"There's just something about him.  I just can't trust him."

"I heard he's a Muslim, and that he's really Arab-American, not African-American."

"If he gets elected, he's going to appoint an all-black Cabinet, and start pushing a socialist agenda for inner-cities."

"I'm not prejudiced, but I heard he's a radical.  Just look at that black preacher he had."

"The thought of this man in the White House just scares me."

(Buttons sported at the Texas Republican convention): 

IF OBAMA GETS ELECTED, CAN WE STILL CALL IT THE WHITE HOUSE?


It took the wisdom of my sister, who I teasingly call a "recovering right-wing Republican," and who is now an enthusiastic supporter of Obama, to point out to me that the flood of e-mails she still receives every day with anti-Obama messages from "my former friends," are basically a cover for:  "We don't want no n-----r in the White House."

I confess, as hard as I've worked on this campaign, underground racism was something I'd been blind to, up to that point.  I mean, obviously, I'd seen overt racism, particularly on some vicious talk-radio shows, some FOX news coverage, and the absolute media blanket of the Jeremiah Wright videos.  But I hadn't seen it in the so-called "Muslim" scares.  I had thought the Muslim scares were about whipping up the old familiar the-terrorists-are-out-to-get-us crap we've been getting from Republicans since 9-11, but I now see that it's really more of a self-righteous cover for bigotry.

After all, it's okay to fear "Muslims" who want to blow us up, right?

Never mind the millions of Arab-Americans who live and work in this country, who were born here or became citizens here, who love America, as well as moderate Muslims worldwide,  who are devastated and appalled by how their beautiful religion has been desecrated by terrorists who hide their hatred behind the veil.

My heart aches for them as well, these days.  It seems to be okay lately to smear someone by calling them a "Muslim," as if decent, loving, law-abiding Muslims do not exist in the millions in our country and all over the world.  Not only are you insulting a presidential candidate by equating him with terrorists, but you are offending decent Muslims everywhere.

How would we feel if the entire world seemed to think that Timothy McVeigh represented Christianity?

My sister, who spent her formative years in Texarkana, Texas, is more intimately familiar with the redneck mind than I am, and as soon as she pointed it out, the scales fell away from my eyes, so to speak.

In other words, the slur not only offends and insults good Muslims everywhere, but it is also a slam to all African Americans.  It is no longer politically correct to call someone the "n" word so hey, we'll call him a Muslim instead!

I was aware all of this was swirling about in this campaign, of course, but it wasn't until I saw a powerful speech by AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka today that I realized it was time we Obama supporters dealt with this head-on.

The speech lasts about 8 or 9 minutes, and it absolutely gave me chillbumps.  It was bravest thing I've seen in the political arena in many a year.  I urge you all to set aside eight minutes of your day to watch this:

http://www.truthout.org/video/afl-cio-leader-richard-trumka-racism-and-obama

(I would like to point out, before I go on, that he received a standing ovation from the large union crowd he was addressing.)

There is an accompanying article to the speech that is just as enlightening:

http://www.truthout.org/100608L

What Mr. Trumka points out is that those of us who whole-heartedly support Barack Obama, and have been getting the kinds of protests from (particularly older) Democrats or Independents or moderate Republicans who say they can't support him because they "just don't trust him" or because "he's Muslim"--need to just get right in their faces and say something like, "Do you mean you can't support him because he's black?"

Most of the hold-outs will hasten to explain that they are not prejudiced, mind you, but they are concerned that he will "put black people over white people" in his policies and so on.

The first thing I would point out is that, of the closest advisors who have remained with Obama from the beginning of his campaign--only TWO are African American.  What that should say to them is that he does not show a pattern of selecting people for positions based on the fact that they are black, period.  He picks who he considers the best person, regardless of color, creed, or gender.

I would also challenge them to find one incident, anywhere, by anyone, of ANYONE who has ever seen Obama drop to his knees and pray toward Mecca even once, much less five times a day.  Ask them if Michelle wears sleeveless dresses.  These things are important because even among moderate Muslims, even if they do not veil, women usually cover their arms and dress modestly.

Point out the lack of logic that claims he can be a Muslim, and then turn around in the same breath and claim that he can be a radical Christian.  Which is it?  He has attended a Church of Christ in Chicago for 20 years.  How does this jive with being a Muslim?

If they say, "Well, he became a Christian for political purposes," explain that he became a Christian many years before he entered political life.

If they brush off those arguments with concerns that he will ram through affirmative-action measures, tell them the truth, that Obama has said that, while he is in favor of affirmative action laws, he does state that they should be changed to address ECONOMIC hardship, so that deserving white kids who come from impoverished areas might get the same opportunities to attend good schools as better-off white or black kids.  He said, plainly, that he thought his two daughters "have had it pretty good," and so does not think they should be favored over someone of another race from less advantaged backgrounds.

The (mostly older) voter you are talking with--a parent or grandparent or neighbor--will probably still harbor doubts, and this is not necessarily because they are bad people.  Scientific studies have shown that, when a lie is repeated enough times, the brain synapses literally re-wire themselves, so that, when shown the truth, the brain often refuses to accept it.

So what you have to do then is change the subject.  Talk about this person's daily life, and how it will improve under an Obama presidency or get much worse under a McCain presidency. 

For instance, John McCain wants to consider the premiums paid by our employers for health insurance (usually two or three times what they deduct from our checks for our own premiums)--to be taxable income.  What this would do is force most employers to drop their health insurance plans, leaving millions of Americans without health insurance.

We would then be forced to pay for our own private health insurance.  McCain says then, that $2500 a year, or $5000 a family tax cut would enable us to do so.  But the health insurance we would have to purchase would be at least $12,000 a year.

In other words, most of us would lose our company-based health insurance plans, and would not be able to afford more, even with a tax break.

Just today, McCain's closest economic advisor told the Wall Street Journal that, in order for McCain to cover the cost of those $5,000 per family tax breaks--he will have to SUBSTANTIALLY CUT MEDICARE AND MEDICAID.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122315505846605217.html

So we are getting screwed from every angle with a John McCain health insurance plan.  In fact, he stated flat-out, in an article this month in an insurance company magazine, that he thought the health care and insurance industry would benefit in the same way that the investment industry has benefitted, by massive de-regulation.

So, he wants to do to health insurance what his policies have done for our economy overall.  (See: one-trillion-dollar bail-out)

Barack Obama wants to set up a health insurance plan for Americans that is just like what is available to senators like himself and McCain--a wide choice of competing plans, and for those who can't afford it, subsidies to make it possible for them.  It would be almost universal, and it would not be "government-run" as McCain lies.

John McCain also favors cutting Social Security substantially, and encouraging people to "privately invest" their usual Social Security deductions.  This would mean that our future social security retirements would be almost entirely dependent on the roller-coaster of a ride that has been the stock markets.

Imagine how that would feel, right about now, if George W. Bush would have had his way at the beginning of his first term, when he first brought up the privatization of Social Security?

This is another thing that John McCain favors, and Obama says, NO WAY.

John McCain wants to continue the Iraq war indefinitely, at the tune of $10 billion a year, and says that we can cure our dependency on foreign oil by drilling more here in our own country and off-shore.

But only 3% of the world's oil supply can be located here in the U.S., and most of its biggest fields have already been tapped.  The much-vaunted Alaska is now down to one-third the oil production they once were, which is why Palin is so big on a natural gas pipeline.  Her state has been dependent on hand-outs from the oil industry and the government for so long, and they're looking for another good trough.

John McCain also thinks we can fix the economy through more massive tax cuts to the rich--he wants to make George W. Bush's tax cuts PERMANENT. 

These are the massive tax cuts that have contributed, in part, to the bankruptcy of the United States.

Barack Obama has set out a brilliant ten-year vision for the United States, one that will bring the war in Iraq to a responsible close, plow that money back into our own country. 

And he wants to invest in our nation's crumbling infrastructure, and refit all those shut-down steel mills and empty factories to build giant windmills and solar panels and research fuel-efficient cars--good American jobs that, Obama points out, "cannot be outsourced."

This would make us completely free of our foreign oil dependency, free of OPEC manipulations, free of shedding blood in hostile deserts to get at the oil, and would help to clean up the environment and help to reverse global warming.

And it would put America back to work again, rebuilding OUR OWN country.

This plan has been endorsed by at least one Nobel Prize-winner, Joseph T. Stiglitz--the first Nobel winner to ferret out the true cost of the Iraq war--in a scathing piece for Vanity Fair called, "Reversal of Fortune":

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/11/stiglitz200811

But don't take one Nobel laureate's word for it.  In a recent survey taken by the respected publication, The Economist,"

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12342127

some EIGHTY PERCENT of hundreds of economists polled--Republicans, Democrats, and Independents--supported OBAMA'S plan for the economy over McCains.  Just to be on the safe side, some of the questions were narrowed down to include ONLY Republicans and Independents, and the results were roughly the same.

Eighty percent of economists think McCain would harm our economy even more.

But I don't imagine your grandma or your elderly neighbor will be all that impressed with Nobel-winning economists who support Barack Obama.  She'll still say that she "just doesn't trust him," even though his policies will completely protect her and McCain's won't.

She might not even be impressed that in another recent poll, some 60,000 Europeans were polled and asked which candidate they hoped would be elected president of the United States, and NINETY-SEVEN PERCENT chose Barack Obama.

So, our battered standing in the world--brutalized by eight years of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld foreign policy--would improve JUST ON THE ELECTION of Barack Obama.

But if she's still not listening, well, don't despair.  An interesting blog in the New York Times this morning by Michael A. Cohen, "Does Race Really Matter?"

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/does-race-really-matter/?th&emc=th

thoroughly examines not just the latest data on this question, but analyzes some of the most frequently-quoted polls that claim racism could really hurt Obama.

His conclusions are that, basically, it won't hurt Obama as bad as some people think, and in fact, might actually HELP him, not just among those who have felt the sting of racial prejudice directed toward themselves, but to those of us who recoil in the face of it, and who intend to turn out in force on November 4 to put the LIE to it.

So let's bring this shadowy hate that dare not speak its name out into light, show it up for what it is, and try to ease the minds of loved ones and friends who may not even realize they're being prejudiced.  They don't understand that their fears are ancient ones that have been manipulated and exploited by sleazy liars who have repeated the lie so often that they've become afraid to believe the truth.

Be patient with them.  Understand that the wiring in their brains has been corrupted, and you may not be able to overcome that corruption, no matter how hard you try.

Know that, when President Obama takes office, and they are able to see for themselves that he has not appointed an all-black Cabinet, has not made Jesse Jackson Secretary of State, has not shoved affirmative-action legislation through congress in his first 100 days, and has not turned the Oval Office into a mosque...their minds will be eased. 

A few months later, they'll start to feel pretty foolish.

And we'll still love them.

But in the meantime, let's double-down our efforts so that there can BE a President Obama.  That means confronting racism head-on, and showing the world that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not the only one who has had a glorious dream of just what this country can be.