by John Anderson

Created on: November 01, 2008

McCain is provoking racism at his rallies simply because he is not speaking out against it.It may not be completely fair to McCain, but the fact remains that it is an open secret in our country that millions of Americans will not vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. McCain knows that the people calling Obama a terrorist are using that as a screen for their real fear.

Racism is part of our cultural fabric because nearly all adults in our country were taught to be unconsciously frightened of people that seem too different from us. It is way down deep in our wiring and the only thing we can do to address it is to admit it to ourselves and make the effort to get to know the people we are afraid of. Otherwise, it just gets passed onto the next generation.

I was born into a deeply racist culture. I grew up in a white suburb of Detroit in the 40s and 50s. Black people were expected to leave the city before evening, being allowed to return during the day to perform as maids and janitors. That's what I remember. You can imagine how they were characterized by the adults that surrounded me. I naturally learned to fear black people. I absorbed the idea that they had superhuman strength. In high school, I wrestled which is a fairly intimate activity. At one point, we were informed that we would be competing against a school that had exclusively black students. All of us on the team were shocked and horrified. How could such a thing happen? When my match began, I was prepared for the worst, to be crushed by something terrible. But I quickly realized I was quicker and stronger than the boy I was wrestling. If black people were not stronger than whites, what else was a lie? My worldview was turned upside down. What else were they lying about?

I hear people calling Obama a terrorist in a McCain rally and I consider that the source is as much racism as anything else. Suppose Al Gore was running right now. He is another Democrat with some very radical ideas of how to change America. Can you imagine McCain's supporters calling him a terrorist? I don't think so. I think it's a cover for racism and I fear that it is much deeper in our culture than we can admit.

Here's an example. Yesterday morning, I awoke to find an article about Barak Obama in my email. It began with an all-CAPS line: "I WILL HAVE TO PUT ASIDE MY HATRED OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."

I opened the email and read along in the article, more and more disturbed as I read, wondering how he could have said

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