About 100 years ago, a young white woman, Mabel Hallam, accused a black man of rape. Her accusation led to a pogram of both blacks and whites (those who sought to defend the African Americans--or whatever the PC label is now.) Black men were hanged and their bodies were mutilated, all of whom were guilty of only one thing--their skin color.

Mabel Hallam, after the pogram, admitted that she'd 'made up' the accusation in order to explain to her husband why she had 'bruises' left by her boyfriend.

This is the atmoshpere--as well as what more recent anti-African-American stridents could be calling for given an Obama candidacy, that Obama will face.

Gee...one hundred years ago there were racist assholes willing to launch a pogrom and Liz believes this indicates what Obama faces now? How so? Does she seriously mean to suggest that if Obama formally wins the Democratic nomination for President there will be a "pogram" and blacks and those whites who support Obama will be sexually mutilated and then lynched? Frankly, I find her suggestion that those who oppose Obama's candidacy are anti-African American to be offensive and unworthy of Fool Moon. Her insinuation that those who oppose Obama are a bunch of sadistic torturing murderers is merely laughable.

Yes, Law, I do believe that this sort of mentality is what Obama will face this November.

For the most part, voters will vote the issues and/or the candidate who best serves their own interests, or at least the candidate they think will best serve their interests.

As I said in another topic, there is no question that some American voters will not vote for Obama because of his skin color, but I believe the majority of voters of both parties will vote either party-line, or issues, and not race.

In terms of racial tolerance and equality, I hope we are a better country now than we were a hundred years ago.

So do I, Dax, so do I.

But the problem--and it isn't just a matter of racial intolerance/ equality--is that when the voters you describe in your first paragraph are fairly equally split, as seems to more common today than it once was, the small number of people that vote their racial/religious/ethnic/etc biases become the swing voters; with influence far out of proportion to their numbers. Don't underestimate the significance of the problem.

How big is the bigotry voting block? It is hard to say, but I would wager there are large numbers of closet bigots that do not practice in the voting booth what they can no longer proclaim in polite society.

Those bigots you describe..ones from the Democratic Party have already cast their vote for Hillary or other primary candidate. IF, they are that bigotted they could very well choose to vote for McCain. Democratic voters in South Carolina overwhelmingly voted along racial lines...but interesting enough, mostly the blacks voted for Obama. McCain might get a bit of a bump from the racial divide that exists, but I doubt enough for him to win the White House.

I mentioned in another thread....many of the voters in the primaries have been younger voters and that group almost all went to integrated schools and grew up after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 produced many black teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. Younger people don't have the same hangups about race that older people had when they were growing up...

But when people pick at the scabs and shove contrived debris into the wound like the opening post does, they will learn to have those hong ups.

Aint, why do you say that?

Race riots occur whether they occured a hundred years ago--fifty years ago---in the US--or yesterday in Africa.

Are we not adult enough to acknowledge the reality of ethnic hatred?

I think AInt was pointing out that when well intentioned but short sighted fools pick at the slowly healing scabs of racism all they do is infect those wounds, causing them to fester anew.

Frankly, I think you WAY overstate the case. Race riots? Do you seriously expect to see race riots and lynchings and genital mutilations because of Obama's candidacy, Liz? If you do, I begin to expect you truly do live somewhere other than the America the rest of us know.

That may be true, Law, but




I didn't say that there would be race riots, Law. I simply said that I would expect the same sort of retaliation and possibly widespread ignorance given an Obama candidacy. Race riots, I'd hope not, Law and Aint. Ignorance, I expect, I'm sorry to say.

Just look at Helice's reporting of the Black swimmer who won the Gold in the Olymics and the Black reporter who continued to express astonishment that an Afreican-American could not only swim, but could win.

The very few well-informed will vote on issues, such as those that have been presented. The rest will vote by their gut.

Pardon me for being negative about this whole process. Nothing will change, despite the fact that things really need to be changed.

I think I may join WakeHolden in the Paranoia File, although he's a much more brilliant writer than I.

At least he seems honest in his paranoia.

Liz, racism will always exist..but in America the gap has closed much more than you indicate in your first post. Your point in your first post is mute. Americans have voted. Whites and blacks have voted for Obama. Obama won the vote of the Democratic Party, over a field of many competitive whites. Most Republicans will not vote for Obama, because they support McCain. Race is a non issue at this point.

Surprisingly, CG, believe it or not, I've never seen Obama's color. There was an editorial in one of our newspapers that outlined what had happened 100 years ago in Illinois which obviously upset me and reminded me of a lot of things people have said during this presidential race. Things such as, if Obama wins, I hope he's chosen a strong running mate (implying assasination attempts) and other things too fierce to mention.

I also remembered a story about a small town in the mid-West and how Obama rumors had been picked up, spread around and ultimately believed. This campaign, it seems to me, is much more subtly dirty than most, within my memory.

May I suggest a Harry Lorayne memory course?

Presidential and Congressional campaigns have been this dirty, both subtly and overtly, since Nixon. (And the campaigns pre-1900 were absolutely vicious in their vitriol against opposing candidates.)

Nixon loved to smear enemies with the "Commie" brush. Neither Dems nor Reps are guilt free on this, there is no moral high ground, the party operatives will say whatever they have to say in order to win.

Sometimes they're found out and their candidate is punished for it, but simple lies that instill racial and economic fear and resentment in people usually work.

Racially speaking, the Dems are quick to point out any racial "slip" by a Republican, such as the "macaca" remark which may have cost Sen. George Allen the presidential nominataion, etc.

Republicans, since they can't use race against a white candidate, usually try to make the dems look as dorky as possible, i.e. the Dukakis tank pic, Kerry hunting and windsurfing, etc. (I'll bet Kerry never shot a friend in the face while hunting). Or they play the fear card, such as the Willy Horton ad.

In the current election, Republicans can't come right out and say "He's black, don't vote for him." so they frame it with talk of his middle name, his non-American background (untrue) and so on. McCain's appearances of late have included the pledge of allegiance (are we in school?) the Star Spangled Banner, and America the Beautiful, which many people think is our National Anthem. Nothing wrong with any of those, except when they are so cynically used to convey the idea that Obama is not as American as McCain. It's like McCain beating Obama over the head with an American flag.

Fear has always worked for Republicans. There is no reason for them to discontinue their attempts to scare us, in order to win an election. And since racism is based on fear, they're doing a pretty good job.

Oh my! I'm not going to make any disparaging remarks since I'm sure you'll come back hotly denying you said you've never seen Obama's color, or that saying you've never seen Obama's color doesn't mean you've never seen Obama's color. I'll just leave it at that. However, it would make a lot of your other observations on a variety of topics somewhat suspect if we can believe that, to date, you've never observed an image of Barack Obama in print, on TV or in person. Odd, what?


I'm afraid you are still a long ways away from equaling the collective memory of Muslims, who can justify yesterday's beheading or bus bombing or rocket attack upon some grievance dating back to the crusades 900 years ago. That is what you call "holding a grudge."

If lizbeth means that his color doesn't make any difference to her in her judgment of him, I can believe it.

If she claims she actually does not see his skin color, my response is that the only person who truly does not see skin color is Stephen Colbert.

...although Stevie Wonder would certainly come in a close 2nd, don't you think?

Yes, if you are using the word "see" in the sense of receiving light waves on your retina which are neurotransmitted to the brain which translates the light patterns into recognizable images.

But if you are using the word "see" to indicate recognition of something, then no.

So it depends on what the meaning of "see" is. --W.J. Clinton

EXAMPLE: Stevie Wonder is blind, but even he can see that we've gone way off topic here.

I see! So basically, you're saying Stephen Colert wouldn't recognize a black guy if he bit him on the ass?

Policeman: "So, Mr. Colbert, you say you witnessed the crime and saw who did it?

Colbert: Yes, officer, I did.

Policeman: Great! Give us a description of the guy. What color was he?

Colbert: Uhhhh-uhhhh?!?

Liz has certainly seen and recognized Obama's color or she wouldn't have made the posts she did.

That's what Colbert would say, yes.

As his character on his show, not in real life.

When I see Obama, the first thing I notice is his ears. When I listen to him speak, I notice his voice, delivery and intelligence. Somewhere way down in my consciousness I notice that he's no darker than my daughter after she's been in the sun for a while. The color of his skin is of less importance to me than the size, shape and placement of his ears, which is much, much less important to me than his intelligence.

What is of primary importance to me is whether or not he can achieve what he'll set out to achieve should he be elected. That's going to depend, not on me, but on people who can, on the one hand, deny being color-conscious in social situations while harboring racist thoughts in their hearts.

There is racism in our world, that will never change but we need to understand why there is racism. Sometimes it's because of bad experiences we have had with other races ( Which does'nt mean it's right), and sometimes it's just what we've been taught racism from others who were ignorant and had no clue.

But we should'nt get racism confused with prejudice, because we all have prejudices whether we're white,black,man,woman and child,etc., (Maybe it's just human nature, I'm not saying this is good either).

Some people are predjudice against fat people, some people are prejudice against poor people, some people are prejudice against quiet people, some are prejudice against loud people, etc., it could be any little or big thing we percieve as not liking or not want to be around, but we all have our prejudices.

If we actually tried to get to know people and the reasons they are the way they are, we could better understand each other. We may not agree but at least we can understand.

I'm prejudiced against people who perception of themselves is "perfection"...

Yes, SPM, there is racism and there is predjudice for all the reasons you've given and more. And that's all I was trying to point out in this thread.

I hope Obama, if he's elected, will never be faced with outright racism--no matter to whom that racism is directed. I expect he could be faced with predjudice. I feel he's intelligent enough to deal with predjudice, don't you?

BTW, I prefer French Vanilla ice cream with cantalope. Does that mean I'm prejudiced against people who eat cantalope with chocolate ice cream? No, not unless they happen to be over-weight 30 somethings who still wear the clothes they wore in high school.

But I've already examined that prejudice here in another thread.

Tee hee hee! As one who knows precisely the discussion to which you are referring, that's a pretty damned funny aside. I liked it. (heh, heh)

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programing.

Hey Lawmage !
Take off the rose colored glasses ,when you posted .
You proved to be more of an idealist than a realist (much to my surprise)
Lets face it , according to some of the latest polls.republicans and democrats are running virtually neck on neck.Considering the Bush administrations record, the democrats should be way ahead...but they aren't...why ? I dare say that if Obama were a white candidate and just as eloquent as Obama he would be way ahead in the polls. Racism is a fact of life among the U.S. electorate...some of it conscious but most of it subconscious...it is ingrained in the minds of most , be they black or white, pity but thats the way it is.