‘You lie’

I saw most of the speech last night, but not all.  I did catch Rep. Joe Wilson completely berate our President by shouting out “You Lie!” while he was explaining that illegal immigrants would not receive free healthcare under this reform.

Now, I have to wonder how much of this might be racially based.  Coming from South Carolina – and excuse me for generalizing an entire state here – but South Carolina is known for being a hot bed of racial tension.  A white man from the south just called our black president a liar, in public, on camera while he was addressing Congress, and this is an outburst that has never been done before.

“CNN: Never has any member of Congress shown such disrespect for the president during a speech,” Fowler wrote. “One would think that as a member of the military, Joe Wilson would have more respect and patriotism than he displayed tonight. When Congressman Wilson insulted President Obama, he also insulted the American public. Joe Wilson is a poor example of a statesman and an American. He owes an apology to the president and the American people.”

This to me screams “White Privilege”.  Of course, I could be making a big deal out of nothing, but I have to wonder…

Quick Hit: Please read this great article on why the term “illegal alien” brings images of very bad things to the more conservative minded Americans and those whose families have been in America for so long that they forgot their families actually came from other places of the world (unless you’re Native).  Here’s a quick quote of why it’s actually a very negative term:

If you can classify a whole group of people with a pejorative –alien –and then group them as “illegal,” you have carried out a neat trick: you have stripped a whole group of people of their humanity. Once dehumanized, any ill-treatment is judged by lesser standards, perhaps less moral than ones we apply to animals.

Just a quick something to think about.