The Beauty of Race in America Today

This diary is little more than the musing of a older white male WASP.  Read it only if you are bored with the news of today.  It is me, for the first time, doing what Senator Obama asked from all of us - examining so many of the stereotypes with which I was raised.  Some of them just aren't pretty, but I realize they are still a huge part of me.

Most of my life has been at the opposite end of the spectrum from the lives of Senator Obama and Governor Richardson.  But the words of both of these American heroes have really sunk in this week.

The HOPE of Barack Obama's generation, the hope of his message, the inclusion of his campaign are what I see as the greatest potential future of this country.

I am 61 years old.  I am white (at least to outward appearance).  I am male.    I am a WASP who was raised in an extremely WASPish environment, and until recently a life-long Republican.

I should be one of the last people in this country to hear and accept Barack Obama's message of inclusion.  Yet I do.  I think I get it.  And I think I understand why.  I have baggage and I'm trying to throw it away.

Barack Obama sees so clearly the dynamic nature of America.  To me that was the most important message in his recent speech.  Perhaps he sees it so well because he has lived it.  I understand why his message so moved people like Governor Richardson.

And I think now I really understand why Geraldine Ferraro just plain doesn't get why her continued outbursts are both sexist and racist.  She is of my generation.  But she hasn't moved past her own token candidacy and therefor thinks the way she achieved her moment of fame is the only way any other minority candidate can succeed.  Like Senator Obama's characterization of Dr. Wright, her view is static.

When I was growing up, "different" was not accepted in our small rural community.  It was a town of proud Protestants.  The most different people were the Catholics.  I remember once in high school, when the local parish priest, a close friend of my Protestant pastor, confided to a large group that "I have a WASP Parish."  I didn't get it then, but I get it now.  They were trying to be like the rest of us.  They didn't want to be "different."

I have one branch of my family which traces its American roots back to four years after the Mayflower.  I have two ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War.  Oh, how it offended our conservative grandmother that not one cousin in my generation would join either the SAR or DAR.  LOL.  It's nice to know we could, but my siblings, cousins and I refuse based upon their too-conservative views.

That branch of my family also ignored the fact that the ancestors who moved to the wilds of northern Illinois in the mid-1800's mixed that blue blood with the blood of Native Americans, immigrants, and who knows what else.

Our small Midwestern town had no African-Americans.  Not one.  Not until I was an adult and a doctor and his family moved into my neighborhood.  And one of the neighbors started a hate and smear campaign.  I couldn't understand it, nor stand it.  She is now gone.  The doctor and his family are still here and still great neighbors.  But he was "different."

Growing up we had (we thought) one Jewish family whose son was a good friend of my brother.  I knew he was "different" but didn't understand why.  He was one of my brother's best friends.

One of my older neighbors confided to me recently that he and his wife were not German, but Polish.  "But don't tell anyone else, because it is better if people think we are German."  They didn't want to be too "different."

I had a best-friend all through grade school.  His mom was one of my mom's closest friends.  His mom didn't go out much in town other than to their family store and our house.  She was one of those "happy homemakers."  She was a wonderful mom to her son and to me as well.  It was again years later, as a young adult, when I finally heard the story of the "community scandal" that my friend's father had gone off to college and returned with "a Jewish bride."  My mom knew that from day-one but helped them keep their silence because they feared being "different."

The N-word was common in my youth.  We had "n----r piles" at school.  Looking back, we didn't even know what the word meant.  But none of the adults took notice.  No one corrected us.

Even our books were racist, or at least racist by omission.  "Little Black Sambo" was still on library shelves and in classrooms.  We learned to read because we we could relate to Dick, Jane, Sally and Spot.  They lived in a "normal" house with a white picket fence, in a "normal" town where no one was different.  They had a dad who worked, and a mom who stayed home and cooked.  And we all identified with "Leave It To Beaver" and "Ozzie and Harriet" who lived in similar towns.  No wonder research showed that inner-city kids (both immigrants and those of color) couldn't learn to read the way we did.  Nothing was familiar to them.  They had no role models in school.  Even after race relations began to change.  Long after.  And especially here in the lilly-white north.

The worst fear of my parents' generation was that one of us would date a Catholic or even a Jew.  They would not and could not comprehend anything further out of their norm than that.

That was (and in so many ways still is to those who are stagnant) my generation.

But what of the next generation?  (This is sooo StarTrek of me.  I remember reading once that Whoopi Goldberg, already a star in her own right, told Gene Roddenberry she wanted a role on his Next Generation show at minimum wage because Nichelle Nichols was her only TV role model growing up in the 60's and Whoopi wanted to pay back. Kirk and Uhura - the first interracial kiss on television - caused the show to be banned in many areas of the South.)

So what of the generation of Barack Obama and the thousands of new voters he has brought into this election?

They live in a different world.  And I suddenly realized my extended family is beginning to look more like Senator Obama's family than the family in which I grew up.  And I am loving it.

Twelve members of my family's next generation are happily partnered and raising their own families.

My much younger sister married a Cherokee.

One adult niece is happily married to an Hispanic-American.

Another niece is happily married to an Asian-American.

One niece is in a committed relationship with an African-American.

One nephew lives in South Africa with his beautiful "Colored" (a legal term there) wife and children.

They each found their own loves and they all love each other.  I think that is what America is supposed to be about.

And me?  Well, I'm Gay.  For nearly 50 years I couldn't say that to anyone, especially myself.  It made me way too "different" from the tiny box in which I had been raised. I hid for too long buried deeply in my closet.

And the next generation?  When I came out they all just looked at me and said, "Good for you, Unc."

I fight the stereotypes with which I was raised every day.  In so many ways I fear I am too much like Geraldine Ferraro.  But I try to move forward.

I think that is the message and hope of Barack Obama.  I think that is what he was asking each of us to examine.

A year ago in January I stood in the sub-zero cold of Springfield.  As I listened to Senator Obama announce his campaign I had the great honor of standing amongst our Governor, State Senate President, Treasurer, and half-a-dozen members of the United States Congress.  But I was already doubting that morning.

I never thought Senator Obama would get this far.  I hoped, but I feared that my generation would so quickly outright reject his candidacy.  I believed in him but didn't think the country was ready for him.  How wrong I was.  Iowa proved that.

Will this next generation solve all our racial problems?  Of course not.  But they will try, and that is the beauty of America.  That is the message of Barack Obama.

And how sad it is that today its the former leaders of the Democratic Party who are trying so hard to belittle him and anyone who supports him.