So bland it reads in newsprint, and it falls as mere background noise from the mouths of countless anonymous TV analysts, as they discuss how Barack Obama seems to be losing ground when it comes to white working-class voters.
Stated so matter-of-factly, it becomes easy to miss the point: Racism is alive and well.
Oh, coded, of course: It was the firebrand statements of that awful Jeremiah Wright that turned voters against Obama, or his referring to rural citizens as bitter. It's his elitism that turns people off. It's nothing to do with his--you know, his...ahem...his skin color.
But when Hillary Clinton tries to scare up votes, who does she surround herself with? White people. White people in bars, in cafes, in discount stores. White working-class people, Archie Bunker types. She knows what's going on, though of course she won't admit it.
Neither will the network pundits, nor will Obama himself. Not in so many words.
So we'll speak dispassionately of "the race issue" as if it's just another quirk in the system, and we won't trouble ourselves for a minute thinking about what it means. Because who wants to believe racism is alive and well in America at the start of a new century? Who wants to know words like "nigger" and "darky" are still spoken? Who wants to hear the voice of the woman I heard state flat-out that she'd "never vote for some coon"?
If we don't believe it, don't know it, don't hear it, we can pretend there is no problem, even as the fissures deepen and the hate bubbles to the surface.
