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This week President Obama released his birth certificate to the public, with the hope that it would placate the crazy Tea Party/Donald Trump’s of the world. Considering he already had to prove that he was born in the USA to run for office, it was a move that should have been unnecessary in the first place, but sadly it wasn’t. And now he has to fight another unnecessary storm; the conspiracy theorists who are already questioning the validity of the certificate. SMH!

Ever since the “Obama” name became recognizable to the world, he has had to deal with naysayers and people slamming him in the media for anything and everything. While this is par for the course for every politician, especially a presidential candidate, the issues he has had to put up with are far beyond what any other candidate has ever had to. Ever! A lot of them don’t even revolve around his policies, but his personal life, religion and schooling. What is worrying is that even though there is an obvious racial angle to the unwavering questioning of him and his presidency, it is largely being written off as political banter, rather than racism.

Our sister site NewsOne published a “Top 10” list of racist quotes from Rush Limbaugh, and a lot of them revolve around our President. He has been called an “affirmative action candidate,” a “Halfrican American,” who is not Black, but Arab, and Limbaugh has even played the “Barack the Magic Negro” song (repeatedly) on his radio show. But he’s not the only one getting in on the action. Donald Trump just this week, told him to “get off the basketball court and focus on oil prices,” and even questioned his intellectual capabilities, suggesting that he was such a poor student he must have only got into the prestigious  Colleges he did because of his skin color. He said; “I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.” Seriously? Another witch hunt?

Donald Trump says all this stuff, then claims he “hopes there is nothing to find”. The implication there is that Obama may be hiding something, and he can’t be trusted. He also claims that, it is in the nation’s interest to know about his schooling and birth place. Why? Did anyone request to see Bush’s school transcripts? Surely he did and said some things that would suggest he isn’t very bright, so why wasn’t his education a big issue?

People have come out to condemn thinking like Trump’s and Limbaugh’s in the media, calling them racist and ignorant and the like. But the majority of the time no one actually makes a stand against what they’re saying. Yahoo News notes that; “even respected liberal commentators have given Trump something of a pass for the racial tension animating Birtherism.” People are arguing that Trump is crazy and fear mongering just for “Apprentice” ratings, as though that’s an explanation. Limbaugh is often maligned in the press, but yet he was still able to sign an eight year contract worth around $400 million. So he’s not really feeling any backlash is he?

Whoopi Goldberg said it best when she said;”I’m getting tired of trying to find reasons not to think of stuff as being racist. Being black, when you say, ‘You know, this is racist,’ 9,000 people say, ‘Oh, no, you’re just playing the race card.’ Well, you know what? I’m playing the damn card now.” And she’s right, it is about race, I’m willing to bet that if Obama dared to call anyone a “cracker” or make a comment on the level of their education based on their skin color, there would be hell to pay. So why are we so quick to brush off Trump’s comments as not racist?

Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh and even Silvio Berluscioni (who once remarked that Obama was “some tanned guy“) whether we like it or not, are all leaders, who all have international profiles. By not completely shutting down their dim-witted discussions and condemning their ignorance publicly, is the message that we are sending, that a bit of racism is ok? Are we saying that even our President isn’t immune, and even he doesn’t deserve respect? If so, then the view that the rest of the world already has of our country as being insane and having lost our mind, is then true. And that’s ridiculous.

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