My mother, a white, middle-class woman over 60, is about to move from McCain country to super-important swing state.
She is a registered Democrat. She voted for Clinton in the primary. So far no problem.
She has occasionally voted for Republicans, but doesn't seem to remember doing so, or consider it to be significant. In the last four national elections she voted for Clinton, Clinton, Gore and Kerry. I really thought W had put her right over the edge and squarely into the Democratic camp for good. And if Clinton wins the primary, we can count on one more democratic vote in that swing state.
But, there is a problem in an alternate scenario: She is scared of the angry black people.
That isn't what she said of course - what she said was: "I'm just so concerned."
I really wanted to ask my mother, "What do you think is going to happen?" This wasn't going to get us anywhere, however, because admitting this sort of thing to me when she knows how I feel indicates she wants to feel differently - better to focus on that.
Instead, I urged her to listen to Obama's entire speech. She is open enough that this might be sufficient. She was surprised to learn that Wright is an ex-Marine. Fortunately, this alone convinced her that she might not know the whole story. She was also receptive to the idea that the images and sound bites she is being plagued with are taken out of context and politically motivated, something the UCC's Response to this whole thing sums up nicely:
What's really going on here? First, it may state the obvious to point out that these television and radio shows have very little interest in Trinity Church or Jeremiah Wright. Those who sifted through hours of sermons searching for a few lurid phrases and those who have aired them repeatedly have only one intention. It is to wound a presidential candidate.
I think anti-racism activist Tim Wise is also on to something here when he touches on white discomfort with black anger:
But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an "angry black man" like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.
I'm not sure this last thing is something my mother is ready to hear.
Besides referring my mother to Obama's speech and trying to contextualize this whole issue, I'm not really sure what else to do. My whole family is like this - and that is just the ones who are Democrats. For example my aunt (a democrat) is really mad at Oprah, for supporting Obama over Clinton. "Isn't she supposed to be for women?" she asks. What I want to ask her is "Are you really mad about that, or are you just mad that Oprah has reminded you that she is black?" This is unlikely to get me anywhere, but I feel ill-prepared to confront racism, especially in my own family. At some point in the conversation with my mother, I turned the phone over to Dr. H, who has some more perspective. He reminded my mother of his adopted brother's experience as an African-American child growing up in a white family in a very white rural suburb - and the very understandable anger that resulted from the bias, prejudice and abuse he encountered.
Perhaps we made some headway with my mother. Time will tell.
Bitch, Ph.D. has some things to say on this subject and the comments are also interesting.
This is not directly related, but Jerald Walker has another interesting piece up at the Chronicle about race and the academy.
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