When I first shared my chronicle of email interactions with my conservative uncle spanning about nine months and leading to the revelation a few weeks ago that he will be voting for Barack Obama, it warmed my heart to see that folks actually used my story as inspiration to talk to conservative loved ones about which candidate truly represent their values.
I have to honestly say, as much as I was triumphantly shocked about my Uncle's abandonment of the dark side, I was a little cynical about whether or not it would stick. But recent email correspondence has brought new hope to my jaded little Democratic heart.
A few days ago, my uncle forwarded me an email titled "Resumes Switched." I assume most of you have either seen this email or have had discussions making similar suggestions. It is a rather eloquent and revealing assessment of how race does in fact play a huge role in American discourse surrounding the presidential candidates. Here are some of the most telling excerpts from it:
What if the resumes of both Presidential Candidates were swapped out for the other one....
Would the country's collective point of view be different? Could racism be
the culprit?
What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?
What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption
in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings
and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?
The left has consistently recognized the desperation in the GOP's attempts to dig up anything resembling "dirt" on Obama; and we recognize that the right, in not finding anything legitimate, chose to appeal to a dark and racist subconscious of what appears to be a large chunk of our country. We almost certainly recognize the fact that the color of Obama's skin leaves no room for personal shortcomings. And the fact that we are all coming to terms with the vicious turn the McCain campaign has taken leaves us to grapple with the disappointing position America finds itself in after all these years. My uncle's email brought up all this in my mind, but it also gave me hope that even a hardened old man like my uncle can come around to recognize the nascent prejudice behind the smears.
I responded:
What a edifying and revealing exercise. I can't believe the things I am reading in the news about unabashed racism all over the country, people who are calling Obama a terrorist, a Muslim (as if, even if it were true, would preclude Obama from being fit for the Presidency!), a "wolf in sheep's clothing," "not of pure American blood" (not making that one up!). I heard a story this weekend of a McCain supporter in Ohio who hung an effigy of Obama from a tree, wrote "Hussein" incorrectly on his chest (he spelled it "husain") and drew a star of David on his head : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
How is it that our country remains trapped in the 1850s, when South Africa elected a black President immediately after apartheid ended?
My uncle wrote back:
That's an easy one to answer. Our country is very diverse. We still have people that think the Civil War is not over. We have skinheads, Left & Right wing wackoos & all kinds of crazies. Add to that mix middle class white people that are closet racists & that will answer your questions. Plenty of old folks in Florida thinking that BO would tax them into oblivion. So even classically liberal thinkers are sometimes swayed by other factors.
I, not wanting to let my uncle off the hook so easily, wrote:
South Africa is also diverse; in fact I would argue that the historically institutionalized separation of races into different "classes" that had separate rights and geographic locations where they could live and patron, not to mention a bloody decades-long race war to end apartheid would seemingly make it harder for the country to come together in an enlightened view of race. And yet they were able to overcome all that to elect a black president directly after the dismantling of apartheid, while 150 years after blacks were freed in this country, we still have people hanging effigies of a black man in their yards....it baffles me.
Please don't get me wrong: I don't mean to insinuate that the two countries have a history and demographic that is anywhere near comparable; I also understand that Mandela being elected President is not a representation of South Africa being wholly recovered from the residual backwardness of apartheid and that other structural factors exist that I'm not bringing into account. I just think it's an interesting exercise to see how different countries react to racial struggles, especially when you take into account the fact that it's been over 150 years since a U.S. President historically declared that this country was built upon the premise that all men are created equal.