Over on Talking Points Memo, a user recently posted a blog entitled, "How Racism Works". The discussion threads in that post have helped me crystallize some long-disorganized thoughts on the touchy subject of race in politics.
I've also done a lot of thinking about the beliefs and people I've encountered while volunteering for Obama, and how those encounters have shaken, challenged and ultimately strengthened my core assumptions about my fellow Americans and the better angels of our nature.
In this diary, I relate a personal story that, perhaps, can speak to some of that subject, and maybe shed some light on how some people use racism as fuel instead of retardant. It's a bit long, so I apologize in advance. I only hope the quality of the exposition justifies its length in the eyes of its readers.
I am a Black man who was born and raised in East St. Louis, IL. It's a town that has spent much of the last 30 years as an object of national ridicule. Even Richard Pryor used to joke about working "the kamikaze shift in East St. Louis". The past ten years have been kinder, thanks to casino money and falling property values that have encouraged some businesses to return. Times are still hard there, though.
When I went to East St. Louis Senior High in the early '90s, I was one of the best high school chess players in Illinois, and the #1 high school player in the metro St. Louis area. As a result, I did get some media coverage, and I was reasonably well known. East St. Louis Senior is known for championship football, basketball and track - not so much for chess.
One Saturday, we went to a tournament at Horton Watkins High, which is in Ladue, MO. Ladue is a suburb of St. Louis that has often been listed among the ten richest towns in America. Horton Watkins reflects this affluence, as it resembles a mansion more than a high school on the outside - and a high-tech lab more than a high school on the inside.
In between my first and second games, I walked around, marveling at the school. I didn't go into any of the rooms, though they weren't locked. I wondered what it would be like to attend a school where the faucets in the science classrooms worked - never mind the faucets in the student bathrooms, into which I never ventured during my time at "The Side". The rooms were all bright, airy, well furnished, and immaculate.
I was in mid-drool at one carpeted area when a security guard approached me. He started questioning me about why I was in the building. I got halfway through one sentence when he cut me off and told me I was trespassing. I got halfway through an apology when he cut me off again and told me he was going to call the local police. He grabbed my elbow and dragged me to the school office. I bit my tongue and walked along with him to avoid any further scene, but I wasn't in my happy place just then.
I wore my hair in a box cut back in '92, when this happened. But I was in a polo shirt, Dockers and loafers, and was clean shaven. (That was what I usually wore, unless I was doing gym or yard work.) So my overall appearance was not slovenly.
When we got to the office, he half-pushed me through a swinging door and into the principal's office. He ordered me to sit down while he called the cops.
The principal happened to walk in shortly thereafter. The guard hurried up to him and told him what I had done. The principal saw me, and said, "Boyd, what are you doing in here?" The guard's face fell through the floor.
When I explained what had happened, the principal walked me back to the cafeteria where we were playing, apologized to me, and apologized to my coach. The guard came by shortly thereafter and did the same thing. I elected not to answer him, primarily to avoid saying something classless. I could have been charitably described as aggrieved at that particular moment.
Later, the Watkins faculty sponsor came over to apologize as well. He was absolutely livid, and told me the guard should have at least recognized me. He then showed me a copy of that week's school paper - where a story about the upcoming tournament ran on the front cover, along with a picture of me from the previous year's event.
Now, every adult involved in that situation - including our coach - was white. Ladue has virtually no African-American presence.
Was race a factor in this incident? Objectively, one could argue it wasn't - I was in a part of the school that wasn't being used for the tournament. It wasn't locked either, though, and even the guard admitted I hadn't harmed anything.
Realistically, given the totality - the guard's aggressive behavior, his unwillingness to listen to me at all, treating me like some sort of thug - I came to the conclusion that race was the ONLY reason he reacted the way he did.
Now, to be fair, every other adult associated with the school treated me very well. I found myself, though, automatically questioning them and their motives. I wondered what they said behind my back. I wondered if they'd have behaved toward me as they did if I wasn't "the chess guy" or hadn't been in some local papers. I began painting them with the same brush I used on the guard. And that absolutely ruined my day.
A few weeks later, I was still brooding. But then I realized something. Yes, I'd had a bad experience with a white man. Yes, he deserved to be called out on his racist behavior. But that was no reason to believe that all white people were similarly motivated. I thought back to how the school reacted to my incident - the faculty actually sent a letter of apology to our principal. And I realized that maybe the guard wasn't the only one operating on assumptions and misconceptions.
I allowed one idiot to make me hostile toward an entire group of people, when their behavior as a whole gave me no reason to do so. I allowed that because I had an underlying assumption that all whites had certain racial prejudices. I came to realize, though, that one's behavior is the only thing on which one can fairly be judged. And I became more open and understanding as a result.
What I see in this campaign is that many people are struggling with two things - reality and predisposition. On the one hand, I've come to believe that most people are essentially good and decent, and ultimately want to do positive things. But I also believe that most people - especially Whites - have preconceptions based on stereotypes. And, while stereotypes are generally unfair, they do grow out of some basic truths.
Watch your local news sometime. The lead stories are almost always negative - and many of them involve crime, squalor and death. Blacks have a starring role in a disproportionate percentage of these stories in Pittsburgh, and my experience in Chicago and St. Louis says that's not abnormal. Does the media owe equal time for White crime? Do Whites commit less crime than Blacks? Do Whites hide their crimes better than Blacks?
I don't know the answers. But everyone who thinks past their noses has probably asked themselves some variation of at least one of these questions. Most of the time, when we can't - or don't want to - find an answer, we simply create one. Then, that answer becomes a prism through which we filter our experiences.
My phonebanking and canvassing work has led me to believe that many people are experiencing a fundamental disconnect when they try to process Barack Obama. That disconnect is related to the images they see on the news, in movies, on ESPN, and on the streets where they live. I think Joe and Jane Six-Pack are suspicious of Obama - despite the fine-tooth comb that's been taken to his life - because they haven't ever really seen anyone like him. Yes, there have been accomplished and educated Blacks. None, though, had really made a strong case to be PRESIDENT. These people would have an easier time accepting Snoop Dogg than Obama.
We have had 43 Presidents. 42 of them have been White Anglo-Saxon Protestant men. Think about that for a second. We've only had one President - the Catholic, John F. Kennedy - who didn't fit that exact mold. So, when many American voters think of a President, they just don't think of a Black man. That's why it's so hard to be first. And that's why Obama has to do so many things that we wouldn't expect a Presidential candidate to do.
On an infinitesimal level, I understand why Obama holds his tongue at some of the most slanderous stuff, why he picks and chooses where and when to punch and counterpunch. If I'd blown up at that guard years ago, I could've found myself in real trouble, regardless of whether I deserved it. The only thing I could do was hold my temper.
All Obama's trying to do is convince over 100 million voters that he's not a drug-using, service-dodging, White-hating, wealth-taxing, socialist, liberal, elitist, Communist-Muslim atheist who advocates safe sex for kindergarteners. If that's not enough chainsaws to juggle, he has to do all that while riding a unicycle of unity and explaining to people that he's really a devoted Christian husband and father who has given his life to serving others and who has the temperament, judgment and intellect to lead our tattered nation and a combustible world. Every single word and deed is fraught with the danger of upending this remarkable juggling act.
And yet, disbelieving ears still refuse to hear, and lying eyes still refuse to see. The people I describe still repeat the same smears and lies. After all, "Jerome Corsi said it, and Fox News reported it, so it must be true." (I've gotten that response more than once in phonebanking.)
I personally find Barack Obama to be a remarkable man, who has retained his composure in the face of scandalous attacks on him, his record, his faith and his family. Any red-blooded man - myself included - who had to face the hundredth part of what Obama has faced in this election would probably have long since started busting the heads of his attackers. And not one of those men would last a day in the Oval Office, because there isn't a day where the President of the United States isn't burned in effigy somewhere.
The moment Obama blows up at someone - just imagine him publicly having any of the profane tirades that have somehow become the gloss on John McCain's "maverick" myth! - he'll become nothing more than another caricature, permanently disqualified from being President.
I've made the comparison between Obama's candidacy and Jackie Robinson's major league debut before. As you read the various histories that have been written about Robinson, you come to understand that he had a great deal of inner anger about the way he was treated at the start of his career with the Dodgers.
Of course, he had every right to be angry. But the whole reason Branch Rickey picked Robinson to break the color barrier in baseball wasn't just because of Robinson's playing ability, which was unquestioned. Rickey picked Robinson because he believed Robinson would be able to endure being spat on by fans, openly cursed by other players and defamed by the press, and keep playing without complaint. Robinson excelled, even with all that negativity towering over him.
It's now been 61 years since a Black man hit the big leagues, and Blacks have come a long way since then. We've seen Black billionaires, Fortune 500 CEOs, entertainers, moguls, movie stars, designers, entrepreneurs, professors, activists, race car drivers, jockeys, and politicians. But never have we seen a truly viable Presidential candidate of color before now.
So, when I go out canvassing, I keep all that in mind. When I talk to an undecided voter or a hostile voter on the phone, I remember that we're working against virtually everything in our nation's relatively short history to get this man elected.
I hold my anger at the injustice. I hold my despair at the seemingly irreversible backward thinking and illogic. I hold my horror at the idea that this man, so uniquely qualified for this time in our history, may not have a chance to do what so many of us so desperately want him to do - lead this country.
I carry hope - not just Obama's hope, but my hope, and the hopes of my family. The oldest girls actually talk about politics - with knowledge, no less! It's all I can do to keep from keeling over in shock whenever they talk about electoral votes or Sarah Palin's latest lie. My five-year-old son shakes me and says, "Daddy, look! It's Barack Obama!" whenever he sees Obama's face on TV. And my wife registered to vote this year for the first time - then promptly contacted a field office and planted an Obama sign on our lawn.
And, above all else, I do what so many of all colors have always done when confronted with injustice. I dig in, and I work. I work against the tide. I work in places where conventional wisdom says Obama can't win. I volunteer to call southern Missouri. I call South Carolina. I call central Pennsylvania. I canvass in West Virginia. I canvass in southern Ohio. I go to the places where "Obama" is one of the seven words you can't say on television.
Then, I silently say a prayer of thanks whenever I encounter racist reaction in my election work. For me, it only adds fuel to my urgency in getting Obama elected.
(Originally posted at Talking Points Memo under the same title. Minor edits made in the opening.)