Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land Dumbasses

Wonder Man had this on his blog "Maybe It's Just Me", so I had to mention it here.

As reported in The Washington Monthly, Steve Benen wrote:

A new Research 2000 poll conducted for Daily Kos asked respondents a rather straightforward question: "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?" Since the president was born in the U.S., ideally, the results would be around 100%.

They weren't. There was, not surprisingly, a significant partisan gap. Only 4% of Democrats are confused about the president's place of birth. The number is slightly higher among independents, 8% of whom got it wrong. Among Republicans, though, 28% -- more than one in four -- believe President Obama was not born in the United States.

For a crazy, demonstrably false, racist idea, these are discouraging numbers.

But I was especially surprised by the regional breakdowns. In the Northeast, West, and Midwest, the overwhelming majorities realize the president is a native-born American. But notice the South -- only 47% got it right and 30% are unsure.

Outside the South, this madness is gaining very little traction, and remains a fringe conspiracy theory. Within the South, it's practically mainstream.

I'm not familiar with details of the poll, but it's probably representative for the most part. This would be even more depressing if I hadn't lived and taught school here for decades. I can be lulled into a false sense of reality because of friends and family members I'm around socially who are reasonable, intelligent, and informed. Others I come in contact with who believe everything they hear from FOX commentators and right-wing talk radio all parrot the same lines with almost no variation. It's so bad that I'm tempted to tell them, "If I want to know what you have to say, I'll watch FOX News."

Some if it is reinforced in fundamentalist and evangelical churches. (Karl Rove and Lee Atwater knew what they were doing when they targeted that demographic and designed "talking points" that pandered to them.) I've seen and heard too much of it with students, and schools are a microcosm of the society where they are located. Straw polls in schools reflect the votes during elections.

I didn't grow up hearing all that in the Methodist Church my family attended regularly and was involved in. Later in the Episcopal Church the emphasis was on helping people and being a better person without unrealistic rules and with forgiveness when we stray. I never heard anything racist, judgmental, and exclusionary in those churches but had positive experiences and guidelines to be the best person I could be. "Born again" is not a term used in those churches, either. It was a shock when I heard classmates from the Baptist Church and Church of Christ tell me I was going to Hell because I didn't go to their church.

We were taught that there was more than one way to get to Heaven and that other religions were valid and had their places. Unlike those churches, we were not forbidden to dance, sing with musical accompaniment, attend other denominations, and other restrictive policies that lead to intolerance, smugness, hypocrisy, and guilt. They don't promote positive mental health. I have been thankful to my mother for making sure I wasn't exposed to that and for being the kind of parent she is. My father grew up in the Southern Baptist Church but changed to Methodist after he married Mother. I was exposed to it with his side of the family and had a couple of experiences that Mother made sure never happened again. She got Daddy to handle it with them, and it ended.

These "birthers" are racists who are looking for any excuse to discredit and criticize Obama without just coming out and saying they don't like having a black man for president. It's ironic because then they say, "Hey look, we have a black President - racism is over in America!" Yeah, right. Racism is in all of the country but is more overt in the South. The good part of that is knowing where people stand and not being stabbed in the back as often as in other sections of the country. The bad part is that it's still going on.