The lament of racism in the presidential race

I’d heard for months about the venomous, racist, hateful, lying e-mails circulating about Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate and had, luckily, been spared having them pollute my Inbox. Until Monday. I received, from someone whom I won’t identify, an e-mail link to a radio piece whose source appears to be “Sal,” a character on the Howard Stern Show.

A message accompanying the link from the original sender, whom I’ll identify as “Richard,” begins “I will go to my grave convinced that I am not racist or biased.”

But…

Richard believes the people interviewed in this radio piece, who are apparently African-Americans, are unqualified to be able to vote for president because of their ignorance.

The report was made to see whether black people who are supporting Obama are doing so only because of his race. To test them, Sal portrayed John McCain’s policies as Obama’s in interviewing Obama supporters. So he went to…are you ready for this?...Harlem. Just so we would be clear that he was interviewing black people, just to reinforce preconceptions people – you know, people who live in “real America” -- may have about people who live in Harlem.

After one interviewee indicated they’re voting for Obama, Sal asks, “Are you more for Obama’s policies because he’s prolife or because he thinks our troops should stay in Iraq until we finish this war?”

Voter: “Because I think our troops should stay in Iraq and finish this war. I’m really for him with that.”

To the next Obama supporter, Sal says, “Obama is anti stem cell research; would you agree with him on that?” Voter: “Yeah I wouldn’t do that either. I’m anti stem cell [research].”

Sal also gets two of the three Obama interviewees to back Obama’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate: Sal: “And if he wins would you have a problem with Sarah Palin being vice president?” Voter: “No, I would not.”

I am not including the link to that radio interview in my post because I don’t want to spread it further. The very premise of this report is racist. The reporter went to Harlem with the specific intent to interview blacks and mislead them in an effort to make them look foolish.

Richard, in his message accompanying the link, continues, “I will strongly prejudge their qualifications to vote for the next president. God help us if Obama is anointed by the ilk in these interviews.”

As politely as I could, I clicked “Reply All” and responded to this e-mail by arguing that if Richard is going to mock the people interviewed in that report as unqualified to vote for president because they are uninformed and unintelligent voters, “then you should mock the uninformed and unintelligent people who insist that Barack Obama is a Muslim, that he ‘pals around with terrorists’ and who yell at McCain or Palin rallies ‘treason,’ ‘terrorist’ and, most despicably, ‘kill him.’”

Some of them can be found here. In this video, McCain-Palin supporters jeer Obama-Biden supporters, with epithets such as “commie,” “fag,” “terrorist,” and, oddly, that Obama supporters should “move to Russia” (someone’s stuck in the 1950s there). Reminded that as Wasilla Mayor, Palin had rape victims pay for their own rape evidence kits, a McCain supporter shouted back that “she [the victim] should die.” A McCain supporter ran his index finger across his own neck in front of the Obama supporters, simulating a throat slitting.

Sadly, these people get to vote, too, Richard.