He's Black -- 'Get Over It.'

When future historians dissect the press coverage of the first black person to run as the presidential nominee of a major party, they will surely marvel at all the linguistic acrobatics and patronizing euphemisms. There are exceptions, of course, and today's New York Times features a welcome break from vague racial speculation with a thoughtful, well-researched report on racial prejudice in rural Pennsylvania. Journalist Michael Powell hits the problems that many reporters are afraid to touch, largely because he did enough homework to ensure that the article enables voters to tell the story themselves:

In Raccoon, Kelly Dobbins, a middle-aged factory worker, offered the same [view as another voter]: “I’m like a duck in the water — I float there but underneath I’m paddling hard as I can go,” Mr. Dobbins said. “What’s pushing me toward McCain is Obama. Who is he? Where does he stand?" Such questions hint at a cultural disconnect. Mr. Obama would invest tens of billions of dollars in retooling mills and factories to fashion windmills and solar panels. He notes that Denmark and the Netherlands have grown fat off the new energy economy....

White-haired Art Seckman stepped gingerly off his porch. Mr. Seckman puts no faith in Mr. McCain. “He looks tired, and he’s gung-ho about war,” Mr. Seckman said. “I was a Hillary guy, but Obama sounds honest and he’s young and he understands the modern economy.” He paused, and laughed, “Maybe, funny as it sounds, it’s time for a black man to fix this mess.”

For a century, Aliquippa formed the primal heart of Beaver County. There was the mill, the company store and the Italian Renaissance library built by the daughter of the mill founder. Ethnic communities occupied each hill. Croats, Italians, Irish and blacks worked, fought, and drank together. Now the downtown offers swaybacked homes and boarded storefronts, and rubble. Aliquippa is 35 percent black, the highest percentage in the county. Glenn Kimbrough, 65, with a silver-tipped goatee and a neat Afro, came out of the mills after 37 years. Mr. Kimbrough is an Obama supporter but he would not hazard a guess as to how his white buddies will vote. He said economic disaster had exacerbated racial tensions. With the mills closed, the work force is resegregating. Carl Davidson, a white friend and an Obama supporter, sat in Mr. Kimbrough’s living room. “My father voted for Edwards in the primary and now he wants McCain,” said Mr. Davidson, whose father and grandfather labored in the mills. “Without realizing it, he’s wrapped up in white-identity politics.” Sorting out white-voter discomfort with Mr. Obama is tricky business. Most speak of unease with his newness. But one in five primary voters surveyed in the Edison/Mitofsky exit poll in Pennsylvania said race was a factor. (emphasis added).

It's disheartening to learn about these voters, but that's the reality. This kind of "white-identity politics" is racist, and there's very little value in pretending it's not a major factor in key states. The article ends on this point, with a crisp counterpunch from a union organizer:

In Hookstown, Kristine Lakovich, 48, works the counter at Kiner’s Superette. She likes Mr. Obama, a preference she keeps to herself. “If you ask people around here, he’s not exactly the right answer,” Ms. Lakovich said. “People are split between their politics and their prejudice.”

Nationally, the Obama campaign shies from talk of race, preferring to argue that the poor economy will dominate this election.

Such delicacy holds no purchase here. An organizer with the United Steelworkers met with 30 workers in Beaver. He could not have been blunter. Mr. Obama, he told them, stands for national health care, strong unions and preserving Social Security.

“Some of you won’t vote for him because he’s black,” the organizer concluded. “Well, he’s a Democrat. Get over it.”

It doesn't make for the typical campaign slogan or bumper sticker. But it sure is true.

print Share

Register or log in to rate