MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry went off on a tangent in a recent broadcast, ranting about the racist overtones of a word that’s been used for years by both sides of the political aisle — Obamacare.
“I want to talk today about a controversial word,” she said, as FrontPageMag.com reported. “It’s a word that’s been with us for years. And like it or not, it’s indelibly printed in the pages of America history. A word that was originally intended as a derogatory term, meant to shame and divide and demean. The word was conceived by a group of wealthy white men who needed a way to put themselves above and apart from a black man — to render him inferior and unequal and diminish his accomplishments.”
Ms. Harris-Perry then admitted that President Obama himself used the objectionable Obamacare term — but said that he did so with an attitude of “if you can’t beat them, you’ve got to join them,” FrontPageMag.com reported.
“So he embraced the word and made it his own, sending his opposition a message they weren’t expecting— ’if that’s what you want me to be, I’ll be that.’ Y’all know the word that I’m talking about. Obamacare,” she said. “That’s right. I said it and I’m not ashamed, and neither is President Obama.”
Ms. Harris-Perry then ranted a bit longer and then summarizing: “I mean, what do you call the president who rescues the U.S. auto industry? Obamacare. What do you call the president who finally eliminates Osama bin Laden? Obamacare. What do you call the president who ends don’t ask, don’t tell? Say it with me — Obamacare.”
FrontPageMag.com reported that the term Obamacare likely started from a lobbyist who was simply coining a term based on the existing “Hillary-care.”
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• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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