I keep getting asked–this is a paraphrase–“Why is West Virginia still so damn racist?” Media reports on the racism in the part of the world my home town represents have made me a token Appalachian, on the hook for explaining something I really can’t.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. All my good progressive “we’ve come so far since the 1960s” friends say, People can’t really still think that stuff, can they?
Here is an excerpt from an article about the area of Ohio that borders West Virginia. Southeast Ohio is considered the “swing area” of a swing state in the upcoming election. Here’s why diners told the Columbus Dispatch they’re not voting Dem:
“[A]n uneasiness with Obama prevails in Appalachia, and for many it comes down to race.
“I’ll be voting for a Republican for the first time in my life,” Jeff Justice, a 46-year-old ironworker, said as he finished his lunch at Hickie’s.
Asked why, Justice, a white former Wheelersburg resident now living in Florida, didn’t hesitate.
“He’s black.”
Waitress Mary Walters, 45, of New Boston, said Obama, a first-term U.S. senator, doesn’t have enough experience and she’s concerned about his name.
“I don’t know if he is truly an American,” said Walters, who hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan.”
Don’t ask me to explain. I’m not surprised to read it, because of where I grew up, but I don’t understand it any more than you.
i had this same discussion with my mother last night. i was born and raised in new orleans… my mom is from mississippi, and has retired back to her hometown.
she is all about mccain and palin, with no reason other than, “well, they aren’t obama.” now, she has no reason to not like obama, either..
none that she’ll say out loud to me.
*sigh*
So what I don’t get , and never will, is that for people who have race as an issue, being half (white, latino, asian, american Indian) -you fill in the blank- just does not count. So the conclusion I draw is that we are not just talking racist, but bigotry and malicious hatred of the worst kind. Scary, but a minority view, that will not prevail.
That being said , I feel we have a majority of voters who could care only that their candidate has skin, and not one whit about its color. We care about ability and character and statesmanship, and the future of everyone in this country. Slowly, the dreams of so many will come inevitably true. After all a very large black man who sings OPERA! last night won America’s Got Talent TV contest with a popular vote . If we have Opera in Vegas, why not Obama in the White house?
I think it’s an impossible goal to have every area be as accepting and equitable as the majority of the country. I guess that’s why any goal, philosophy, school of thought at most can achieve a majority and not a totality.