Surely You are not that Naive? Obama Campaign Workers Experience Racial Harrassment

I love it when a plan comes together. But, I hate it when I am right about something like this.

As detailed by the following article, I am not surprised by the racist incidents endured by Obama campaign workers, nor should you be. In fact, I will make a prediction. If racism and racial animus are determined to be variables which turned the election against Obama, then we will see a further decline in voter turnout come 2012. Simply, all the young, excited, and a bit idealistic and naive young people--"the Obamaholics"--will see the truth of America's semi-permanent racial order revealed. Consequently, rather than being radicalized, they will become dejected and withdrawn.

So conflicted am I, for on one hand I hate bursting the "post-racial" bubble, but on the other hand I love to see the bubble pop:



Surely, these folks are not that naive?

From the Washington Post:

Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause

By Kevin Merida
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 13, 2008; Page A01

Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.

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.

the rest of the story continues here...