Race Is Still An Electoral Issue

There are some people out there, some of them in the mainstream media, who are living in a dream world. They actually think race will not play a major factor in this year's presidential election. That's just delusional.

A recent poll showed that about 30% of whites in the United States harbor at least some kind of negative feelings toward African-Americans and are honest enough to admit it -- how many more are hiding those feelings? Couple this with the fact that Congressional Democrats in general have a much larger lead in polls than their presidential candidate -- Barack Obama.

Americans have lost respect for George Bush and are more than ready to boot the Republicans out of power, and yet they are considering electing a white man who voted with Bush 95% of the time (and at least 53% believe McCain will follow Bush's policies). That can only mean a significant segment of the population will use race as the deciding factor to cast their vote.

This story from the generally liberal state of Oregon (where Obama has a lead in the polls) brings this feeling into sharp focus. George Fox University is a small school in the Willamette Valley south of Portland of about 1800 students. It was founded by the Quakers (known for their humane and peaceful views).

But racism has reared its ugly head, even in this idyllic setting. Some perverted fool has brought a vision of Southern lynchings to the christian school. He (or she?) took a life-size cardboard cutout of Barack Obama, wrapped a fishing line around the figure's neck, and hung it from a campus tree. Fortunately, a custodian found it and took it down before it was seen by many people.

University President Robin Baker told the students he was "disheartened and outraged. It has been my dream to establish a university that more adequately represents the kingdom of God. This act causes some to question our commitment. What I've learned is we still have work to do." Sadly, he is right.

In fact, our whole country still has a lot of work to do regarding our racial attitudes. I know some whites thought we had settled our racial problems when we passed a few laws banning Jim Crowism. Actually, that was just the first few tiny steps toward facing our racial problems -- much remains to be done.

I hope Obama is able to use our economic disaster to build a sizeable lead in the next five weeks. He'll need it to overcome the "Bradley Effect".