President Jimmy Carter says that criticism of Barack Obama shows that there is an “inherent feeling” in America that a black man should not be President. It follows the South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson shouting “you lie!” during a speech by the President to Congress.
But has his race been an issue? We take a look at some of the criticism of his campaign and Presidency, and try to decide whether it has been racially motivated.
The “birther” movement: A number of commentators have claimed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, rather than Hawaii as his birth certificate says.
Conservative author Jerome Corsi claimed Mr Obama "has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website… it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce." The claim has been comprehensively refuted, not least by snopes.com .
Whether this is a racial slur is not clear: Mr Obama’s Presidential opponent Senator John McCain was the victim of similar slurs by supporters of another Republican candidate. They wrongly claimed that Mr McCain, who was born in a US military hospital in Panama, was not eligible to be President.
Religion: Mr Obama – full name Barack Hussein Obama – has had his middle name repeatedly called to attention. During the Presidential campaign Mr McCain had to denounce one of his own supporters after Bill Cunningham, a Right-wing talkshow host, referred three times to Barack Hussein Obama at a McCain rally.
The conservative website Conservapedia claims that “Obama is likely the first Muslim President” Its arguments include “Obama uses the Muslim Pakistani pronunciation for "Pakistan" rather than the common American one” and “Obama enjoyed a bigger increase in voter support in 2008 (compared to 2004) by Muslims than by any other voting group, including blacks”.
Again, while these slurs are arguably Islamophobic, it is debatable whether they stray into outright racism.
Terrorism: As well as the Hussein connection, the fact that Obama is just one letter from Osama has been the source of some controversy. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said: "Actually, just look at what Osam — uh — Barack Obama, said just yesterday. Barack Obama calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq."
CNN also apologised in 2008 for running a story on the search for Osama bin Laden with the headline, "Where's Obama?"
In a separate incident, a CNN reporter said "Barack Obama's campaign has been dogged by false rumors, among them that Osama is a Muslim, Obama rather."
Most controversially, an absentee ballot in Rensselaer County, New York, gave voters the chance to choose between “John McCain” and “Barack Osama”. Democrats have pointed out that the letters S and B are not particularly close to each other on the standard QWERTY keyboard.
Most of these are probably honest mistakes. Even if some are deliberate, it is difficult once again to say they are racist: they could simply be opportunistic, given the similarities of the name.
