of this cynical view that shines far from the truth of his true nature.
The demonization of his character is completely unfair to him and his family and it is completely unfounded. Since President Obama has been before the public eye, he has been impeccable as far as his personal character, at all times throughout his presidency. Though one might disagree with his politics, no one can bring one fact to bear to show his character to be anything but true and upright, and we cannot say that about many of his critics, can we?
When history portrays President Obama, I believe he will be considered one of the greatest presidents of his time. I also believe ObamaCare will still be here a hundred years from now, though it will have gone through thousands of changes, hopefully for the better. On the other hand, those who hate Obama so much now and who have gone to so much trouble to bring the man down, in a hundred years may only be remembered for their ignorance and bigotry, which hopefully at that time will be a thing of the past.
This is a republish from my website: Fidlerten Place