"Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black! Besides, I only sent it to a few people - mostly people I didn't think would be upset by it," explained Marilyn Davenport , Teapublican activist and member of the Orange County Republican Party Central Committee. Davenport is in hot water for circulating a racist hate-email depicting President Barack Obama and his parents as chimpanzees. The email also noted, "Now you know why - No birth certificate." As with most white racists on the defensive, Davenport's "excuse" was that she only sent the email to her closest racist friends, that she is not a racist , that she didn't realize the email was racist, and that it's perfectly acceptable to make fun of black people as subhuman. These are each classic forms of racism denial. Instead of an apology, Davenport said she was concerned over who leaked her racist email and then blamed the media for running it. Dehumanizing blacks as being ape-like (and by implication not as evolved as whites) is among the most violent, hurtful and persistent legacies of America's enslavement of black Africans. In a six-year research study at Stanford it was found that whites who do not regard blacks as “fully human” are also likely to ignore or even condone violence against blacks. The Republican-sponsored Tea movement, with its veneer of white supremacist nationalism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in response to President Obama's election is a political manifestation of white Christian superiority that must be constantly monitored. Maybe we shouldn't be too surprised by such overt racism coming from Orange County's Republican Central Committee. It is after all the same organization that celebrated the election of the first black US President ever by circulating an email depicting a watermelon field instead of a lawn in front of the White House. |
