It’s not the birth certificate, stupid. (It’s racism.)

My mother carried a copy of my birth certificate in her wallet from the
time I was about 4 years old until I was almost 21, prompted by an
incident with an emergency-room nurse who was shocked and confused to
discover that the blond-haired, green-eyed, white woman in front of her
was not a camp counselor, as she’d initially assumed, but the actual
birth mother to the brown-haired, brown-eyed, brown-skinned child whose
bleeding foot she’d just attended to. While my mom was a combination of
shocked and confused herself, in that moment she focused on a larger
issue: the safety of her child. She was afraid of what would or could
happen some other time in some other emergency if she were challenged,
and I was somehow denied or delayed needed care. For me, it was the
first time I remember thinking how weird it was that anyone would think
she wasn’t my mom. At 4 years old, the conclusion is easily “Grown-ups
are dumb.”
 
Which is essentially the point President Obama was making earlier this week. Then, as now, the issue is not really about a birth certificate. The president is correct, we should not let a carnival sideshow or his followers distract us from larger issues. Ongoing fears about change, and racism — both of which fuel irrational behavior — ARE part of those larger issues. In that ER, I don’t believe the nurse had malice in her heart or that anyone who disagrees with President Obama necessarily does. But the nurse was clearly uncomfortable when presented with a set of facts that directly challenged her understanding and experience of the world. Just as the social and economic changes our society is currently undergoing are frightening and uncomfortable for some Americans.
 
Birtherism was a runaway distraction long before the circus came to town, left to simmer on the stove since the 2008 campaign cycle. There is plenty of accountability to be shared in how we got to this point. Prejudice and bigotry crosses party, city, county and state lines. As does silliness told and re-told in all mediums from print to electronic under the auspices of “covering the story,” aka keeping it alive for the sake of ratings.
 
However, from RNC Chairman Reince Priebus to Mitch McConnell to John Boehner and beyond, the GOP leadership has failed time and again on these issues. No one is fooled by responses like “Well, I take the president at his word” when asked a direct question. It’s embarrassing for our country that the answer wasn’t, “Of course he is an American citizen, now let’s move on,” from the very first time the question was asked and every time thereafter both in public and in private. And it’s just as cowardly to now suggest that it’s the president who is making an issue of his birth, after several years of sitting back and let it fester, so long as it served political goals of keeping the base “fired up.”
 
On the left, I also have to admit that too many of my friends have been quick to ridicule and be dismissive without acknowledging that for some people there is a genuine, legitimate fear that is not rooted in malice against the president. By dismissing it, we are part of the problem ourselves.

As Americans, every one of us shares the responsibility to deal with these issues. When public polling shows that 46 percent of GOP voters in the state of Mississippi think interracial marriage should be illegal, it’s all of our problem. Or when the sponsor of a bill passed in the Oklahoma Legislature ending affirmative action in state government says that, while discrimination exists, “blacks simply don’t work as hard as whites,” it’s all of our problem.
 
Hearing stories like that is infuriating and painful. But I’m gonna choose to be hopeful because one of the things I love and respect most about our country is that throughout our history, it’s when we are uncomfortable that we’ve made some of the most significant strides toward a more perfect union.