Obama Met In Arizona With Racist Chants
President Obama spoke in Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday. Planning to make statements at the local Desert Vista High School about mortgage finance reform, the president was met with anti-Obama demonstrators. This is nothing new for the president, until it was clear what the group of protesters were chanting.
“He’s 47 percent negro,” shouted out one of the demonstrators, according to Raw Story. At least one person raised a sign reading “Impeach the Half-White Muslim!”
Then the crowd, expressing their distaste for the first African-American president, serenaded Obama with “Bye Bye Black Sheep.” Most of the crowd were dressed in red, white, and blue while waving American flags.
Sources at Washington Post say that some of the protesters tried to explain that their protest and slogans were not racist. A 17-year-old University of Arizona student, Deanna Bartram, explains why referring to the president as a “half-white Muslim” who should go back to “where he came from” is not racist. She can’t be, she explains: She’s part Indian. Bartram says people use the “race card” to call her a racist simply because they disagree with her.
Another Arizona Obama protester, a 77-year-old local, says he’s ashamed of the president. He says he thinks Obama mishandled the US Benghazi embassy terror attack.
Another, Judy Burris, says that Obama is the cause of modern racism in the US. Burris says that Obama’s taken the country back many years in social progress. “He’s divided all the races. I hate him for that.”
She explains that she’s not racist. Why? She brought along her 12-year-old grandson, Christian Cabrera. “He’s Mexican,” Burris says.
In response to the anti-Obama protesters, a group of supporters for the president formed. They began shouting down the dissenters. Michael Pomales, a former student at Desert Vista High, says the group came together naturally. He just he wanted to show his support for Obama by demonstrating against the other group, as did other, Pomales explains.
The Arizona Obama protesters were not acknowledged by the president, who went on to give his speech as planned.
