Happy Birthday, Mr. President: How A Birth Certificate Revived Jim Crow

This is President Barack Obama’s birthday weekend. On August 4, 1961 a 25 year old African student and his 18 year-old Kansas-born wife welcomed Barack Hussein Obama II into the world. They were a young multiracial couple in a time when blacks and whites rarely sat next to each other at the lunch counter, let alone go to the chapel.

Living in Hawaii may have provided them a bit of an escape from the racial strife of the era, but ultimately, the marriage was doomed. The short lived union produced a child who became an Ivy League-educated lawyer and the first African-American ever elected to the office of the President of the United States of America.

Of course, they were proud parents. There were most likely cigars and gifts. We know there was a birth announcement in the local paper. In the midst of all the celebrating was the signing of Baby Barack’s birth certificate. That simple piece of business is now the center of the most ludicrous debate in American political history.

The “Birthers”

A small but strident minority insists that President Obama’s birth certificate is a fake. Without going into the well-mulled details, the “birthers” believe Mr. Obama’s presidency is the result of a half-century old conspiracy. The goal:  to place a non-American in the Oval Office and derail the peace, prosperity and perfection of American society. This foreign-born “other” would be a political Anti-Christ.

There is no need to directly address this idea that Mr. Obama is not an American citizen. The only results of an argument with idiots are a sore throat and a headache. Even after the release of the president’s birth certificate, interviews with former classmates, teachers, and substantial proof President Obama meets the constitutional condition that only naturally born American citizens can serve as POTUS, the “birthers” are steadfast. According to them, the birth certificate is a fake the government can’t recognize but is easily spotted by “birther” bloggers. Yea. Right. That makes sense.

New Age Jim Crow

One of the loudest voices in this crazy chorus of crackpots is Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio.  The good sheriff is not only a leader of the birthers, he’s also the grand marshal in a parade of assaults on the civil rights of Latinos. The “meanest sheriff in America” is what some consider a “true” American. If Arpaio could give President Obama a birthday gift, it would be a one-way ticket from 1600 Pennsylvania delivered with a red bow.

Arpaio is clearly the heir-apparent to Theophilus Eugene Conner. Conner wasn’t known by that ridiculously pretentious name he was given on his birthday. History knows him by his nickname, Bull.

Bull Connor was Birmingham, Alabama’s Commissioner of Public Safety. In 1963 he ordered city police to blast civil rights protesters with water cannons during peaceful demonstrations. It was on his watch the Birmingham PD released police dogs on children to protect segregation and suppress freedom.

America changed in spite of Connor and his like-minded legions. While he became the international poster boy for bigotry, Congress passed The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and ’65, respectively. And, racism began a slow and fitting death.

It was this America in which Barack Obama II came of age. The social and racial relations of the country changed. Opportunity sprang up like flowers after a spring rain. Young Obama wasn’t rich. He wasn’t white. He was a skinny kid with big ears, a funny name that he believed he could do anything he wanted. That belief earned him him an Ivy League education, took him to Chicago where he married and got involved in local politics which led him into the halls of power.

If this were a Hollywood movie, this is where the music swells and the good guy walks off into the sunset. But, hold on. Jim Crow’s corpse was buried in a shallow grave. America’s long-held racist beliefs, practices and systems were merely hiding behind a tree. By the 90’s, the scent of putrefaction was covered by the cheap perfume of political correctness. In this brave new world, racial epithets became passé. The flagrantly vicious racism practiced by Bull Conner and others has disappeared from the mainstream. But, the ideas that birthed that brand of prejudice did not disappear. Jim Crow may have died but his spirit lived. And that poltergeist has been stirring up trouble and making its presence known for more than 40 years.

From his days as a Harvard student to his time as a community organizer Obama has stood for the idea that all people should have opportunity. That has been a struggle but it seemed that the country was on an unalterable path toward universal opportunity. That path culminated in Obama’s election to the presidency under a banner of hope and the message, “Yes WE can!” The WE isn’t just white Americans, African Americans or any other flavored American. The we is ALL Americans.

The Road to The White House

The road to re-election is full of potholes but the tide is in Obama’s favor. As he turns 51 he should take a moment, exhale and pat himself on the back. The historic position he holds make shis presidency significant. His triumph and first administration exposed the moldering carcas of Jim Crow to the light so everyone can see that the new suit doesn’t hide the stink.  Jim Crow in all of its incarnations needs to die, die, die! By giving the bigots such a temping target Obama’s made them break cover. That exposer will allow for a good weeding of the great American garden. As ugly as the fight is and will continue to be the arc of history is on Obama’s side. It is on the side of openness and opportunity and light. Dark hearts shrivel in the light. They melt away like ice on the first true spring day. Bull Connor couldn’t stop the spring of Civil Rightns no more than Sheriff Arpaio can. 21st Century America isn’t going to look like 1950’s America.

At 51 Obama is a proven leader. He is both statesman and symbol. He has shouldered historic responsibilities with grace, honor and strength. Code words like foreigner, Muslim, and un-American have replaced the N-Word, but they mean the same thing. The feeling behind those sentiments is that the President should “stay in his place,” refusing to recognize the President’s place is in the lead.

Jim Crow’s ideological descendants just can’t bring themselves to follow. They may not say it openly, but they are afraid. The ethnic makeup of America is changing and that change heralds a long overdue leveling of the playing field. They want to stop the march of progress, saying  “No, we can’t. Let’s go back to the good ole days.” President Obama’s very presence makes that idea outdated.

The truth is simple: Yes, WE can change and move forward. Yes, HE can lead the country into a brighter future. And, the new incarnation of Jim Crow will lose. That’s a birthday gift for all of us.