I just got off the phone with my 75 year old mother who was understandably upset after having a run in with some pitiable individuals who thought it would be a good idea to go onto private property for the purposes of destroying my mother's Obama signs that she has on her front lawn and has had them out there since the primaries.
Details on this ignorant act and the people who did it after the jump
My mother moved to South Carolina a few years ago as she was born there and most of the family thats left on her mother's side still live there. She actually is living out the oft-quoted of late "American Dream".
Mom retired several years ago and is now TRYING to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
My mother was very excited about Senator Obama's candidacy for president and she actually went to hear him speak when he visited south Carolina during the primary. It was poignant for her to be alive at this time because my mother is one of many who marched for Civil Rights back in the times of Martin and Medgar. She actually was present in Washington DC when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I have a Dream Speech. So for her the events as they have been evolving with regards to Senator Obama's candidacy have been of great interest to her. She has followed the campaign faithfully and encouraged me to volunteer for the campaign and was proud as punch when she got her first lawn sign. She was tickled completely pink when she finally got the second.
When my mother called me this afternoon to tell me that some "white" kids(and i use this term loosely they sound like teen/young adults) actually were walking onto her property in the process of kicking over and stomping her sign(they apparently did not see her sitting on the porch) I felt a flash of anger as well as helplessness and did the best i could to calm her down. Right now as i sit here typing I feel a deep and abiding anger at those who would incite and encourage people who are the worst kind of ignorant, namely racists to spread that poision into anyone else's life.
As an only child who lives several hundred miles away i worry about my mother as a matter of course. Now I have another reason to worry about her thanks indirectly to the McCain campaign, and the divisive, reprehensible tactics that they and their supporters hve chosen to embrace during this presidential campaign.
While my initial reaction was to send them all to hell, I remember my mother taught me so much better than that.