America is having to confront the reality of racism's persistence. I think that's a healthy thing. Consider this AP report. A partial transcript is below.
REPORTER: Just saying Obama's middle name is enough to make Shelby Sugg feel uncomfortable.
SUGG: Not even in my mind, I don't. I don't like the "Hussein" thing. I've had enough of "Hussein."
REPORTER: Undecided voter Wanda Gibson is less than excited about both Clinton and Obama. But she actually fears Obama because he's black.
GIBSON: I guess because he is another race. It — I'm sort of scared of the other race because we have so much conflict with them.
Then there's the Washington Post's report yesterday:
"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People just weren't receptive."
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They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.
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One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"
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One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."
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On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.
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The bigotry has gone beyond words. In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other windows were spray-painted with references to Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: "Hamas votes BHO" and "We don't cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright."
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At Scranton's annual Saint Patrick's Day parade, some of the green Obama signs distributed by staffers were burned along the parade route.
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In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this way: "Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don't know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on him.
"No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office."
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According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on Seifert's T-shirt and said: "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?"
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"It's not his race, because I got real good friends and all that," Cox continued. "If anything would keep him from getting elected, it would be his name. It might turn off some older people."
Like him?
"No, older than me," said Cox, 66.
And of course, Pat Buchanan today, as yesterday, the day before, and the entire campaign season:
Barack Obama was one of them. West Virginia, Hillary, was one of us.
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If Barack Obama were not an African American he would have been beaten by John Edwards. He would not be the nominee. It is far more of a positive for him, not only in the African-American community, but with the Chris Matthews' of the world and in the liberal suburbs far more than it is a negative.
It's not just the n-----s who are the problem. It's the n-----lovers who are enabling them.
Now, as vile as all this is, I think it's a good thing that we hear about it. Hearing about it does not strengthen it. There are far more people who are outraged by this than there are people who, otherwise egalitarian, would be convinced to "become a racist" after hearing these completely unappealing figures speak. And hearing about it forces us to address it. It will continue to exist whether we hear about it or not. But hoping that racism will die quietly does not do anything but allow the comforting mythology that America has exterminated racism to persist and prevent the opportunity to actually exterminate racism.
What do you think?
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