For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Racism worries Obama campaign:
For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president...Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"
How pervasive do you think this is? Has WaPo taken a few disgusting incidents and turned them into a controversial yet exaggerated front-page story? Or, are such sentiments common enough in America to be an issue this election?
Before you answer, consider that the Clintons and their surrogates certainly felt so, and their racist strategy failed miserably.
