My people, my people
The recent flap
over the Secret Service’s opening an Obama rally in Dallas to thousands
who hadn’t been screened for weapons has gotten me thinking about all
of the southern black women who, earlier in the primary season, kept
being quoted as being wary of Obama’s candidacy because they feared for his safety and wouldn’t want to help put him in harm’s way.
As a rationale for choosing a candidate, that didn’t make any sense to me then and it doesn’t make any sense to me now, but I think I might have finally realized where that fear really comes from. What if it’s not for him but for ourselves? Recently I’ve started reading the comments sections of election posts in news outlets and various blogs, and in addition to the expected partisan back-and-forth, there are always at least a few transparently racist and demonstrably false rumors about Obama that get repeated over and over. Every time I see one I begin to compile a well-documented, unanswerable rebuttal, collecting multiple unimpeachable sources for each correction, and then I catch myself. I remember that the people writing those comments aren’t reading the other comments. They know Obama hates God and the military and America, and they’re not looking to change their opinions.
So why do I always feel such a strong compulsion to answer them? Because my heart has started racing and my stomach’s started churning and HOW CAN IT POSSIBLY BE THAT PEOPLE CAN BE SO VILE AND THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT??? I feel helpless and lost and enraged and despairing and ashamed of the country I love, and doing something, even something as pointless as answering those comments, distracts me for the first, worst searing moments of it. That’s what it feels like to be a black woman reading those comments. It hurts, and it’s scary. And God help me, if Obama gets nominated I’m going to feel that way a lot more over the next several months. So maybe when those nice black ladies down south say they're afraid for Obama, that’s their way of saying that they’re really afraid for themselves. I know I am.
As a rationale for choosing a candidate, that didn’t make any sense to me then and it doesn’t make any sense to me now, but I think I might have finally realized where that fear really comes from. What if it’s not for him but for ourselves? Recently I’ve started reading the comments sections of election posts in news outlets and various blogs, and in addition to the expected partisan back-and-forth, there are always at least a few transparently racist and demonstrably false rumors about Obama that get repeated over and over. Every time I see one I begin to compile a well-documented, unanswerable rebuttal, collecting multiple unimpeachable sources for each correction, and then I catch myself. I remember that the people writing those comments aren’t reading the other comments. They know Obama hates God and the military and America, and they’re not looking to change their opinions.
So why do I always feel such a strong compulsion to answer them? Because my heart has started racing and my stomach’s started churning and HOW CAN IT POSSIBLY BE THAT PEOPLE CAN BE SO VILE AND THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT??? I feel helpless and lost and enraged and despairing and ashamed of the country I love, and doing something, even something as pointless as answering those comments, distracts me for the first, worst searing moments of it. That’s what it feels like to be a black woman reading those comments. It hurts, and it’s scary. And God help me, if Obama gets nominated I’m going to feel that way a lot more over the next several months. So maybe when those nice black ladies down south say they're afraid for Obama, that’s their way of saying that they’re really afraid for themselves. I know I am.
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This campaign has been a real education in race relations. I'm a white guy, but I (sort of) know how you feel.
I've learned a lot about racism; I have to admit that I underestimated how much was still out there. The couple of weeks before South Carolina I was completely freaked out by it.
On the other hand, it's also interesting to see how fragile much of that racism is. At first it looked like there might be this demographic wall that Obama couldn't break through. But once he he did break through -- once it became clear that he counted as "mainstream" -- the demographics became very fluid. Bandwagon effect, obviously, but still -- it's interesting.
It's going to be interesting having him as president.
February 24, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink