Update: Plz 2 unrec. It's a nice story but a bit fishy. I was trying to save something but perhaps got tricked as well. Rec Up Other Diaries Please.
Don't know how it happened but I was reading an awesome diary and it got hacked into some junk I won't link to. Its at the top of the rec list. Luckily Novaroad and Buffalo Girl saved it.
Original Text:
My motivations for this candid and difficult confession are partially self-serving, I will admit. But, I am also hoping that my personal story will serve as reassurance and encouragement to any of you who are concerned about the possibility of the occurrence of the oft-discussed "Bradley Effect" or outright racial barriers to Barack Obama's election. I also hope that any of you who have experienced or observed and been discouraged by the sort of "soft racism" I am about to describe will find this diary cathartic and your hope resurgent.
I have never been overtly racist because I have always known in my heart that those beliefs are morally wrong and illogical. But, I have been the sort of man who would say the n-word amongst my white friends , crack jokes around my white friends about minorities at lunch, blame my economic and professional failures on the ascendance of minorities, suspect my black classmates at college of being merely beneficiaries of affirmative action, and bite when Republicans tossed me and people like me "race bait." And so on. I'm sure you all know the type of person I am describing. We find it abhorrent ourselves, but never are able to conceive of being guilty of it.
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To be straightforward with you all, which is my goal, I have voted Republican (with the exception of some independent/third party votes in local and state races) most of my life. I joined this site in 2003 because I was disturbed by the events leading up to the start of the war in Iraq and the spectre of so many young men and women who agreed in good faith to serve their country in battle when necessary being sent abroad to be killed and maimed with an amorphous and transient justification. But I could never bring myself to vote democratic because of the above stated reasons and because frankly, I was raised this way. But, in 2004 I could not bring myself to vote for George W. Bush either. I did not vote.
Another regretful error.
A confluence of events (miraculous and tragic all at once) everything.
Let me explain. 5 years ago my eldest son married a black woman. I am embarrassed now to say that I did not approve, and told him so. I had various reasons (she’s not good enough for you, she’s not "classy" enough, she’s not right for our family) all of which amounted to "she’s black." He was disgusted. I didn’t exactly disown my son and would never have thought about it, but we didn't speak again after that until a month ago.
When I next saw him, he was in a hospital bed, with two broken legs, a shattered pelvis, and a skull fracture. He had been in a car accident. A drunk driver had crushed his four-door. The drunk, as is always the case in these stories, walked away without a scratch. My son was not so lucky. I felt so unbearably foolish and regretful to be on the verge of losing my own son and to have lost so much valuable time with him because of my own moral failures and narrow-mindedness. It seemed so purposeless and horrific.
In that hospital room, I met my daughter-in-law for the first time. I had spoken to her before, but until that time I had never known her. I had thought of her as the woman who had taken my son from me. I hadn't recognized my own responsibility for our falling out. But when I saw her devotion to my son, and to my biracial grandson, I began to see things differently. I didn't realize I was seeing things differently at first; but then one morning I went to see him, and saw her there, and she smiled at me, and I found myself smiling back.
I went home to an empty home. My wife passed away 10 years ago (I would rather not get into how). But for the first time in 5 years, I did not feel empty. I felt full of life. And I began to see this election in a new light. I had thought Obama inexperienced, but I realized that I had not applied that standard to Sarah Palin. I had thought Obama unable to handle the Presidency. Now I realized that I had not been thinking clearly about that. About anything.
At the same time I have suffered devastating consequences economically over the last eight years. I can’t be bothered with the machinations of politics anymore. I need change NOW. As does my son, who has no healthcare and will struggle for years to come with his medical expenses. And he has my beautiful grandson to take care of. Barack Obama is the only candidate even pretending to care what happens to me and people like me.
I think that John McCain thinks he is appealing to me and voters like me when he embarrassingly and despicably prays to the demons of covert/overt racism and xenophobia and rank ignorance (and to be sure, a few like me will be fooled yet again) by invoking the spectre of a supposed but amorphous Muslim enemy, and when his subordinates sneeringly state Barack's middle name. Likewise when he cries "Socialism" and intones sarcastically that Obama has said he wants to "spread the wealth around." But, he won't deceive me and many like me. Not this time. When people who are suffering economically, as I am, hear "spread the wealth" we don't shrink away, we think "Please, spread it fast."
So, after a lifetime of moral and philosophical waywardness, I am so proud of my intention and so uplifted by the opportunity to vote for Barack Obama. I really believe, as Colin Powell said today, that Barack Obama is a transformative candidate. He has transformed me politically and philosophically, and he can do that for others like me. He can do that for America. So those of you who get discouraged by the ugly tenor of the campaign and McCain supporters recently, remember that I’m out here and people like me are out here, and the work you all do matters. Our unity will pulls us through, and not only Barack Obama, but WE will fix this country, because as he says, we have to be the change we want to see in the world.