{"id":626,"date":"2012-10-25T21:19:55","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T01:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=626"},"modified":"2012-10-25T21:19:55","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T01:19:55","slug":"the-age-of-obama-and-the-racism-industrial-complex-ric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/the-age-of-obama-and-the-racism-industrial-complex-ric.html","title":{"rendered":"The Age of Obama and the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah Palin is under fire.<\/p>\n

Early Wednesday morning, in reference to the murderous September 11th<\/sup> attacks on an American embassy in Libya, Palin remarked that \u201cPresident Obama\u2019s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end.\u201d<\/p>\n

All too predictably, the usual suspects have accused the 2008 vice presidential candidate and former Alaskan governor of racial insensitivity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Never mind that Palin quickly responded that \u201cI would have used the exact same expression if I had been writing about President Carter, whose foreign policy rivaled Obama\u2019s in its ineptitude, or about the Nixon administration, which was also famously rocked by a cover-up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And never mind that she noted that \u201cI\u2019ve been known to use the phrase most often when chastising my daughter Piper to stop procrastinating and do her homework.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the expression \u201cshuck and jive\u201d has historically been associated with the attempt of blacks to \u201cdeceive racist Euro-Americans in power,\u201d according to Urban Dictionary, Palin is not so subtly being charged by her opponents with peddling racism.<\/p>\n

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone.\u00a0 Palin is not the first person who Barack Obama and his surrogates have branded with \u201cthe R word,\u201d and she most certainly will not be the last.\u00a0 As long as there remain whites who regard the label with all of the dread with which a vampire views a cross, there will always be those who will hang it over their heads like an axe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there is more to it than this.<\/p>\n

Of all of the industries to which our country has been home over the last 50 to 60 years, there is one that has flourished to at least as great an extent as any other.\u00a0 This is what we may call the Racism-Industrial-Complex (RIC).\u00a0 The influence of the RIC is felt in virtually every precipice of American life, for RIC agents have been busy at work to insure a couple of things.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, they are preoccupied\u2014obsessed, really\u2014with making sure that white racism\u2014and it is always white <\/em>racism\u2014is treated by all Americans as the single greatest threat to world peace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Second, RIC agents are equally consumed with making sure that Americans believe, or at least act as if they believe, that white racism poses as potent a threat today as it ever did in the past. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The benefits to be reaped by promulgating these ideas can\u2019t be overestimated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those who comply with RIC diminish their odds of being branded with the allegation of racism.\u00a0 In a day and age when, thanks precisely to the labors of RIC agents, just the suggestion that one is a racist can effortlessly destroy livelihoods and reputations, this is no slight reward.\u00a0 Monetarily, professionally, and even psychically, RIC agents, on the other hand, achieve far more.<\/p>\n

That the sky\u2019s the limit for a RIC agent was witnessed by the entire planet on the evening that Barack Hussein Obama was elected as America\u2019s 44th<\/sup> president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Racism-Industrial-Complex has almost single-handedly created the world that we inhabit, a world in which whites\u2019 dread of being charged with racism coexists with their genuine hope that interracial conflict will soon go the way of the dinosaur.\u00a0 RIC agents generally\u2014and Obama particularly\u2014know this.\u00a0 And four years ago, they exploited it by convincing whites that if only they would elect the country\u2019s first black president, their fears would be vanquished and their hopes fulfilled.<\/p>\n

Obama would redeem America of her blemished past and a new, post-racial era would be inaugurated.<\/p>\n

Of course, this was a lie, but it was one that many whites wanted desperately to believe.<\/p>\n

RIC agents crave power, but, in this case, their quest may have come at too great of a cost.\u00a0 Being that he is one of their own, they wanted to see Obama elected so that he could advance their agenda more aggressively and robustly than it had ever been advanced before.\u00a0 However, that he is <\/em>now the first black president means that a great deal of their industry\u2019s lifeblood\u2014the notion that America remains a bastion of white racism\u2014has been sucked out of it.<\/p>\n

But RIC will not die without a fight.\u00a0 This explains why its agents will continue to find white racism under every nook and cranny.\u00a0 It explains why they are now jumping all over Sarah Palin.<\/p>\n

And it explains why, if Obama loses his bid for reelection, we will be hearing nothing but cries of racism ad infinitum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Palin is under fire. Early Wednesday morning, in reference to the murderous September 11th attacks on an American embassy in Libya, Palin remarked that \u201cPresident Obama\u2019s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end.\u201d All too predictably, the usual suspects have accused the 2008 vice presidential candidate and former Alaskan governor of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Age of Obama and the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/the-age-of-obama-and-the-racism-industrial-complex-ric.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Age of Obama and the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sarah Palin is under fire. Early Wednesday morning, in reference to the murderous September 11th attacks on an American embassy in Libya, Palin remarked that \u201cPresident Obama\u2019s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end.\u201d All too predictably, the usual suspects have accused the 2008 vice presidential candidate and former Alaskan governor of…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/the-age-of-obama-and-the-racism-industrial-complex-ric.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-26T01:19:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Age of Obama and the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC)","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/the-age-of-obama-and-the-racism-industrial-complex-ric.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Age of Obama and the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC)","og_description":"Sarah Palin is under fire. 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I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions\/627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}