Racial Incidents Reported From Obama Campaign Trail

May 13, 2008 · Filed Under Barack Obama, Election 2008, Racism

The Washington Post is reporting some disturbing incidents of racial hatred towards the Obama campaign in certain parts of the country. Obviously, some people are still racist but for the most part those who are try and hide it.

Such is not the case in places like Kokomo and Muncie, Indiana where Obama campaign volunteers have received a less than warm reception around town.

Here’s the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into “a horrible response,” as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.

“The first person I encountered was like, ‘I’ll never vote for a black person,’ ” recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. “People just weren’t receptive.”

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.

That’s nothing compared to the racism displayed in some parts of Pennsylvania.

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!“

In some parts of the country Obama’s offices have had their windows smashed out, and campaign signs burned.

It’s as much sad as it is appalling that some Americans still have hatred for other Americans based solely on the color of their skin.

Prior to this election I would have thought that kind of overt racial hatred was for the most part in the past, but shamefully it appears to be alive and well in some areas.

-Chris Jones