Well said Obama!

What a ridiculous situation we had today over in America with the release of President Obama's birth certificate, proving that he was born in Hawaii and is an American citizen.



For the last few years there's been various conspiracy theories, the most prominent being the 'birther movement' which claims Obama wasn't born in America and therefore has no right to be US President.

It would be easy to dismiss such theories as the opinions of a few extremists but that's not the case. There's a significant majority of Republican voters in the US that either don't believe or have doubts that Obama was born in America.

I've talked about this in previous blogs and it's quite sad that Obama has had to finally come out and confront this issue head on.

The doubts over Obama's birth certificate reveal a number of things; firstly that many parts of America still have difficulty accepting Obama as President, but not only that they have difficulty accepting what Obama represents.

Related blogs

One in Five Americans think Obama is a Muslim

Obama may be President, but some Americans refuse to believe

The conspiracy theory surrounding Obama's birth certificate is part of a wider movement to undermine and discredit the President.

By arguing that he wasn't born in America, it promotes the idea that Obama is somehow an imposter, and outsider, someone who shouldn't legitimately by President of the United States.

America has never had a President like Obama - the fact that he's black/mixed race is a clear indication of this. For traditional white conservatives, right wing Republicans, Obama represents a different type of America. One that's to put it bluntly more 'browner', more diverse, more multicultural, and more inclusive.

Obama represents a changing America and this is what many on the Republican right and their supporters don't like whether it's at a subconscious or conscious level.

Because they don't like this, they try and portray Obama as being an 'alien' some how un American an 'outsider'. I'm not keen to play the race card but I doubt very much whether these same conspiracy theories would have emerged had Obama been white.

The question now is whether these rumours will now disappear following the release of Obama's birth certificate. I doubt it, but as Obama said today there are far more important issues for both him and America to talk about.