1) how is that concept racist given that he would have had the same ethnic makeup wherever he was born?
2) the whole "born in Kenya" media rant was meaningless given that he would be qualified to serve as President wherever he was born under US law at the time of his birth, given his mother's natural-born citizenship.
It felt racist to me and many others because Obama was consistently portrayed as 'the other', as non-American, as unpatriotic, as a muslim, as an African, as non-Christian, as not-us but something else, something foreign.
Now candidates have always criticised in various ways, harsh ways. But not to this extent. It's completely different from the way Ted Cruz's Canada born story was treated. Or McCain's (then US territory) Panama-born history.
Now why is there a discrepancy, why did opponents push blatant lies and why did the birther movement take hold on Obama and not others?
Precisely because they're grounded by racist notions. Calling Obama a muslim wouldn't be a negative thing, or an attack, in a world where there wasn't islamophobia, if people didn't equate muslim with terrorist. Calling him an African, stressing his non-Americanism, wouldn't be a successful attack on his character if racist old white people didn't equate themselves and themselves only with patriotic 'original' Americans.
None of this had to do with any interest in upholding constitutional law. Trump has shown very clearly that politics trump accountability to our legal system. This was an attack on Obama's character that only worked because it inspired racist notions. Have you not seen the rallies and protesters of the birther movement, are you really not seeing anything racist about that?
It's an absolute joke of an argument, and was obviously racially inspired. (and please don't tell me not to use racism as the now commonly accepted umbrella term that includes ethnic discrimination too, e.g. islamophobia. we've long passed the point of arguing those semantics.)
2) agreed, see aforementioned Cruz for example. Which is precisely why it's racist. It wasn't about upholding constitutional law, it was about painting him as Kenyan. It didn't matter whether he was born in Hawaii, Kenya or a different solar system, it mattered that he was black and had parental roots in a country that could be painted as muslim despite 5 out of 6 Kenyans being Christian. That's what they got him on and got people bothered, precisely because of racism.
2) the whole "born in Kenya" media rant was meaningless given that he would be qualified to serve as President wherever he was born under US law at the time of his birth, given his mother's natural-born citizenship.