New York – Our country has long been slow to accept any public figure who seems too ‘exotic,’ says Timothy Egan at The New York Times
The racially motivated “shameful episode” surrounding President Obama’s birth certificate is a reminder that Americans have always been suspicious of “the other,” writes Timothy Egan at The New York Times. Just a few generations ago, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney would have been vilified for being a Mormon, a religion then labeled as a “devil’s cult,” and faced a vicious backlash “led by Mormon-haters and the Trumps of his day.” These days, though, Romney, “whose ancestry includes six polygamous men with 41 wives,” is considered harmless and ‘white-bread,’ because the country has finally conceded that Mormons are Americans too. Can mixed-race politicians with “exotic backgrounds” like Obama expect a similar outcome in a few years?
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