Sunday, September 21, 2008

otherizing obama

Interesting column from the NY Times again, this time by Nicholas D. Kristof:

What is happening, I think, is this: religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it’s not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate’s skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian.

The result is this campaign to “otherize” Mr. Obama. Nobody needs to point out that he is black, but there’s a persistent effort to exaggerate other differences, to de-Americanize him.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

in other words, the "otherizing" is code for race? babs

Lotta K said...

I this case it comes down to race, he says. But, by the way of religion. He also says Conservative Christians seriously think Obama is the Antichrist.