Yes, Virginia, overt racism is still alive

[holzman_tweed]

jadegirl I spent part of last week visiting my in-laws in north-east Philly. They don't have internet access, so I had to trek to the local coffee shop for the free wifi. On the weekends, the local conservatives hang out there, as it turns out.

They were mourning the fact that the best their party could come up with was John McCain for president, and I was staying out of the conversation. My ability to keep my mouth shut ended when they put forth the theory the credit banking started in 1913 when we moved off the gold standard.

This is all by way of introduction. I'm sure everyone reading this blog understands what that theory isn't worth a Continental.

The conversation continued, and eventually they asked me who I liked for President. I replied that I had voted for Obama.

One of them asked me, "Why would you vote for a black man?"

The quote is direct. No sense of irony, no joke, the man was seriously asking me why I would vote for a black man. The man seriously thought that I, as a white man, should not consider it thinkable to vote for a black man.

I'm sure I don't have to point out to anyone the various ways that message has been put forth during this campaign in encoded form. But this guy was putting it on the table in plain English with no room for misunderstanding.

Did I mention that I was in Jackson, MS for two weeks before this? When I was sharing company with conservatives down there, race wasn't the issue at all, the fact that he was a Democrat was sufficient reason not to vote for him. This was right here in the North.

It's less relevant to the story, but my answer was, "Why wouldn't I vote for a black man?" He explained to me that black people only vote for black candidates, and fair is fair.

I swear I'm not making that answer of his up. I asked him if he was saying that black people didn't vote in November 2004 when their choices were two white guys. I didn't get an answer because one of his cronies cut him off, saying, "You can't ask an intelligent guy like this a stupid question like that."

You might think they were taking him to task for his racism, but look closely. Their objection wasn't to the fact that he thought being black was sufficient reason not to vote for him, it was to the fact that he didn't get the memo about how to encode that idea. One even wanted to argue that Obama's half-white, so it's OK to him. Note that the underlying principle remained unchallenged.

I've only had part of a day to process this, so I may post more about it later, but there it is.

Comments

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

can you xpost this to snr?

[maxomai.livejournal.com]

The New South is a reality.

Unfortunately, there ain't no New Midwest.

Fortunately, the South Side Irish bruisers in Chicago are apeshit for Obama. Which shows how things have changed since 1987.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

This is the same idea that came up in... the Washington Post, I want to say? a few weeks ago about how white, male Dems don't have a candidate who looks like them.

I bet if you had asked them, none of them would consider themselves racist, either.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

He explained to me that black people only vote for black candidates, and fair is fair.

Ow. That's so ignorant it actually caused me a twinge of physical pain.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

There's a famous saying about my native state: "There's Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and everything in between is Alabama."

Looks like that's an insult to Alabama.

[silme.livejournal.com]

The world is a scary place. *sigh*