Sh*t my moronic Facebook friend says

I typically don't watch the first half of NBC's Sunday Night Football. No reason in particular, other than I usually have other things to wrap up as the weekend winds down. With that in mind, I later heard some folks were pretty whizzed off that President Obama's remarks at a Newtown, CT memorial for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting preempted the big 49ers-Patriots matchup.You can click on the Deadspin story if you so desire. Personally, I was appalled on so many levels by the invective posted on Twitter. First, the gratuitous use of the "N-word" when referring to the President, especially on a forum like Twitter with its millions of users, was sickening. Second, the fact some buffoons would get so overwrought because their precious NFL was being interrupted for a quarter or two smacks of a woeful lack of perspective. While I certainly don't excuse the behavior or lack of decorum and civility, I chalk it up to a bunch of teens/college aged kids (I ascertained ages by their Twitter avatars) who are socially illiterate.

Ah, but in this era of politicizing absolutely everything, there was no way this was going to be merely chalked up to youthful impudence. Some group or ideology must be tagged with this incident.

A Facebook friend of mine wrote the following when posting the aforementioned Deadspin article on his page:

Hey conservative America, if you're curious why you've won only one popular vote for the White House since 1988, it's because you're making these people the base of your party. And if you seriously think racism isn't still a major issue in this nation, look no further.

Yes, I concur that to say racism has completely dissipated would be quite naive. But I guarantee you one thing: If anyone ever attended a politically conservative meeting and began spewing gratuitous use of the "N-word," that person would be completely drummed out. So to say that conservatives look to make people like that the "base" of our party is quite possibly the most vacuous statement I've seen in print. 

While it's true the GOP has garnered the majority of popular votes in only one Presidential election since 1988, to chalk it up to one sole issue is also woefully ignorant. If one made an honest assessment of each election cycle since '88, the GOP losses can be traced to many demographics such as age, income class, education, religious affiliation and, yes, even race.

One final thought: Would it be racist to discriminate against a black man if he were rumored to lean politically right (thus being dubbed a "cornball brother")? How about if someone implied that the one and only black person in the U.S. Senate (a Republican, by the way) was not a legit black man? Such folks who make statements like that often appear to associate with the party that's left of center (See the comment section on the HuffPo article talking about the appointment of Tim Scott as US Senator of South Carolina).

Maybe my friend was right. Perhaps racism still is a major issue. But maybe it's not as prevalent in the direction he's pointing.

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