Eight Feet Deep

 Few for­mer Amer­i­can lead­ers can so quickly piss off his or her oppo­nents the way for­mer Pres­i­dent Jimmy Carter can.

 One doesn’t have to read all the top right-wing blogs or lis­ten to the major reac­tionary talk radio shows to know that anger is drip­ping like blood from the Carter-haters today after he stated what many less promi­nent peo­ple have been say­ing for days. That is, of course, that the behav­ior behind the “You Lie” out­cry of Repub­li­can U.S. Rep. Joe Wil­son of South Car­olina is steeped in racism.

 Now it is no sur­prise that every­one and their dog who sup­ports Wil­son says there is no truth to such a charge. Even Pres­i­dent Obama’s press sec­re­tary Robert Gibbs says his boss doesn’t agree with Carter’s assess­ment. We are left to take the Big Man’s word as to whether such a state­ment from the first African-American pres­i­dent (Obama’s daddy and not Obama him­self if you will remem­ber was born in Africa) is sincere, playing pol­i­tics or are all of the above. Therein is the prob­lem “Big­ger than Dal­las” as peo­ple say down here in Texas unless they live in Hous­ton or Fort Worth.

 Racism is not some­thing one can see like, say, a three-headed chicken. It is not an olfac­tory sense like whiff­ing the aroma of a dead mack­erel on the beach. Nor is racism to be heard (well, at least the feel­ing or behav­ior itself can’t be heard), tasted (except in some rare instances of poisoning) or touched (fill in your own exception.)

 You may call Joe Wil­son a racist all you want. One might say that much of the dys­pep­tic right-wing polit­i­cal actions as of late cer­tainly appear as being spurred by racism, such as keep­ing the chil­dren from watch­ing their pres­i­dent give a speech on stay­ing in school. But the fact is, if Joe Wil­son says he isn’t a racist, there is lit­tle short of some legal action such as a crim­i­nal con­vic­tion for a hate crime that will prove it. Ditto for those who screamed that they wanted to save their lit­tle inno­cent dar­lings from being indoc­tri­nated by Nazi-commie-pinko-homo-freaking-Democrats.

 What makes the charge of racism even more dif­fi­cult to prove is that save for those who dress like punk-rock icon Henry Rollins, as in his guest gig on FX’s “Sons of Anar­chy,” most racists are not going to show out­wards signs of racism nor admit their feelings.

 Some racists will jump up and down, shout, knock the crap out of, per­haps even kill you if you dare label them a racists. Why? Because they do not see them­selves as such. It’s not nice to be called a racist. It’s kind of taboo.

 On the other hand, if you were raised in a cul­ture in which your par­ents or grand­par­ents, neigh­bors and even your soci­ety expressed racial prej­u­dice — such as the “White” and “Col­ored” water foun­tains and rest rooms I used to see grow­ing up — that doesn’t make you a racist.

 If any­one believed that racial prej­u­dice was going to be quickly dis­patched by the elec­tion of a black (and half-white) pres­i­dent then per­haps now it is (way, way past) time to come back to reality.

 That there are those in pol­i­tics who are using the so-called “race card” to their advan­tage — on both sides — like­wise shouldn’t be shock­ing. That is because the race card is a trick card. It is there when some­one says it is there, and it’s not there when some­one says it is not.