Decisions, Decisions, Election Decisions
Sometimes I wonder about a few of my friends that I hang around with at work. Last week, I listened as several of them talked about why they would choose one candidate over the other. One reason that a few of my genetically tanned friends held as an important criteria surprised me. “Barack Obama is one of us!”, they said. “What? A guy?”, I asked. “No, one of US!”, my dark friend said as he extended his hand and pointed to the back of it. “Oh!”, I said, “You mean that he’s not an amputee. He has all of his fingers and hands.” I knew what they were referring to. I just wondered if someone would say it out loud. They did: “I mean he’s a brotha’. That gets my vote!”
In all the years that I’ve known my friends, I’ve never known them to be racist. And they probably consider their remark to be anything but racist. Yet, as I spoke with more of my melanin-enhanced friends, it seems that it was easier for them to pick someone with similar looks. I have no doubt that some people have chosen John McCain on the same irrational basis.
Personally, I have a feeling that, regardless of who wins the election, we’re all going to lose one way or another. So I was wondering what would happen if Mr. McCain chose someone like Colin Powell to be his running mate. What kind of dilemma would this bring about? What would happen with those people who were using skin color in their election selection process? Would their heads explode? Would everybody wise up and write in “none of the above”? Of course, the bigger question is whether the Republican party is hip enough to let this happen?
