I was glad to see former President Jimmy Carter comment on what many of us have feared but have been afraid to say, that is, that much of the animosity toward President Obama's initiatives is based on racism.

Carter went on to say that based on his experience in the South, there are many citizens who can't accept an African-American as president. This attitude determines their behavior. Whether this realization is accurate or a reality has yet to be seen. But if the recent lack of decorum and outright barbaric behavior by Republican Joe Wilson in the House of Representatives is indicative of the lack of respect against the president and the House as an institution, then what else can be surmised?

This type of behavior has never been seen in the House before and is a dark historical moment that will haunt it forever in lieu of the question: If the president had been white, would this type of behavior have occurred?

Wilson, of course, said it was emotion. And giving him the benefit of the doubt, it could be possible being that Limbaugh and his Rushovites have stirred up a frenzy of hatred against anything Obama tries to accomplish. But how much of this anger and hate is thinly disguised racism?

Although we elected the first African-American who, by the way, is half white Caucasian, during the campaign, I personally, along with a friend, experienced a shocking reality check while visiting each other on the Plaza. Here we were in enlightened Santa Fe when one of our acquaintances overhears our conversation about voting for Obama. He pipes up and says, "You're not voting for that n-----, are you?" Imagine our shock, especially from a person whose ethnic group was a target of extermination in the 1800s by the American government.

We fool ourselves that discrimination and racism are no longer an American trait. Not long ago I was at Stone Mountain Resort in Georgia attending and participating in a conference made up of various ethnic groups. That first evening television news reported that the Ku Klux Klan was marching and targeting immigrants, Hispanic of course. Ironically, the resort was full of blond immigrant employees from Eastern bloc nations on work visas. So it wasn't just immigrants, but specific immigrants, being targeted.

This unfortunately is not new to America. There was a dark period when racism was particularly targeted against the Irish, for example, or against Orientals, and, unfortunately, blacks, Jews and Mexicans seem to still top the list among some hate groups. Recently, there has been some animosity toward Middle Eastern folk and merchants even in our own "liberal" Santa Fe.

What I simply cannot understand is this need to feel superior or the impulse to put someone down because of their race, religion or ethnic group. One would think that after eons on the planet, man could evolve. Yet we seem to behave like cavemen and barbarians rather than enlightened human beings. Hypocritically, we lecture to other nations about human rights and democracy while the shadow of racism still haunts us. Unfortunately some countries in Europe, mostly because of immigration, are also on the downward slide to intolerance.

Yet without immigration, much of the work that Europeans dislike — such as working in the fields, cleaning houses, cooking, etc. — would not get done without immigrants. It doesn't make any sense to attack or go after the people you need. Of course, there is absolutely no logic or reason in this type of behavior. That is why it becomes so abhorrent to most of us. When we read of ethnic African tribes killing each other, Jews and Palestinians hurling rockets and missiles at each other, or Christians and Muslims killing each other in the Balkans, you wonder if we aren't cursed to fight each other into infinity over ethnicity, race or religion.

I pray that the recent shameful attacks against Obama are not racist, because if they are, this behavior will only drag us down into the muck of darkness and ignorance. Not a country I would be proud to live in.

Writer/historian Orlando Romero may be reached at Nambe1@aol.com.