Wednesday, October 29, 2008

What's There Not to Trust?


CNN's Politics web site has an article that quotes two life-long Democrats who have decided to vote for McCain in this election. In the article they're quoted as saying:
Most of all though, (Lula) Easterling doesn't like Barack Obama. "I'm scared to death of him," she admits. "I'm scared of what he stands for, the whole nine yards. He hangs with the terrorists and he lies. He never tells the truth and he's a flip-flopper. He's not to be trusted."
Now I don't know the Easterlings personally. However, I do know what this type of talk represents. By buying into the scare tactics the Republican talking points have been pushing for weeks on end you simply turn off your brain. Why bother thinking when someone else will tell you how and what to think and when? That's easy enough.

However, it's not all that hard to find dissenting viewpoints.

Take, for instance, the older woman at the McCain rally who said she couldn't trust Obama... because he's "an Arab." McCain, to his credit, took the mic away from the woman, quickly, and corrected her.

McCain missed the chance to say, "There's nothing wrong with being an Arab, just as there's nothing wrong with being Russian, European or American." He also missed out on a chance to stop the core of the response.

If she knew just a tiny amount about the American political process, say, even less than a foreign national testing for their US citizenship, she would know that you have to be born in the US to be eligible for the Presidency.

Still, I'm not convinced that Lula Easterling's fears and the McCain "Crazy Lady" aren't really speaking to the same point: Obama is Different.

Perhaps in all of the serious-minded policy discussion you've not noticed that Barack Obama's skin color is unlike the skin color of Most Americans. (Until 2050, that is) It's darker.
So dark, in fact, that Obama is Black.

I'll let that fact settle in for a moment.

I grew up in the Maryland suburbs just over the Southeast border of Washington, DC. The neighborhood my parents brought me home from the hospital to started as an all white one and, slowly, over time, became more and more mixed. I went to school with whites and blacks... and hispanics and asians and all sorts of other races. I grew up in a predominantly black church in DC. My parent's friends were all sorts of colors and races. It was simply no big deal.

There is a part of the America that likes to believe that we've come so far as a nation that skin color doesn't matter, that race doesn't matter. And, if you happen to have X skin color and live in a predominantly X skin color area, chances are skin color really doesn't matter. Much.

However, I live in a mixed neighborhood. A mixed neighborhood in the South. It's an area that was, undoubtedly, in it's past proud of its segregated areas and intolerant of blacks who gave any indication of trying to rise above their station.

When I was an elementary school librarian I read the short stories of Mildred Taylor to a hundreds of fourth grade students. Her stories were about a black family living in Mississippi during the turn of the century, a generation or two removed from the Civil War. These stories were filled with awkward, sometimes fearful interactions with the poor white families who lived around them.

I always had to preface these stories with an explanation of what prejudice was, why some people were racist and why those causes were tolerated then but are no longer seen as such now. It was empowering to state simply that skin color should not matter, that prejudice is simply wrong. That racism is simply wrong.

So, to the Easterlings and the Crazy Ladies out there, let me make this very plain. Your statements do not disguise your real meanings. By saying, however cleverly coded you think your words were, that Obama is Black and, therefore, is not to be voted for and/or trusted, you are exposing yourselves as the racists you are.

And racism is just plain wrong.

Now that you've shown yourselves to the light of day, please accept the gift that light is offering by acknowledging this about yourself and work to overcome your prejudices.

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