A Talk With My Contractor

I have a place in rural America --beautiful north woods where the locals are hard working, older, white and not terribly prosperous. The caretaker on my property, let's call him "Frank", fits the bill. He's 70, a Democrat, winters near Tampa in a trailer, and works at least part of all days on various jobs for area homeowners. Down in Florida he keeps busy as a clerk in a Home Depot.

Frank and I were checking a roof on the property and Frank had plenty to say as usual in a cheerful banter. First of all, no way is he voting for Obama. Why not? He was a big Kerry supporter and a local Democratic committeeman. "Not my kind and I'm not racist, but don't trust him." He went on to tell me how the locals coming into the Home Depot called Obama a "c---" (a highly inflammatory word for black) and one guy even said "the Klan would take care of him." Frank said "He hadn't heard talk like that in years." He didn't subscribe to that sort of extreme thinking, "but I served in the army with (blacks) and they're all the same."

Then Frank segued into gas prices. He's limiting trips into town, a 20-mile round trip circuit in his red pickup. He carefully plans out what he needs to get, and if he forgets something too bad. He won't make a special run. Food is getting expensive too, he says. So he and his wife aren't eating out or going to the movies like they might have last year. He's fed up with the war and has no use for the Republicans.

I said, "Frank, maybe you'll end up voting for Obama." He laughed and said, "No way."   

So I had a couple of takeaways from my conversation with Frank. All this palaver about Obama's trouble with blue collar, rural whites is really code for tip-toeing around hardscrabble racist attitudes, still embedded in many parts of American society. Many whites like Frank just will not vote for an Afro American. This election will bring that reality into sharp relief by November. It won't be pretty.

And all this talk about mild recession or even no recession in comfortable Wall Street conclaves doesn't register out in the hustings or at JC Penney and Macys for that matter. The average American is cutting back out of necessity. We're buying less of everything and turning more frugal. The credit crunch was last year's news. A consumer nosedive will be this year's, and don't confuse the two.

When I got back to the city, my white shoe lawyer neighbor with the SUV said he discovered something about gas tanks at the fill-up station this past weekend. He told me the pricing dials don't have enough slots to register charges above $100.  We've broken through another barrier. No wonder Frank is taking fewer trips into town.      

Comments

[me]

it is your responsibility to educate ignorant people...even if they are 70 yrs old!!

This is crucial

[Jeff]

No surprise that there are racists like Frank in this country, and, sadly, his comments that African-Americans (calling them "Afro Americans is also a bit racist, don't you think?) are "all the same" is as ridiculous as it is offensive. Ask Frank to describe the qualities he perceives through his own admitted bias, and see how many of those describe Obama. Frankly, we could make the same generalizations about rednecks.

As to whether Frank chooses not to vote rather than vote for a candidate like Obama, it has often been said that we get the country, and the leadership, we so richly deserve. George W. Bush--need I say more?

[kareina]

i think you meant to say african americans. afro is a hairstyle.

sadly, i grew up in a chicago neighborhood that shared many of the same ideologies as your buddy Frank. even when i was a kid -- i knew my neighbors were wrong. as soon as i could, i got the heck of of that area of the city.

because of my experience, this racist part of America -- and the fact that so many white Americans refuse to vote for Obama because he's black -- comes as no surprise to me. i'm actually suprised that so many other white folks didn't see this coming. have you had your head in the sand?

just when you think we've come far -- we haven't come far at all.

i'm a Hillary supporter, and even if she doesn't win the nomination (which i think she will not) i WILL vote for Obama. i cannot in good conscience vote for McCain.