#22 The Race and November: A Diatribe

Yes, I meant the first part of that title to be ambiguous, because the issue of Race is becoming increasingly unhappy in this election. In post #18 I talked about Race and Age in the election. I haven't heard much more about Obama's age recently, but his race has been hitting the press.

And yes I know that it was McCain's age at issue. I was trying to lighten the mood, but I don't feel very happy about how the issue of race is becoming increasingly divisive. Today's NYTimes has a front page article whose headline is "Obama Heads to Florida, Jews There Have Their Doubts."

Oh my. There's SO MUCH bad stuff implicit in that headline. The article points out that Jews in Florida (many of them, retired folk) are afraid of Obama's attitude toward Israel, and plan instead to vote for McCain. Well, I can understand that. I'm pro-Israel, and I'm concerned that there are still countries in this world that want Israel to cease to exist. Obama hasn't had much opportunity to talk about Israel in this campaign, and he's had even less opportunity to talk about anything in Florida, since he and Hillary basically weren't allowed to go down there to campaign. Now he is in Florida to try to assure folk that he supports Israel. But one honest eighty year old, who is quietly thinking of voting for Obama but isn't telling anyone (her cover is blown by being named in the story), says about her friends, "They'll pick on the minister thing, they'll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color."

Shades of Pennsylvania exit polls.

I wish I could meet some of these people and shake them. I don't mean physically shake them; I don't do violence at all well, not in person, not on TV, not in the movies. I mean shake them emotionally and intellectually, if they can be moved at all intellectually. I don't know if my emotionally shaking them would be intended to shake some nonsense out of their heads or some sense into their heads. But I would say to them, it's time to move on, people, to get past the 1950s and move at least into the 1960s if not the 21st century.

I find it ironic that Jews may actually be concerned about the color of a candidate's skin. Historically, (a) Jews have been the group most put upon by other groups, and (b) more recently historically, Jews have been in the forefront of civil rights movements in support of African Americans. And in support of other races here and in other countries. Why now be afraid of a black man possibly becoming president? Why now, when it's becoming a genuine possibility?

And I've possibly answered my own question. After the Civil War and even in the 20th century, blacks were generally not seen as a threat to be in powerful positions. Now, Barack Obama has shown that, like whites, blacks can be high achievers, can aspire to becoming, perhaps even be elected, President. That has just GOT to be frightening to a whole bunch of people. Not just the white trash we normally think of as being prejudiced, but possibly to a whole bunch of other folk who haven't yet gotten over what was instilled in them in their mothers' laps, on their fathers' knees.

Let me reiterate. Get over it. "It's a new world out there, Goldie," one of my favorite lines to help deal with change; and this forthcoming new world has got to be better than the one that dubya and his cronies are leaving for the new guy (of either gender) who'll be moving into the White House in January.

The NYTimes, by the way, does a fine job of asking the questions about Obama that may be the superficial cover for deeper concerns, and of dispelling the rumors, the myths, and the out and out falsehoods about the presumptive Democratic nominee. But will it be enough? Will it enable people to face their possible prejudices and overcome those prejudices?

I could say, All bets are off in this election: that polls will be of questionable value at best, impenetrable at worst, depending on how revealing or reticent people are in telling the truth about whom they will be voting for. And as we move closer to election time (now just a little more than five months away), we may have to keep reminding ourselves that our projections, and media projections, even the two major political parties' projections, may be merely smoke in the wind.

Do you remember Doug Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor? "Let's not kid ourselves again, the issue of race will not disappear; but I don't think it will predominate,'' the former Virginia governor said in an interview at his office in Richmond, where he is now mayor. At the same time, he said, even if Obama is the nominee and heads into the fall with an apparent lead, the election "will be closer than any polls will suggest.''

Indeed, in 1989, Wilder won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Virginia. Polls taken just before election day had him ahead of his Republican opponent by as much as 10 percentage points. He won by less than half a percentage point.

--triton--

Next time: VP choices heating up