Racism in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania isn't the only state singled out for racism in an article today in the Washington Post about racial incidents involving the Obama campaign. Indiana is, too, but I live in Pennsylvania.
We in the liberal cities of the Keystone State tend to dismiss residual racism, the kind of animosity that can prompt a voter to tell a caller from the Obama campaign, "hang that darky from a tree." I doubt if "darky" was the word used originally. I suspect the campaign worker cleaned it up a bit in telling the story, embarassed to repeat the raw bigotry word for word. But there it was for all to see.
Gov. Rendell back in January said his lopsided re-election victory over black former Pittsburgh Steeler Lynn Swann in 2006 was due in part to racism, noting that he received votes in areas that had never voted for Democrats. Rendell later took a lot of heat by saying that some white voters in Pennsylvania would never vote for a black candidate, i.e., Obama. He was closer to the truth than many of us wanted to believe.
Ultimately, racist voters are a small minority. But that they still exist at all is a reproach to both schools and churches.