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<H1 id=articleTitle class=articleTitle>DAVID SIROTA: Our national religion is
'Denialism'</H1></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV class=articleByline> </DIV>
<DIV class=articleByline>Alamogordo Daily News<BR>By David Sirota, For the Daily
News</DIV>
<DIV id=articleDate class=articleDate>Posted: 08/26/2011 04:49:53 PM
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<P>Republican guru Karl Rove recently appeared on Fox News to dispute the idea
that America is a "Christian nation." And he was right to do so, but not because
our country lacks an overarching canon. We certainly do have a national religion
-- it's just not Christianity. It's Denialism.</P>
<P>Some branches of this religion deny the science documenting humans' role in
climate change. Others deny tax cuts' connection to deficits and deregulation's
role in the recession. But regardless of the issue, Denialists all share a basic
hostility to facts.</P>
<P>As this know-nothing theology expands, none of its denominations claims a
bigger membership than the one obsessed with race. Today, many reject the fact
that black people typically face bigger obstacles to economic and political
success than whites. Instead, they insist that whites are oppressed.</P>
<P>If you've followed politics, you're familiar with this catechism. In the
1980s, lawmakers often implied that welfare programs persecuted whites. In the
1990s, the same lawmakers demonized affirmative-action initiatives that tried to
counter college admission preferences for white "legacy" families. These days,
demagogues cite Barack Obama's political ascendance as supposed proof that black
people are unfairly privileged.</P>
<P>The late Democrat Geraldine Ferraro first floated this specific fable in
2008, when she said that Obama was "very lucky" to be black and that "if Obama
was a white man, he would not be in (his) position." Obama rightly noted that
"anybody who knows the history of this country ... would not take too seriously
the notion that (being black) has been a huge advantage."</P>
<P>But the meme nonetheless persists. In May, Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., said
Obama's election "comes back to who he was: he was black." Now, it's Sen. Tom
Coburn, R-Okla., who last week declared that "as an African American male,"
Obama received a "tremendous advantage from a lot of (government) programs."</P>
<P>Though Coburn's dog-whistle racism is (sadly) mundane, his statement is news
because of its timing.</P>
<P>In the same week the Oklahoman insinuated that government gives African
Americans a "tremendous advantage," The New York Times reported on data showing
black scientists are "markedly less likely" to win government grants than white
scientists. A few weeks earlier, the Pew Research Center had reported that "the
median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households."</P>
<P>These representative snapshots remind us that despite Denialist rhetoric,
institutional racism and white privilege dominate American society.</P>
<P>This truth is everywhere. You can see it in black unemployment rates, which
are twice as high as white unemployment rates -- a disparity that persists even
when controlling for education levels. You can see it in a 2004 MIT study
showing that job-seekers with "white names receive 50 percent more callbacks for
interviews" than job seekers with comparable resumes and "African
American-sounding names." And you can see it in a news media that looks like an
all-white country club and a U.S. Senate that includes no black legislators.</P>
<P>Denialists imply that this is all negated by Obama's success. But while his
rise to the Oval Office certainly was an achievement, Obama was correct when,
upon becoming Harvard Law Review's first black president in 1990, he said, "It's
crucial that people don't see my election as somehow a symbol of progress in the
broader sense, that we don't sort of point to a Barack Obama any more than you
point to a Bill Cosby or a Michael Jordan and say, 'Well, things are hunky
dory.'"</P>
<P>Of course, things aren't "hunky dory" for most people in this recession --
but they are particularly awful for black Americans. Unfortunately, if you
refuse to acknowledge that truth, there's a whole Church of Denialism ready to
embrace you.</P>
<P><BR><I>David Sirota is a best-selling author and hosts a morning radio show
on AM760 in Colorado. Email him at <A
href="mailto:ds@davidsirota.com">ds@davidsirota.com</A>.</I></P>
<P><EM>_________________________________________</EM></P></DIV></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Wayne A. Fox<BR><A
href="mailto:wayne.a.fox@gmail.com">wayne.a.fox@gmail.com</A><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>