“Birther” billboard, June 2009
In John F. Kennedy’s day, it was the anti-Catholics who dogged the Irish American presidential candidate, raising fears that having a Catholic descendant of immigrants in the White House could mean a United States under the influence of the Vatican and a compromise of the firewall between church and state.
It was referred to as religious bigotry. But it had only been a matter of decades then since Irish immigrants were accepted into mainstream society. While the controversy was over religion, Kennedy’s Irish roots lay close to the surface of the debate.
The same can be said for Barack Obama’s half-Kenyan roots today, amid the so-called “birther” debate that has prompted the White House to release the president’s long-form birth certificate. The accusation that Obama was not born in Hawaii, but in his father’s native Kenya, has dogged him since his campaign days, prompting him back in 2008 to release the more easily obtained short-form birth certificate.
The shorter certificate did not sate Obama’s “birther” foes, and some have already begun to cast doubt on the longer Hawaii state form. Which brings up the question: Even when presented with official documents, why do some people insist on believing Obama is foreign-born? This was not a problem faced by Kennedy, in spite of lingering prejudice over his ethnicity.
But by that time in U.S. history, the once-racialized Irish had been accepted as white Americans. ”Birthers” have insisted that their allegations are not tied to Obama’s race or ethnicity, but to upholding the U.S. Constitution, which stipulates that only a “natural born citizen” can be president. Not so, according to a study highlighted today in USA Today, which points to the role played by racial prejudice.
