Open Denial: We just don't admit
Open Denial: We just don't admit we live in Kentucky... (Reprinted in and copied from our local paper. Note the underlying support for political freedom and the glaring lack of social condemnation of bigotry. I guess it is freedom of the press. To me it is more like yellow journalism reporting a black and white issue.)
Many may play race card as they cast ballot
5/20/2008
By Rex W. Huppke
Chicago Tribune
MUNFORDVILLE -- Mike Rife is white, a semi-retired factory worker with a high school education and a two-foot square sign on his lawn that makes friends and neighbors flip him the finger as they drive by.
The sign reads: "Obama for President."
"I think I almost know what it feels like to be a black guy," said Rife, his voice gravelly and defiant. "I take heat every day. I got an Obama sticker on my car, and I catch hell for it."
Munfordville is the seat of Hart County, a rural swath of Kentucky farmland. Its Democrats will vote, and vote hard, for Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's primary. And if Barack Obama goes on to win the nomination, many of those Bluegrass State Democrats say they will vote against him quicker than you can say, "Race doesn't matter."
"They won't vote for a black man," Rife said of the people he has lived around all his 57 years. "That's all there is to it. They just can't bring themselves to do it."
A walk around this central Kentucky town of 1,500 supports Rife's opinion. Whether in the Dairy Queen or the dollar store or along the sidewalks of a courthouse square ringed with shuttered business, people speak freely of their dislike for the lanky senator from Illinois.
Terry Jordan, 47, who runs a year-round garage sale in front of an old filling station on Main Street, put it simply: "It's his color."
The Munfordvilles of America -- and there are many -- present a troubling reality for Obama's campaign, as his lopsided loss in neighboring West Virginia showed. These are the places where lofty talk of transcending race is dragged to earth by a weighty reality that has nothing to do with Obama's position on the federal gas tax, Clinton's tenacity on the campaign trail or even the off-putting rants of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
"Right now it's not that Hillary attracts the white vote," said Jack Bunnell, 79. "It's that Obama's black."
It's a notion the Clinton campaign has been subtly pushing, claiming that only she can secure a Democratic vote in many large, predominantly white expanses of America -- particularly in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, potential keys to the fall election.
Obama's strategists have argued that once he secures the nomination, most Democratic voters will swing his way. They set forth as evidence his strong showing among white voters in Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia. But the demographics of those states, particularly in terms of education and income, favor Obama.
Kentucky was a border state in the Civil War. It eventually sided with the Union, but much of the populace either joined or supported the Confederacy. Munfordville was the site of a major victory for the South, one that marked a high point of the Confederacy's westward push.
Anyone thinking a black politician could come onto the national stage and simply win these Kentuckians over is being naive, residents say. And it's not, as some outsiders might believe, because the town's voters are ignorant.
"To attribute it solely to ignorance would be totally inaccurate," said Melody Chaney, a financial adviser in Munfordville and a Clinton supporter. "It's a matter of education, their upbringing and their background, peer pressure. There are lots of factors that contribute to this."
The day after Obama won the Iowa caucuses, Chaney said, every client she spoke to expressed shock.
"They couldn't believe it," she said. "I think in rural America, certainly among Democrats, the vast majority would like a white male candidate."
But not everyone. Tim Carter lives on a narrow, crescent-shaped road called National Turnpike, a block or so off Main Street, an area known as "the black part of town." He's an Obama supporter, though he knows his man stands no chance in Kentucky.
"He shouldn't even bother to fly over," said Carter, who was born and raised in Munfordville and has spent 35 of his 56 years working in a nearby factory.
He likes his town and says there's little friction between blacks like himself and whites.
"People get along pretty well," he said. "The racist end of it, that will always be here. There's black people that don't like white people, and white people that don't like black people. But there's not much trouble."
Webster Rogers, 23 and also black, said that in high school he felt welcome visiting the homes of white friends. But often he would spot Confederate flags hanging on the walls, reminders of differences that still linger.
That divide has provided fertile ground for Obama conspiracy theories. Residents opposed to Obama seem inclined to latch on to false rumors about the candidate or negative exaggerations about his views.
"I believe that he's a Muslim," said Susan Horton, 56 and white. She leaves her living room whenever Obama comes on the television. "I think that if he gets into office, there's going to be another bombing."
"He's not patriotic," said Brandy Trulock, a 21-year-old mother of two. "If you can't salute the American flag, I don't think you should be allowed to run for president."
At his never-ending garage sale, Terry Jordan sells second-hand blue jeans, ceramic tchotchkes and anything else he can get his hands on, displaying his wares on a flatbed trailer and a few rickety folding tables. He makes about $100 a week to supplement his $720 monthly disability check.
He's all Democrat, all Clinton and, if Obama wins the nomination, all for Republican John McCain. He doesn't trust Obama, has serious questions about the Muslim rumors and truly believes a black man will not survive long as president of the United States.
Jordan claims there's nothing Obama could say that would change his mind.
From the resolute tone of his voice, and the sight of the rebel flag tattoo on his left arm, there's little reason not to believe him.
I am William "Papa" Meloney and I endorse this message.
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