Tonight we went out and apparently scared the neighbors...
Tonight I took my children trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. My 7 year old went as an alien from a TV show, but my very bright 11 year-old, who is a bit obsessed with politics, went as Barack Obama, in a suit and Obama mask and campaign buttons. Let me say, you've never seen people scared at Halloween like the people in a blue-collar white area of Tulsa Oklahoma were scared tonight at the vision of Barack Obama appearing at their doors and in their church parking lots. They gave him candy and laughed nervously, but I heard a lot of pretty hostile comments too. I had told him not to argue and he didn't, though he did quip to a couple of folks that there might be more tax breaks for those who were generous with the candy.
It was a real lesson for my son. He's attended watch parties (at his own request) for all the debates in the company of other Democrats, he's been to rallies for Obama and for Andrew Rice, and he's on the Oklahoma for Obama mailing list, and he's held up signs on street corners and he's discussed politics with our friends, but he hasn't ever really been confronted with the kinds of attitudes he saw tonight. We live in a poorer, older, working class (read: redneck) area of town, but he's been largely insulated from it because we don't hang out with the neighbors and he doesn't go to school at the local middle school. Our yard signs get stolen, but that's about it for run-ins with the neighbors.
I wasn't sorry that the comments tonight happened though. Even if people were a little mean, I think it's good for him to understand what he's up against if he continues to be interested in Progressive politics. He's studied the issues and reads the news and has a pretty good grasp of things for an 11 year-old, but he's mostly been exposed to the like-minded. What he doesn't have is experience with the religious right, with racists, with people who are intolerant and even with people who are good principled people but who just have a wildly different set of views than ours. He took it well tonight, and when we got home we discussed a little of the history of racism and religious intolerance in our country. We've talked about it before, but it was a little more clinical when people weren't saying nasty things to him personally. I found it a bit jarring that people would be nasty to a child over something like a Halloween costume, but I think it bothered me more than it did him.
Anyway, I'm glad he wasn't deterred or put off, but a little more motivated to spread the word. He did say that he thinks "we're probably known as 'those people' around the neighborhood now." He wants me to drive him to Springfield, MO tomorrow to see Obama at a rally, and that's a 3 hour drive each way, but he did so awesome tonight that I'm thinking about taking him.