We are deeply grieved and concerned as former President Jimmy Carter expressed this week, at the degree of hostility shown towards President Obama.

It is the degree of hostility, not the actual objections raised concerning policy, that evidence a deeper and very strong undercurrent of, lets say it, hatred.

For this Hispanic news media, having witnessed and chronicled the ever-increasing number of episodes of bigotry against immigrants and Hispanics in particular, it is not hard to positively identify the same and all-too-familiar feeling of prejudice and hatred now being aimed at America’s first Afro-American President.

Our perspective will be branded as biased and would be hardly acknowledged, or in the best of cases readily dismissed by mainstream media.

Yet, here enters former President Jimmy Carter into the arena, and pronounces himself with the clairvoyance of his 85 years and not-running-for-office candor, and identifies this surge of hatred against Obama as racism, and now suddenly everyone is shocked and shaken.

Now America is immersed in a discussion about the appropriateness of introducing the subject of racism while facing extraordinary economic, social and political stresses.  The irony is that this is something that becomes quite apparent to anyone –but Americans- coming to live in our country, a racial tension waiting to be unleashed as witnessed right here in Philadelphia in the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Just as we praise former President Carter for his frankness, by the same token we appreciate that so far President Obama has remained not merely collected but has kept a dignified tone instead of lashing back.

The wisdom of not becoming easily provoked finds echo in what a Hispanic priest and journalist of 19th century Philadelphia called “social tact”.    Jesuit Felix Varela y Morales explained that America was unique in its practice of “social tact” or finesse, making it possible for men that detest one another, to show mutual respect in stead.

“Nearly all agree that the level of hostility aimed at Mr. Obama runs extremely high,” stated a New York Times blog “The Caucus”.   While the White House is pressed to produce some kind of commentary regarding ex President Carter’s remark on racism, so far the administration is reluctant to enter that debate, and that is just the right course of action.

Any effort to understand the character, the sincere concerns and fears of the American people while extracting the genuine from the strictly partisan and inflammatory, is the laudable responsibility of the President.

What has been insinuating itself as isolated outbursts of hatred, first against immigrants and now against the first African-American president, might continue to grow and fester in a climate of economic instability and fear.

Simultaneously though, the undercurrent of hatred cannot be ignored, and those with the sufficient understanding and courage to denounce it like former President Carter should not let their guard down.