Kumbaya era unravels in campaign against Obama

Election of the first black president hasn't loosened nation's grip on prejudice, particularly with GOP's call for a return to American values.

She seemed embarrassed to tell me that she's voting for Mitt Romney, as if the admission might suggest that she'd been hiding racist leanings during our long friendship.


This time, she said, it's not about race: Been there, done that. Now we can all go back — with a feather in our cap — to politics as usual.

That's the party line, anyway. And that's what we'd like to believe.




When those flag-waving voters are asked what they mean, their take on the president makes it clear: He's Kenyan-born, he's a closet Muslim, he has European-socialist tendencies.

No one is using the N-word these days. The "foreign" label is its proxy — a signal that Obama is the "other" in a nation trying to come to grips with seismic economic changes and unsettling demographic shifts.

My friend, who's white, doesn't see it my way. A few nut jobs with "birther" banners don't tarnish the Republican Party, she says. People feel scared and dislocated. There's something comforting about businessman Mitt, with his five-point plan and promise to return us to simpler days.


It's not just the cutting "send Obama back to ... Kenya" comment by the campaigning son of Wisconsin's former governor. Or Sarah Palin's patronizing "shuck and jive" line about Obama's handling of the consulate attack in Benghazi. Or the guy in the "Put the White Back in the White House" shirt at a Romney-Ryan rally.

One of my Facebook friends keeps a running tally of racially insensitive remarks; the watermelon jokes may have diminished, but the "you people" stuff is going strong.


Obama's race does indeed mobilize black voters; his vision coincides with our interests. But black voters don't always lean black. Ask Clarence Thomas or Herman Cain about that.


Listen to Kid Rock stumping for Romney-Ryan at a Detroit-area college last month: "I also wanna be clear that I'm very proud to say that we had elected our first black president, all right. I'm sorry he didn't do a better job. I really wish that he would have."


But he sees the black president as a failed experiment. And I see a leader who was shackled from the start by the GOP's chest-thumping pledge to block him from success.