from HuffPost:
Jane Smiley
American PsychoPosted July 10, 2008 | 10:57 AM (EST)
There was an article in the May 28th New Yorker by George Packer called "The Fall of Conservatism," and I'm sorry to say that I didn't read it very carefully until this week's New Yorker arrived with three letters to the editor about it. This time, I read all the way to the end, and came upon the following paragraph concerning Martin County, Kentucky:
"John Preston, who is the county's circuit-court judge and also its amateur historian, Harvard-educated, with a flag pin on his lapel, said, "Obama is considered an elitist." He added, "There's a racial component, obviously, to it. Thousands of people won't publicly say it, but they won't vote for a black man--on both sides, Democrat and Republican. It won't show up in the polls, because they won't admit it. The elephant's in the room, but nobody will say it. Sad to say it, but it's true." Later, I spoke with half a dozen men eating lunch at the Pigeon Roost Dairy Bar outside town, and none of them had any trouble saying it. They announced their refusal to vote for a black man, without hesitation or apology."
After I read this, I mused for a while on this fact of American politics that is apparently accepted without question or demur: there are people in the US who, no matter what, would not consider voting for a man with a black father and a white mother.
These people would rather that 4700 more American soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 32,000 more wounded than cast a vote for a man of mixed race.
These people would rather that 90,000 more Iraqis die and hundreds of thousands more be wounded and displaced than cast a vote for a man of mixed race.
These people would rather that tens or hundreds of thousands of Iranian civilians be killed or wounded than cast a vote for a man of mixed race.
These people would rather that the economy continue to disintegrate under the management of the Republican incompetents than vote for a man of mixed race. .......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/american-psycho_b_111890.html
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