For the first time in my voting life, NC is competitive in the presidential election and we've had some national attention lately. Our 15 electoral votes are in play and we have a great GOTV, at least locally in Durham. So it saddened me to see 4 national articles about the ugliness I was hoping we could leave behind.
In the past 24 hours, I've seen 4 articles that range from just sad: Heckling at a BBQ Joint; to scary: Killed Cub on WCU campus (and Obama is from Chicago - geddit?); and everywhere in between: early voters are terrorists! and tires slashed during Obama rally.
Notice that these incidents are located in the east and west of the state; these are also the parts of the state that are credited with keeping our dearly departed Jesse Helms in office for all those years. The middle part of the state, at least the Triangle region is different from the rest of the state and happens to be the most populous region.
I wonder if North Carolina is a microcosm of the nation as a whole. Well, a sort of inverted US where the east and west are more progressive and "fly over country" is more conservative. Thankfully that's changing both in the country at large and in this state. Yes, we have a couple blue dogs (McIntyre in the east and Shuler in the west), but at least they're Democrats.
I hope that these tensions don't result in any violence or (worse?) voter suppression. I hope that racism is its final throes. That the inaugration of Barack Obama on Jan. 21st 2009 and 8 years of prosperity will, once and for all, make people respect differences and not discount anyone because of the color of their skin or their nation of origin.
We've got years of racism to overcome down here. Can we do it? Yes, we can.