I grew up in Philadelphia. While I moved to California about a dozen years ago, my parents are still in Philadelphia, the same house we grew up in, in Northeast Philadelphia. My parents are both union workers, my mother a UFCW employee at a supermarket, and my father a retired letter carrier.
Northeast Philadelphia, and Philadelphia in general, is a very racially divided city, geographically and ideologically. There was one half-black family with two kids at my Catholic grade school, and one black student (out of 3500!) at my Catholic high school. Growing up, the n-word was used liberally both at school and at home.
My first exposure to politics was the Philadelphia mayoral elections. In Philadelphia, the racial divide transcends party lines. Because of the geographical segmentation of the population, the mayoral races often descend into an 'us vs. them' mentality. A [black] mayoral candidate, promising more city services to West and North Philadelphia (predominantly black areas) would drive the white areas (Northeast) away. In that context, African American Democratic mayors like Wilson Goode in the 80s and John Street in the last decade, led my parents, union members through and through, to support the white Republican candidate--although they would never consider doing the same for any other race. I think overall the city is moving away from this method of voting, at least that is my birds-eye impression from the 2007 election.
It's in this context that I called my mother today. I wanted to make sure that she was going to vote and that she was going to bring my father to vote (he injured his hip this spring and has been confined to the hospital or the house for most of the last five months). I'd been dreading this conversation, and frankly it would have been easier to let them vote and not confront them about it. However, I have to acknowledge that on some level her vote is more important than mine (by virtue of me living in safely-blue CA) and that if there needed to be persuading, I had the time and opportunity to persuade.
I broached the subject and she kind of started with an 'I don't know' and immediately said 'I'm not really excited about having a black president.' Confronting the racism directly is not my style, especially with my parents, so I laughed and said 'Mom, if it makes you feel any better, he's only HALF black.' She laughed as well, and went on. She told me that she can't stand listening to McCain's voice -- At that point I had to stop her and confirm that. I thought for sure she meant Palin, whose voice grates on me. But no, she said she can't stand listening to McCain. And for once, it seemed like she was listening and paying attention to the election.
She talked about how McCain is going to tax health care benefits, which is very fresh on their minds given my father's recent injury and as they approach their mid-60s, and their concern about how bad the economy is and what that means for their prospects of retirement. The UFCW has backed Obama and has apparently done a very effective job on getting out the message that the economy will continue to suffer under Bush/McCain economic policies which she relayed to me.
She also told me she likes an Obama ad, which has Obama talking about his grand mother waking him up at 5 AM, with his grand mother saying 'this is no picnic for me either, buster' [I haven't seen this ad and can't find it online, if anyone can reply with a link, I'd appreciate it].
She asked my opinion and I told her that I was also voting for Obama, that this was more important than race, it's really about who is going to look out for you. I put it back in the context of the mayoral elections and told her that 'I can understand in the mayor elections why you don't want to vote for the black candidate. But I think this is different, I really think he's looking out for all of us.' She agreed with me, and then we went back to talking about my father's recovery.
It might sound condescending, or that I'm even allowing for racism, but all I think I was doing was really confirming for her, a 62 year old white woman, that it was ok to think about this differently. I don't think she needed or wanted a lecture from me. She came around on her own and was confirming with me, indirectly, 'it's ok NOT to be racist, right?' I'm glad I was able to tell her yes... and we have at least 2 more votes for Obama in PA.