Is Obama's Bridge Our Own?

From Kentucky:



and West Virginia:



These scenes are not just confined to Kentucky and West Virginia. They could be easily duplicated in many Oklahoma communities. The question these interviews raise is, "What should Barack Obama do about it?"

To me, there are two answers. One advocated by many political activists, is to tell Obama's story in a louder voice to a bigger audience, addressing the doubts these folks have about Barack Obama. Democratic Governor Mark Warner used a similar strategy with voters in western Virginia, acknowledging directly that although they are different culturally, they held the same values about family and citizenship. And he understood their culture. He didn't go to NASCAR races himself, but understood their devotion to this form of entertainment and their adoration of the drivers.

This may not work for Obama because of the overt racism these clips expose. No amount of explaining and cajoling will change their minds/beliefs. The simple irreversible fact is they are white and he is not. They are grab the "Muslim" label and use it as a code word for "ni##er." This leads to the second answer to the original question, which is; "blow them off."

From a distance, it seems that Obama has a unusually competent staff and my guess is they will try to split the difference; make a genuine effort to pick the low hanging fruit (no pun intended) from this group and not obsess about the remainder.


"Racism is man's gravest threat to man -- the maximum of hatred for the minimum of reason." -- Abraham Joshua Heschel