Read an article about the show "How I Met Your Mother" caused a controversy by having white actors play kung fu masters with yellow faces and Asian accents.  I have never watched the show and so I do not know if it was racist, poor taste or funny.  But I read some of the comments to the author of the article accusing her of being over sensitive or a flaming liberal being politically correct.  I think these people who wrote the comments are the same ones who think it is perfectly acceptable that Washington's football team is called the Redskins.  Lets called the team Blackskins and see what happens.  Since I did not watch the show, I can't say I would have been offended for sure.  But I know for sure that if the characters were supposedly great basketball coaches, the writers would not have white people in black faces being the coaches!

Speaking of Asian actor roles, I still have yet to see an Asian male doctor lead in a medical show.  The two female Asian I can think of, Sandra Oh and Ming Na, both played slutty women, not exactly a boost to the Asian female images.  From my own experience, if a hospital show based in New York or the west coast do not have an Asian male doctor among the lead characters, it is totally unrealistic.  It would be like a show about a Chinese Basketball Association team, besides the Red Army team, being portrayed without an American import player.  It would be so fictional that the writers must have not done their homework or purposely tried to be inaccurate.

Ashley Wagner, who was the 4th place finisher at the U.S. figure skating Championship, was selected to the Olympic team over the 3rd place finisher, Mirail Nagasu.  There is talk of racism in the selection.  I think that is a stretch without knowing anything about the officials who made the decision.  It is possible that the officials were thinking that Wagner will do better than Nagasu in Russia.  I do not agree with this thinking because the whole point of having the trials so close to the Games is that the competitors who are the best RIGHT NOW should be selected.  What is so important about the "whole body of work" if you can't merely finish in the top three when the pressure is on?  The fact that Wagner did not do well at this or the last trials in 2010 should not give anyone a logical reason that she will do well next month.  But while I strongly disagree with the selection and I can see where people may think race has something to do with it, I will not call this a racist decision without more evidence.

Contrast that with the attacks on Obama.  Some of the displeasure with Obama are justified.  I have complained about some of his performances myself.  I also do not believe that most of the people who give Obama a poor rating are racists.   But I have heard people, who claim to be fair minded, rank Obama as bad or worse than Bush.  That, I believe, show that there is racism in the treatment of Obama by his extreme critics.

Lets reverse history and say Obama was elected after Clinton and Bush was elected after Obama.  Say 9/11 occurred while Obama was in office.  Say Obama took over a surplus and turned it into a deficit and the financial meltdown occurred during his watch.   Say Obama went into Iraq, a war that cost thousands of lives and a trillion dollars, while Afghanistan was not won yet.  Now say the wars are practically over under Bush and the stock market is at an all time high.  Given these reversals of history, will there be one white person in this country who would say that the hypothetical Bush is worse than the hypothetical Obama?  Certainly if Bush had an Irish born father, nobody would doubt that he was born here nor anyone would think he is a Muslim.  So yes, I do believe that when anyone who claims that Obama is the worst president ever, there is racism there.