Last Thursday a rider on the Fiscal 2015 Agriculture Spending bill was placed before the House Appropriations committee by an Alabama Republican Congressman during the mark-up hearing for the bill. This rider would allow public schools to opt out of supplying lunches that must conform to the recently approved USDA nutritional guidelines for healthier children. After an aggressive defense by Rep. Robert Anderholt (R-Ala) the rider passed (on a party line vote) 31-18. The same committee also passed an additional rider which adds millions of dollars to school lunch funding for the exclusive purchasing of “wholesome foods”, such as potato chips, Twinkies, and candy bars. The Appropriations Committee Democrats spoke out forcefully against these measures but as usual were out voted by the Republicans. It is expected that as unbelievable as it seems the bill with this rider intact is likely to pass the entire House. More below the orange squiggle.
Several progressive commentators have expressed total amazement at the Republican action on attacking the nutritional value of the national school lunch program. Left scratching their heads some looked to the junk food industry as the possible culprits behind the Republican attack legislation. However, from my corner of the room there is no confusion as to why this legislation attacking the new USDA Nutrition rules benefitting the health of the nation’s children (that is already working in a number of states) would be put forward by the House Republicans. During open discussion of these riders in the committee hearing, Republican Congressman Anderholt let an implication slip that there was legislation in the pipeline that would repeal the use of all nutritional foods in the school lunch program. I am certain that the prevailing feeling among all committee members was that this legislation constituted an all-out attack on First Lady Michelle Obama’s personal campaign to improve the health and well-being of the nation’s schoolchildren. For those who doubt this as a fact, let’s take a look at the record.
Unprecedented hatred and racial animosity was exhibited against President Obama by the Republican Governors of 24 states as they all rejected the Medicare expansion provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) out of hand. This was essentially FREE money in the range of billions of dollars from the federal government to the states to fund key initial provisions of the ACA. Initially some of the Republican Governors attempted to offer some rather contrived feeble reasons as to why they were turning down hundreds of millions of dollars that many residents of their states needed so desperately.
However after the number of Republican governors turning down Medicare expansion became substantial, most Republican governors just stopped trying to find a suitable reason to publicly explain their rejection of the Medicare expansion. It was highly educational to observe the main-stream media dance all around the story of how these Republican Governors turned down free money. The media finally decided to go with a shrug and a wink – using the nonsense argument that it was JUST POLITICS as usual! (A politician turning down FREE money is just politics as Usual? Unbelievable!) This simplistic determination sidestepped and ignored the obvious racial motivation of the 24 Republican governors all together. The obvious motivation for the 24 Republican Governor’s rejection was to give America’s African-American President a deliberate unmistakable slap-in-the-face.
With today’s action by the Republican House committee, it is easy to deduce that this is likewise a racially motivated attack upon Michelle Obama in her national position as the First Lady of the United States of America who also happens to be African-American (AA), and since her children’s health program is her only public initiative it has become a target for attack. The fact that this southern congressman presented a follow-up rider to add millions of dollars to school lunch funding for the exclusive purchase of “wholesome foods”, identified as potato chips, Twinkies, and candy bars likewise is a not-so-subtle unmistakable slap-in-the-face for the AA First Lady Michelle Obama.
Here is the real reason that the Republican Governors of former slave-holding southern states actively block and reject anything that the Obamas attempt to accomplish. It all goes all the way back to institutional slavery in colonial America, and lasted until the 13th Amendment of the Constitution was ratified in 1865. During the previous century a slave could not possess anything – whether it is physical, monetary, creative, or even self. Everything that the slave produced or created (either on command or upon his or her own initiative) unconditionally BELONGED to the slave’s owner.
This legacy artifact from the colonial days of institutional slavery in America is still alive in the minds of many white Americans, and thus becomes an irresistible motive for their hatred and racist actions. The reason the recently passed Republican House school lunch dietary bills make no sense is simply because emotional racist acts generally make no sense. This legacy artifact from American slavery is in actuality a prime motivator for racist acts every day in American society simply because the American nation has been built upon institutional slavery. Therefore race based inferiority consciousness and its accompanying sense of white privilege created by institutional slavery is embedded deep within the founding cornerstone of American society.
It is long past time for Americans to stop the charade of advocating the idea of a “melting pot” nation. A little face-to- face honesty with the “man in the mirror” would go a long way towards helping America finally reach the long awaited goal of a true post-racial society.