My comments: Posted with no comments
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Obama's candidacy raises, answers myriad concerns
Article Last Updated:05/13/2007 08:19:56 AM PDT
THE PICTURES I took at the Oakland rally for Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama include about four of the Rotunda building across from where he spoke. On the roof you can see two small specks.
Those were people, a man and a woman. I was very worried about them being up there and decided to take their picture in case something happened. Later it looked like they were part of a rooftop party inspired by the rally.
In case something happened. I didn't mention my concern to my 15-year-old goddaughter who attended the rally with me. When I wrote an earlier column about the rally I didn't mention the two people on the roof and my photographs of them. I didn't want to be the first person to put it in writing. I was afraid, I don't know, that maybe I might give some nut an idea or somehow call down calamity by putting it into words.
In case something happened. The elephant in the room of Obama's candidacy has been the threat of an assassination attempt on the first African American who might actually make it to the presidency. In an interview on "60 Minutes," Steve Kroft raised it, but many of the other profiles and articles haven't mentioned it.
Privately, most African Americans I know in my age range have expressed the concern. "I'm afraid they're going to kill him."
Pundits have asked if Americans will elect a black man as president. A more disturbing question, "Can a black man be elected and serve without being assassinated?"
This past week, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., informed Senate leaders he was concerned about the increasingly racist and violent comments about Obama, in e-mails and on Web postings. He recommended Secret Service protection for his colleague. Obama was given the protection, the earliest in a presidential campaign.
Durbin said unfortunately we live in a country where racist threats against Obama have to be taken seriously.
At that rally in Oakland, I looked around at all the young people there and wondered if they shared my concern. Was it something that even crossed their minds?
Those of us who came of age during the '60s were shaped by the assassinations of President John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Those very public violent acts stole some of our innocence. The trauma of that period has faded over the years but it hasn't gone away. It came flooding back when I saw the two people on the Rotunda roof.
When Kroft asked if Obama and his wife were concerned about his safety, Michelle said it was one of many considerations but not something they lose sleep over.
She said they couldn't make decisions about their lives based on fear. They've never lived their lives that way. They don't want to live in a country defined by fear, so her husband's candidacy was an important affirmation.
She was convincing, underplaying the courage of their decision. In other interviews, however, she has expressed concern about her husband's safety.
In recent weeks, Obama has been gaining in the polls. Most show him making steady progress.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh has been running a parody that calls Obama "the Magic Negro" white liberals can support and assuage their racial guilt. Some have called it offensive, particularly with the increase in hate mail and Web postings. Obama's campaign has called it simply dumb.
I have another take on the racial angle. The Limbaughs of the world would dismiss it as white liberal guilt, but I wonder if electing a black man as president wouldn't help our country begin the process of racial healing. It wouldn't negate the need to continue the work to eliminate entrenched discrimination and racial disparities in health, education and wealth.
However, if we can send a black man to the White House and he can serve his term or terms, we've made progress I didn't think I'd see in my lifetime.
insidebayarea.com |
