I want to believe with all my heart and soul that the polls are wrong--the polls reporting that one-third of white Democrats express bigoted attitudes about African Americans---which suggests to me a corresponding reluctance to vote for Barack Obama for no reason except that he's black.
But in the event that those polls are right, I have to write an open letter to these troglodytes who haven't shed knuckle-scraping attitudes about people based on the melanin showing in their skin:
If you can't muster enough initiative to be open-minded, enlightened; to be perceptive and observant, and to take the trouble and work to get to know people (and a Presidential candidate) based on individual merit, then do us all a favor, and stay the hell home on Election Day.
My 80-year-old mother spent most of her life harboring racist attitudes. She is a high-school dropout who never had the benefit of mentors, parents, or teachers coaching her in the skills of analytical, critical thinking. Yet she broadsided me recently by telling me that she is voting for Barack Obama in November. I wasn't so thrilled that she supported the same candidate I support, as I was that she'd taken a journey to a place where she could think independently and fairly, and to shed the racist attitudes that made me cringe so many times in my life.
If she could do it, why they hell can't the rest of you? As a European friend of mine asked me in an e-mail, responding to these reports: "What the????? What century is this?" Given the wealth and resources this nation enjoys, there is no excuse for anyone in either major political party to harbor racist attitudes. I find it incomprehensible that any American voter is willing to vote for McCain---for his lies, his hypocrisy, his ideology---out of bigotry, knowing the damage his ideology has already done to this nation. What an unconscionable act.
Democratic bigots, don't embarrass us before the rest of the world, and don't do this to our nation. If you can't overcome your bigotry, please, just sit out this election. And I never thought I'd live to see the day that I'd suggest that someone refrain from voting.