Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign
headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call
list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing
laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It
was the day before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by
dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst
thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle
Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for
Barack Obama.
Here's the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part
of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at
malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran
into "a horrible response," as Ross put it, a level of anti-black
sentiment that none of them had anticipated.
"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black
person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People
just weren't receptive."
For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some
of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates
are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely
unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been
slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names
(including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants
and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator
from Illinois could become the first African American president.
The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public
events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark....
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/
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