My grandmother schools me on Obama and the race question.

My grandmother is a caucasian high school drop out who got married when she was 16.  Born and raised in Kansas.  Never voted Democratic in her life.  Voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004.

She regrets her vote because she's SICK AND TIRED of this war.  The war has changed her entire way of thinking.  Any mention of Iraq has her huffing, "oh this war is so stupid" and "such a waste".  She's never been one to hide her feelings so she seems to enjoy letting everyone in town know how pissed off she is.

Now, she still calls African-American people "colored".  Her brothers have let out more than a handful of racial slurs in their life.  But things are changing.  There aren't any black people in town, but she loves her TV.  Her favorite actor is Denzel Washington.  She loves Kansas basketball and the Denver Broncos.  She watches Oprah every day.

She's paying attention to the Democratic primaries.  Who does she like?  One day she says to me, "So how do you like that colored guy?"  She wants him to win.  She will vote for him in the general election without thinking twice.

•  I can't Rec this diary fast enough

  THESE are the kind of people Obama can bring into the Democratic party.  Kiss your grandma for me!

  by chicago minx on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 06:59:08 PM PDT

  •  AMEN, totally NOT RECOMMENDED

    this shit should be deleted, FAST ENOUGH...WORD

    by icebergslim on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:25:42 PM PDT

    •  huh? n/t

      by cartwrightdale on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:30:37 PM PDT

      •  the motion of "huh?" is seconded. n/t

        by terrapin station84 on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:35:16 PM PDT

    •  No, I meant I WAS rec'ing it

      I thought it was sweet.

      by chicago minx on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:46:45 PM PDT

    •  I see...

      Someone using the word "colored" is not cool, but using the name of a pimp as a handle is...

      by Rico on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:53:22 PM PDT

      •  Chill out, we like icebergslim verymuchso. n/t.

        by terrapin station84 on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:02:31 PM PDT

        •  Sorry,

          I'm not big on guys who force women into prositution, and then physically abuse or kill them when they become inconvienient.

          Is that a role model for you?

          by Rico on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 09:03:02 PM PDT

          •  I don't even know who you're talking about.

            Icebergslim the diarist, however, is pretty cool.  She overreacted a bit in this situation, but I still think she's hella badass.

            by terrapin station84 on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 09:28:10 PM PDT

            •  Here's some info on the namesake:

              Iceberg Slim just wasn't a nice person, and if you don't see the irony in someone posting under the name of a pimp calling an old woman out on using the word colored, I just don't have the time to break it down any further.

              by Rico on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 12:15:45 PM PDT

  •  Man, You are gonna have to look at it

    from our prespective too. Maybe it's not politically correct for grandma to call him colored, but thats reality. You aint gonna change that. Do we want her vote or not? I think so.

    by bendyguy on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:43:35 PM PDT

    •  I heard "colored" a lot when I was a kid

      It was the proper term for our parents and grandparents generation.  It wasn't an insult at the time.  Do you think when they founded the NAACP they thought the "C" was offensive?  

      Give people in their 80s and 90s a little bit of a break.  

      by cartwrightdale on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:55:52 PM PDT

  •  Obama Already

    brought home my in-law’s family and they are just like your Grandma!

    Which brings up something I have been pondering...How could "a Rove" in this day and age, spin that magic that is Obama? I wonder how they could possibly sullen this man.

    Yes, he has Black Children, with (gasp!) a Black Woman!

    How the hell could they possibly go swift-boating on him?

    He smoked pot in his youth?  Their champion is a coke snorting dry drunk!

    Maybe that is why they are spending so much time on the others....

    by MadAsHellMaddie on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:18:28 PM PDT

•  Two things create change like that.

  First, you need something to make a person reconsider their taken-for-granted, comfortable, established default position.  Iraq, for example.

  Second, you need an attractive alternative.  Barack Obama is in so many ways an attractive alternative for people flirting with the idea that a liberal Democrat in the White House is what they want.

  by chicago jeff on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:05:57 PM PDT

•  Okay, blitz, stick a comment in the thread so

  ... people can give you and Grandma rec's.

  by AmericanRiverCanyon on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:18:31 PM PDT

•  this dairy is bullshit...

  ...any old white lady who watches Oprah every day surely knows that calling somebody "colored" in the new millenium is just plain wrong...

  delete this crap....

  by bic momma on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:36:08 PM PDT

  •  you want to explain your TR, cartwrightdale?

    by bic momma on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:40:11 PM PDT

    •  You insulted his grandmother

      And I believe "delete this crap" comments on diaries, especially when they aren't "crap", fit the definition of "inherently disruptive", as defined in the guidelines.  I found the post interesting and important, and have no reason to doubt its veracity.  In fact, my 94 year old Grandmother sounds very similar, and has made similar comments about Obama.  

      I believe, though, I have recommended quite a few of your comments in the past, so it's certainly nothing personal.  :)

      by cartwrightdale on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:49:06 PM PDT

      •  His grandmother didn't write this diary.

        And it's ok for him to quote his grandmother calling Obama a "colored guy"...of course, everyone here is assuming it's Obama because the diarist never mentions him by name........glad everyone here has their "colored guy" references in order....

        and FWIW...the diarist did mention his mother is caucasian and old...aka: old white lady....funny how you think THAT's insulting...

        by bic momma on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:00:24 PM PDT

        •  ?

          "My Grandmother Schools Me on Obama" is the title of the diary!  :P

          by cartwrightdale on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:08:22 PM PDT

  •  An old white lady?

    No, I don't think she does.

    by bendyguy on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:48:56 PM PDT

    •  Some really old people don't use it to mean an

      .... insult. The accepted phrase for different races changes over the years.

      Geez, be careful. The worst, worst ass roasting I have ever recieved anywhere on the internet was one time I refered to somebody Caucasian as "white people."  OMG. The self righteous assholes. Yet I hear African Americans use it all the time.  But don't call white people white people on the internet on a southern conservative website. They prefer to think of themselves as The Chosen Ones.  Yeeouch.  

      by AmericanRiverCanyon on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:09:06 PM PDT

      •  look

        my parents are 91 and 87 and I am the youngest kid of 8 at the age of 45.

        I remember having a conversation with my parents in the mid 70's saying that the word "colored" was not cool and even though they were never racists that it if they used the word, people would think they were.  I recall it changing when "Archie Bunker" was on the TV, but what did I know I was a kid.  

        My Dad was born in 1916.  He is still a registered Democrat and will always be one. Give the old folks a break.  They get confused and things changed back and forth in the 70’s.  Hell, even Afro American was the correct term and I still to this day don’t know if that is OK or not.

        by MadAsHellMaddie on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:31:29 PM PDT

  •  Oh puh-lease

    get real.

    He has her vote = her respect. So what if she hasn't updated her terms in 50 years.

    by coigue on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:11:52 PM PDT

•  Obama = Our chance at a landslide

  Yeah, yeah, Hillary could technically win, I'm sure of that.  But only barely, and with hald the country despising her, and basically assuring four years of nothing getting done on any front at all.  Ick.  

  Obama, on the other hand, has by far the highest positives and electability among Republicans (!) and Independents.  He has a "morning in America" flair that the right wing has been desperate for since Reagan.  He is the ONLY candidate on our side that my Republican and Conservative friends and family mention as someone they'd vote for.  In fact, Obama even beats McCain and Romney in recent "who will you support in 2008" polls... of Republicans.

  by cartwrightdale on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:38:13 PM PDT

  •  er, "half", not "hald".

    

    by cartwrightdale on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:08:53 PM PDT

    •  Speaking of the future: how's about 2016?

      

      by terrapin station84 on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:16:53 PM PDT

      •  eek.

        I hope that we're still not in Iraq by 2016!!!

        by cartwrightdale on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:17:46 PM PDT

      •  He was "born" on Cybertron.

        He's constitutionally ineligible.

        by mistersite on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:27:05 PM PDT

        •  But how are we gonna deal with the ensuing

          decepticon terrorist threat?

          

          He can turn into a gun!  A GUN!!

          by terrapin station84 on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:35:10 PM PDT

      •  After having repeatedly won...

        CMU student body president (and SCS senator)...

        Why not?

        by RisingTide on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 09:39:28 AM PDT

        •  Oh, a link!

          http://senate.web.cmu.edu/...

          by RisingTide on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 09:42:14 AM PDT

•  Same thing with my mom who is 85

  My Mom has voted Republican since I can remember. Mostly because that's how my Dad voted and she being a "good" wife thought he knew more about the world than she. However, these last couple of years, she has grown increasingly more vocal with her dissatisfaction with Bush and the War.
  "Those poor boys, they're just young kids dying for what?.  It's so sad and ridiculous."  Even my, "I am a Republican and I'll die a Republican"  Dad said last week, " This war was wrong. This is not like WWII when we went in. Those guys don't know who are their friends and who are their enemy. We shouldn't have gone in there to begin with."   Now to be fair, they did buy the whole WMD thing in the beginning, but they are now definitely of the opinion they've been had.  By the way, my Mom commented after seeing Obama a few months back on either Oprah or some other show, " Well, he seems to make more sense than those others running for President, and he is nice looking."  The "he is nice looking" comment completely cracked me up, but the fact she had anything nice to say about a Democrat was a major plus.  Don't know yet if she will vote Democrat or not, but she did say so far she thought he made the most sense and if he won, she thought he would make a good President.

  by Bongobanger on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:41:08 PM PDT

  •  That's a great story n/t

    by chicago minx on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:54:58 PM PDT

•  I like this diary

  and I think the main thing is not the race angle but that Republicans are capable of voting for Obama.  His personality is so winning and that's what counts to many voters.  Today a friend told me that her Republican brother, 2 times Bush voter, sent her $10 to give to the Obama campaign.  That is really something.

  Obama is an unapologetically progressive politician, but he also can work with others. Unlike the DLC, he doesn't start in the center and move further right.  He starts liberal/left/whatever you want to call it, works with the other side to come up with a solution that both sides can live with.  That's how government should work.

  by norabb on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:08:02 PM PDT

•  Wow.

  These diaries are having me tilt more toward Obama.

  by coigue on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:13:34 PM PDT

  •  Hey, Grandma likes the Broncos.

    You don't like the Broncos if you don't like underdogs.

    by Mogolori on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 09:12:30 PM PDT

•  I don't know about

  blitz's Grandma, and this diary could be total bs.  However, I do know that white women and not an insignificant number of white men love and trust Oprah.  In 2000 she gave GWB an uncritical platform from which to pitch his "compassionate conservatism." Who knows if that didn't influence blitz' Grandma and other white folks -- while not endorsing him basically saying that he's okay.  Her slopfests with Maria Shriver most defintely influenced the recall election in CA (and I may never forgive Oprah for that). It seems to me that Democrats should recognize that Oprah  has power that can translate into votes.  (And lots of  white women love Denzel.)

  btw I'm not endorsing Obama - am still undecided.

  by Marie on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:13:57 PM PDT

  •  I am so with you on the recall

    her support of Obama is the only reason that I have started paying attention to her again.  Her favorite bra? pftt... her favorite book? double pffft.  But her support of Obama has made me at least think about taping her show now and again.

    by CeeusBeeus on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 10:35:44 PM PDT

    •  I'd rather read almost

      anything than watch almost everything on TV, including Oprah. Probably haven't seen the show more than a dozen times and then almost always in company with a friend or relative because they like her.  Unlike most religions, she does more good than harm (and she did  make a lot of money off the pain of a lot of women in the early days of her show). She has definitely helped  to empower women with some knowledge and understanding that they wouldnn't have gotten on their own.  Therefore, I can understand the appeal of her and her show, but it always leaves me feeling as if I've had a not inedible snack but not with anything that satisfies real hunger.

      by Marie on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 11:58:22 PM PDT

•  A voice of Hope

  Wow!  His Grandma wants to vote for Obama and people call him out for quoting her as saying "colored".  Amazingly dumb.  
  Great Diary!  Thank you.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  by Boise Lib on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 08:39:33 PM PDT

  •  Seconded!

    <stands applauding>

    by RiaD on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 10:22:37 PM PDT

•  Obama's Wide Appeal

  This was a nice little vignette that demonstrates huge crossover appeal.

  by Keith from Oxford on Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 06:47:26 AM PDT