Overt racism masquerading as simple nativism bothers me a lot. Birthers question Obama’s legitimacy. The movement to make English-only government services, voting, etc. shares its source. Non-whites are foreigners. I have mentioned in the past, that my ancestry to the very state in which I live (though I just moved here not much more than a decade ago) dates back at least as far as 1620. That, of course, would be the European segment. The native American/native Mexican blood predates that by another 300 centuries or so.

Well what about the really swarthy? Surely they just got here, right? That’s true. If, by “just,” you mean only over 200 years ago.

It seems that back in the infancy of this country, President Thomas Jefferson signed a law that would outlaw the trans-Atlantic slave trade beginning January 1st, 1808. While the illegal slave trade continued, the majority of blacks in America are descended from slaves born on American soil during the 18th Century. That is to say that most American blacks have ancestors who were born in what is now the United States of America in the 1700s. Yet those groups most insistent on the sub-citizenship of non-whites have names starting with Mc- or O’- (Irish Potato Famine, 1845-1852), ending with -inni or -ese (great Italian emigration, 1880-1920), or could otherwise be identified with relatively recent mass immigrations to the New World.

That is odd.

Oh. Before I get any hate mail, I know that Obama’s African roots were not of the stock of former American slaves. I’m not talking about him. I am talking about the rest of us in general.