PACHYDERMS IN DONKEY CLOTHING

I was listening to This American Life on a podcast (I recommend this for anyone who's curious to know what a good old fashioned radio documentary sounds like), and they were telling the tale of the election "ground troops" who were trying to register votes and rally them to either McCain or Obama in Pennsylvania, the ultimate battleground state.

Of particular interest to me was a segment about labor unions--who support Barack Obama--trying to get its members to cast their votes for their candidate on Election Day. Regular union workers were enlisted to make phone calls to people in their various Pennsylvania locals and the segment played excerpts from some of their phone conversations. What struck me was how racist many of the people on the other end of the line were. You didn't even have to hear all of both sides of the conversation to get the gist of their argument. Men and women who were union members, who were being asked to vote for a candidate who supported their positions 85% of the time (versus McCain's 15%), would say things like "well, I just don't feel comfortable voting for a Black" or "I'm not racist but I don't feel comfortable about Obama" or, my personal favorite, "Obama's a Muslim" (as if being a Muslim in a country with freedom of religion should automatically preclude a worshipper of Allah from the highest office in the land).

That's part of why we can't just trust the polls. White Democrats of a certain class standing or with certain prejudices will often know the "right" thing to say when asked by pollsters who they're going to vote for, but behavior in the voting booth can be drastically different (by now, we've probably all heard about the so-called "Tom Bradley" effect). But more importantly its an object lesson for Liberals who try to suggest that this election may be an important step in getting America past race. America will never get past race. One of the union leaders in the American Life piece had a great quote that I can't possibly top: "Racism in America is four hundred year wound that has a sixty year Band Aid." Given the history of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, discrimination and the use of race and class to elevate those with money and power above the rest of us fighting for scraps, racism will play a part in any election--in any discussion--that involves people of different racial and/or ethnic backgrounds. It is depressing but unavoidable. The best we can do is to discuss racial issues as openly as possible, something that will not happen if we blithely pretend that Barack Obama will make "everything okay." Only then can any real progress be made.

Thoughts anyone?

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On a personal note, this is the big moving weekend as Tracy and I are finally ready to move into our ready-made condo! Yes, we are doing our parts to singlehandedly try and left the American economy out of the housing and lending crisis. Here's a picture of the front of the condo:



Those of you homeowners out there try not to snicker at us, but we're very excited!! The upshot is that this blog will go on hiatus for a few days while we pack, clean, move and reestablish our Internet service. I promise to post some thoughts on Election Day coverage, do a post-mortem on the presidential race and then no more politics in 2008. How exciting!! At some point, I'd also like to post some thoughts on the MAD MEN finale, but who knows if I'll ever get around to it.

Until then, I wish everyone a wonderful week and weekend and if you can, go out and vote EARLY. I did!

Peace...