The One "R" in This Election

It's the ugliest word in the English language, describing a trait none of us want to admit to. Yet, for white people growing up in the U.S. the past half-century+, as well as all times that went before, it is an inevitability.

Why?

Because the worst thing about racism is how badly everyone turns out.

Not just whites, but blacks. How many of us have witnessed the terrible behavior of some of the young black men among us?

I have. Most of my most cherished possessions were stolen by a black man, who broke into my van parked outside the SunDance office one night soon after we moved to San Francisco.

My friend was picked up by several black men and raped in their van.

On it goes. I could tell you horror story after horror story. The problem is what conclusion we draw from these experiences. Is it race that causes these problems?

Let me suggest a way to think about such things. If you are born into a privileged group, as every white American is, you can be forgiven for overlooking your advantages. Why? Because the life of the average working class or "middle class" white American is a life of constant stress.

You work hard, you try to keep your job, you pay your taxes, you don't break the law. Meanwhile, all around you, are the detritus of our former slave-holding society. Black people on the poor side of town, in rundown houses, old cars, and actively pursuing lifestyles based on drugs, prostitution, violence, and anger.

The music that emerges from thees communities is scary, to white ears -- rap, hip-hop, the violent poetry of the street. It all makes a decent, church-going, white person shrink away with disgust.

So that is our America. And this is the political price for our reality:

Poll: Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama
By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.


I ask all of my white relatives and friends to look deeply into your hearts, and make sure you are not voting the "r" card in this election, because if you are, you must realize that you are perpetuating the ugliest thing about America. It is time to move beyond our weak parts, our awful past, our internalized hatreds. Barack Obama is not the kind of dangerous black man you fear; he is a decent, hard-working human being, a family man, an intelligent leader who just happens to be half-African.

For whites, he is a gift from heaven. If he becomes our President, the doors will finally open throughout this society for those who once were in chains, and we all can shed the awful burdens of our collective past. This will actually feel better to white people than any others. Finally, we too will be free, as in the words of the great gospel, "Amazing Grace." And our black brothers and sisters will have to clean up the parts of their acts that so disgust all of the rest of us.

Thus, my plea, for the good of all of us, is to vote for him this year, this time, in this place. We may never again get a chance to put our fetid past behind us. And I, for one, am sick of witnessing the ugly outcomes in the poor side of town. I want to live to see the day that Martin Luther King, Jr.*, envisioned, the day when the color of our skin does not determine our fate.

We, as a people, must be better than that.



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* (In the words of the old Negro spiritual, we will be "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.")