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After disrespectfully yelling out “You lie!” to the President of the United States, in the middle of Obama’s address to Congress last night, Republican South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, above, quickly received the contempt of the body’s fellow members, on both sides of the aisle. (“Stand with me against liberal attacks: Today I need your help more than ever before,” he urged from his home page<\/a> on Twitter, shamelessly plugging for money.)<\/p>\n Wilson may actually do all right in that department because, according to TwitterCounter.com<\/a>, as of today, he also has more than 6,000 new followers on the popular social networking site.<\/p>\n Wilson had 2,311 followers on September 9th. As I’m writing this, TwitterCounter hasn’t registered today’s new followers. However, clicking on Wilson’s Twitter profile<\/a> shows, as of 7:40 pm ET today, 8,631 followers.<\/p>\n That’s not the most interesting observation you’re likely to read, however, about the Congressman’s lack of restraint. No, that would be Drs. Stephen Maynard Caliendo’s and Charlton McIlwain’s essay, “The Racial Context for Joe Wilson’s Outburst,”<\/a> excerpted below:<\/p>\n Beyond Wilson’s callous disdain for the office of President, it is important to understand the racial connotations involved, and the climate that gave rise to them.<\/p>\n For at least two years, his political opponents \u2013 including Democratic opponents during the primary \u2013 have attempted to portray Barack Obama as \u201cnot one of us.\u201d He has been, at various times, referred to as communist\/socialist\/Marxist, elitist, corrupt, a terrorist sympathizer, foreign-born, a thug, fascist and even racist. In short, he is everything that we believe America is not. He is not \u201cone of us.\u201d He is \u201cother.\u201d<\/p>\n It is no surprise, then, that some parents felt it dangerous to let this stranger talk to their children<\/a> on Tuesday, and it is no surprise that at least one member of Congress believed that it was appropriate to hurl an insult at him during a formal address. Keeping in mind that there is a small but vocal group of Americans and conservative leaders who continue to perpetuate the story that Obama is not a legitimate president because of his birth status, perhaps we should not be surprised that this president, then, does not command even the most minimal level of respect from some of his elected political opponents.<\/p>\n By and large, Whites in America go out of their way to excuse such behavior as being impolite or unfortunate, but not at all related to race. If one believes that the threshold of what is to be considered to be \u201cracist\u201d is that an epithet must be hurled (e.g., if Wilson would have yelled, \u201cYou lying nigger!\u201d[Ed’s note: Orif he’d\u00a0 followed my headline\u2014HA<\/em>), it is comfortable to believe that in a \u201cpost-racial\u201d nation, such behavior is divorced from the nation’s rich history of oppression and White supremacy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n [Insert the sound of an arrow hitting a target, followed by another arrow hitting the first one and smashing it to splinters, here.]<\/em><\/p>\n Caliendo’s and McIlwain are co-authors of the upcoming Race Appeal: The Prevalence, Purposes, and Political Implications of Racial Discourse in U.S. Electoral Politics<\/em> (Temple University Press 2010) and co-editors of the also-soon-to-be-released Routledge Companion to Race & Ethnicity<\/em>. These two scientists, out of their generosity, have complimented the writing I do here, on MEDIA ASSASSIN, though, obviously, that has zilch<\/em> to do with why they deserve a big-up. Check out their Race Project<\/a>, and follow their Project on Race in Political Communication on Twitter @PRPC<\/a>, in order to make maximum sense out of future South Carolinian smack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After disrespectfully yelling out “You lie!” to the President of the United States, in the middle of Obama’s address to Congress last night, Republican South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, above, quickly received the contempt of the body’s fellow members, on both sides of the aisle. (“Stand with me against liberal attacks: Today I need your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46,31,9,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5112"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5124,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions\/5124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"image5300230x\"](\"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/image5300230x-300x225.jpg\" "\\"image5300230x\\"")
We do not assert that Joe Wilson is a bigot; his personal racial attitudes are, perhaps ironically, beyond the scope of this incident. Rather, the consistent branding of President Obama as \u201cother\u201d by his opponents has created a context within which it is perceived that Obama need not be treated as other presidents have been treated. The creation of that \u201cotherness,\u201d while possibly motivated by racial animosity, is certainly rendered more effective as a result of deeply held negative predispositions about African Americans.<\/p>\n