I heard a story last week. The person who told me the story was completely matter-of-fact, even slightly approving, while she told me something that took my breath away and turned my stomach. And the story, her attitude, and the attitudes of others I encountered last week, helped illustrate to me just how incredible it is that we elected Barack Obama, and how incredibly difficult it was always going to be for him to succeed.
The story is below the fold. WARNING: although I did not spell out the word in the title out of deference to the community, it is not redacted in the actual diary. I believe that shining a light requires full accuracy, and I don't believe in bowdlerizing profanity. If you don't want to read the word itself, don't read the rest.
I spent last week in Mobile, Alabama. Now, I do not believe that the South has any monopoly on racism. My home state of California has its own share, believe me. I've seen it. I'm 43 years old, and I'm not naive.
I saw the racism and hate during the election season as well. It wasn't confined to the South then, either. Heck, one of the biggest racial dog-whistlers was from our Northernmost state, so I know that it's everywhere.
But I don't think I'd have heard last week's story anywhere outside the South. Not necessarily because it wouldn't have happened anywhere else -- but nowhere else would such a story be shared with strangers, matter-of-factly, slightly approvingly, with a complete expectation of shared understanding among the white people in the room.
We were all just making conversation. I don't even know how the story came up, but she started talking about her cousin. She said her cousin had been a personal-protection specialist for forty years. He'd worked with the Secret Service (wasn't clear on whether he was an agent or not) during the Nixon era. And in 2006, he started working on events that featured a young Senator from Illinois. Not very heavy duty stuff at first, but he did notice that there was a lot of protection for such a low-level public servant. Then, she said, that Senator declared his candidacy for President, and the Secret Service approached her cousin for his help providing security. His response forms the title for this diary. She said, with a smile, that he spoke right up and told those Secret Service people:
I won't take a bullet for no nigger.
I didn't know what to say. How do you respond to that? I couldn't leave the room, for other reasons. It wasn't the place for a confrontation -- this was in a hospital room. So I kept silent, and allowed the conversation to proceed without me. But it was clear that there was no expectation that anyone in the room would find any fault with her cousin.
Later, in a sort of coda to the trip, I walked into the ICU waiting area and overheard an entire family having an animated discussion -- about "the birth certificate." Am I 100% positive that it was about President Obama's birth certificate? I can't be 100% of course, but it may shed additional light to note that one family member was confident that "there are lots of states going forward to make sure they have to show it from now on." That sounds like a birther conversation to me.
And all of this got me thinking about the radical 30% or so who simply cannot accept that Barack Obama is the President of the United States. They'll tell you that it's about "socialism," or about taxes or Government spending or about taking the fight to the terrorists. And any Democratic President would have had those issues, those complaints from the Right. Any Democratic President would have been called a socialist. Any Democratic President would have been called an appeaser. Any Democratic President would have been called a tax-and-spend liberal.
But no other Democratic President would have been called a nigger. And when otherwise perfectly reasonable, nice, friendly ladies can use that word matter-of-factly to describe the President of the United States -- in front of strangers, no less -- then he is climbing up a very steep hill indeed.