Op-Ed: CNN Plays the Real Race Card on Barack Obama

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Racism is mostly about what people don't get, because of their race. But sometimes it's about what they get too much of, for the same reason. CNN dished up too much of Barack Obama's family matters, with shades of racism and classism.

I've been watching political interviews for a very long time, and I've never seen a network conduct an independent interview with a candidate's grandmother, much less going to the outlands of another continent to do it.

On the day before the New Hampshire Primary, one would think that would be the focus of CNN's interview. One would expect questions about Barack’s campaign, and that his grandmother would be asked about her expectations respecting the New Hampshire Primary. But there were no such questions. As I watched, I came to understand that the viewer wasn't suppose to learn anything from Obama's grandmother, the point was for us to see Obama's grandmother. We were to see how black she is, and how poor she is, and impute that to him.

CNN wanted us to see Obama's peasant grandmother, in miss-matched head wrap and dress, shucking corn; surrounded by poverty and barnyard animals. CNN hoped we would share their awe, that "it is a possibility that the President of the United States could have a Kenya grandmother," calling it "as far-fetched as any piece of fiction."

If race and class didn't get you, CNN had another trick. Blame the victim. They imputed their racism to Barack's grandmother. Without a word from his grandmother, after all, she doesn't speak English. And without a word from the reporter on site, Kyra Phillips declared that Obama's grandmother did not want her son to marry a white woman.

So take your pick of CNN created reasons not to vote for Barack. His race and class, reflected in the person of his grandmother, or his grandmother's racism, manufactured out of the imagination of Kyra Phillips.

After Obama won the Iowa caucus, CNN's Wolf Blitzer kept telling us not to get the idea that it meant something. The next day Kyra Phillips showed us why.

Kyra's "dog and pony show" using Obama's grandmother, is not the first time CNN has used race and ethnic bias in an effort to diminish Barack Obama.

On January 1, 2006, in the Situation Room , Wolf Blitzer described a "man feared and hated around the world," to a backdrop of a picture of Osama bin Laden. But instead of bin Laden’s name in the caption, it read "Where's Obama?" Wolf claimed "mistake," but before anything printed is published it's handled and reviewed by several people. Who can believe that nobody caught such a glaring error?

On the February 19th edition of Paula Zahn Now, Kyra Phillips called Barack “Osama bin,” when asking film maker, John Ridley, about Barack’s leadership ability. Now here she is, a media word master, and she doesn't just get his name wrong, she includes a sound and syllable that isn’t even in his name. Like Wolf, she too claimed mistake. But isn't it interesting that ordinary people never make that mistake. Interchanging Obama's name with that of Osama Bin Laden, is a mistake reserved for people in media and politics, who don't support Barack Obama.

Again in February, Kyra Phillips bashed Barack Obama. This time while playing good cop bad cop with Bill Schneider. In the end they told us what they wanted us to hear, the words of Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, dissing Barack, and claiming that his policy on Iraq would "encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq," and that it would "create chaos and a victory for the terrorists." He then goes on to suggest that America's enemies should "hang on and hope for an Obama victory." So, the same CNN that can't distinguish the name of an American presidential candidate from that of a terrorist, bothers to tell us that some foreigner inferred that his candidacy will further the interest of terrorist.

Finally, CNN's Jack Cafferty tells us that Obama is black. Then he talks about "what many people think about black Americans in national politics." He does this on his way to introducing the idea that "Americans are tired of so-called 'identity politics', where people are defined by things like their ethnicity and gender." Then, as if to make sure that we know that he doesn't believe a word of it, he winds up by naming 10 "big-time black celebrities" who "haven’t announced their support for Obama." Inferring that there’s some relationship between being black and supporting Barack Obama, the very essence of "identity politics."

CNN played the real race card, in an attempt to bring Barack Obama under the effect of "identity politics," while pretending to oppose it. And they're deflecting their responsibility for it, by blaming "identity politics" on Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, like Kyra Phillips blamed Obama's grandmother, for the racially divisive words, that began in her mind, and came out of her mouth.