Who sounds unpatriotic?

By Dr. E. Faye Williams
TriceEdneyWire.com Columnist

Since President Barack Obama has been President, we’ve seen the best and the worst of behavior from some of our leaders. When the President was elected, many of us felt America was at her best. For one brief moment, we thought we’d at least come close to overcoming America’s racist past. Well, that didn’t last long.

We began hearing the questioning of the legitimacy of our President. It was done in several ways. His birth certificate was challenged over and over and over! Insults have been yelled at him from the floor of Congress. There is frequent talk of “taking back our country”—as if Black people don’t belong here. Some questioned his education. After criticizing his Christian faith, he was arbitrarily assigned the Muslim faith! He was mocked as a chimpanzee. He’s been called the “Kenyan”. He’s had to endure unfair criticism of the First Lady and listen to silly rhetoric about her efforts to help America’s children realize a healthier lifestyle. He’s been called a dictator, arrogant, lazy—you name it!

All the time, these over the top critics claim to be patriotic. This led me to my dictionary to reaffirm the meaning of patriotism. I came up with, “A patriot is one who loves his country and zealously supports its authority and interests”. Surely the President fits that bill. He’s endured the insults with grace. He has worked hard to reduce the nation’s debt –and succeeded in a big way. He’s promoted job growth in an effort to put the American people to work. He’s built positive relations with numerous leaders of other nations. He’s worked to get immigration reform. He’s championed an affordable health care plan for all in need of health care. He’s supported a non-discrimination clause based upon pre-existing conditions. He’s promoted women’s rights, signed the Violence Against Women’s Act, supported fair pay for women, named two women judges to the Supreme Court and the list goes on.

As for his critics, they caused the government to shut down, voted more than 40 times to take affordable health care away from the most vulnerable, blocked the Jobs Bill, defeated the Farm Bill, threatened to take away basic subsistence from women, infants and children who’ve got no other means of support. They’ve tried to obliterate a woman’s right to choose health care and crash the economy. They blocked tax on companies that shipped jobs overseas, opened the floodgates for campaign donations that suppress human rights, blocked immigration reform that would’ve added over 1 trillion dollars to our economy in a decade, blocked benefits to homeless veterans, blocked healthcare benefits for 911 first responders who became ill from being at Ground Zero, blocked improvements to domestic violence programs, attempted to block the Unemployment Extension bill and more. As soon as the President was in office, a team of critics met to figure out how to make him fail.

More reasonable people have begun to say, “This was all about trying to bring-down the President, and block any success for which he might get credit”. All of this blocking is twisted behavior that goes beyond politics. These actions are the essence of UNPATRIOTIC behavior.

The critics are the ones who shut down the government – an unpatriotic act – for over two weeks. This was an attempt to block the President’s efforts for the good of our nation, but they made life miserable for many. Just in case I’m not clear on who the unpatriotic ones are, here’s what Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) said when midway through his opening remarks at a recent hearing. He held up a small blue- edged mirror facing across the room and said, “If Republican colleagues will look at me, I will show you who is responsible.”

This article originally published in the October 28, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.