In his e-mail, Tom from Scranton called me a “redneck hick.”
Turn the page, he wrote.
When Barack Obama becomes president, Tom suggested, I should retire to the bar with others like me and recall “the good old days” when we raised the “confederate flag” and supported George Wallace.
This email, more than any of the thousands I’ve received during this primary race for the Democratic nomination, signals that serious trouble is on the way.
I am now part of a great racist movement in America whose membership is intent on depriving a mixed race candidate of his prize, according to Tom.
We’re racist and we’re stupid.
We’re redneck hicks.
Without any knowledge of our history, we’re the enemy.
More than anyone, Tom from Scranton needs an education. His simple, and I do mean simple, assessment of the political process lacks substance, confirmation and sense.
Tom and his peers in the Obama fan club see race as the only factor in this election.
Black is beautiful.
And it is.
So is the rainbow of color and diversity of thought that must go into making a wise choice in the race for the Democratic nomination.
But Tom isn’t completely wrong.
I once looked to the late George Wallace to help shape my future.
When I was 17, I sat in the audience as the then Alabama governor campaigned for the presidency and appeared in an arena in Hershey. It was a rainy night as I drove with a couple of buddies to hear this man who railed against long-hairs and hippies and supported the war in Vietnam.
Depending on what happened that year, I could be headed to the jungle. My hair and my politics were still growing. I was a year away from college and from getting tear-gassed in the nation’s capital as the Weathermen attacked the South Vietnamese embassy and did the same the next day at the Justice Department.
I was there to witness both.
That night in Hershey I needed to see for myself this Wallace, this man who had America talking.
My beer-drinking buddy Mike Wright was even still alive when Wallace railed against liberals and change and an America that I would eventually work all my life to make better.
The Army hadn’t yet laid my teenage pal out in his uniform for his hometown to see before he went into the ground after a needle-sized sliver of Viet Cong shrapnel came out of nowhere and caught him dead, a sliver small enough to lose in a haystack but large enough to stop his heart.
When I got home that night I thought a lot about Wallace.
And when I got to Penn State I declared “Community Development” as my major. Wallace and his dim view of my country might have helped me make up my mind.
So did the confederacy and the views of some of my redneck hick friends with whom I grew up, young men and women I loved very much.
I didn’t love their outlook on the world.
I didn’t have to agree with them.
I could come home and see my buddies and know that we were heading down different paths. I could hang out with them and realize that life changed whether we wanted the change or not. I could see my nation for what it was and know that people all over America needed help.
When I graduated, I worked with criminals in a state prison, many of whom were African-American. When I got married as a young man in the Minooka section of Scranton in 1976, I made sure my white friends at the reception in the St. Joe’s parish social hall understood that my black friend from out-of-town was one of us.
They didn’t agree but nobody argued with me.
As the years passed, I vowed to side with people of all races who needed a voice, a friend and some back-up. I still stand with the powerless and the voiceless. I still remember Wallace and the fact that he eventually saw the error of his ways and apologized for his racism.
I wonder if Tom from Scranton even knows that. I wonder what he has been doing with his life. Other than supporting Obama, I wonder what, if anything, he has put on the line in the fight for social justice.
I don’t really need to know. But it would be nice to know if he walks the walk or if he just talks the talk.
Sue Henry
