There was some insightful commentary in this weekend’s Oregonian suggesting Portlanders are living in a bliss bubble when it comes to Obama’s election: We feel it’s inevitable, because we’re all too wrapped up in our own little worlds, the author suggests.

But it turns out, there are still those who won’t vote for Obama because he’s black. And I watched a clip this morning that I thought might be good for us bubble-stuck Portlanders in terms of getting some perspective on this aspect of the, er, race.

Back in July, Richard Trumka, secretary treasurer of the AFL CIO, a voluntary federation of 56 national labor unions, representing 10.5 million working Americans, addressed the issue at a United Steelworkers conference—you can head over to Youtube to watch the clip. Trumka, who’s from Buttballs, Pennsylvania, (I couldn’t catch the town’s real name…but it’s a dying town with no jobs, being left by all its young people…) recounted a conversation he’d had there with a voter about the Democratic primary.

“I’m voting for Hillary, there’s no way I’d vote for Obama, he’s muslim, and he doesn’t wear the American flag,” said the woman, according to Trumka. He pushed her, and she ultimately admitted she just didn’t trust Obama, “because he’s black.”

In his speech, Trumka argues that “we can’t tapdance around the fact” that women like the voter he talked to exist. “We can’t afford to sit silently or look the other way while it’s happening,” he says.

But what do we do, here in Portland? It’s probably best to sit tight. There’s certainly a danger that by engaging on the race issue, we’re seen as urban liberal elitists by the people we want least to alienate, over there in Pennsylvania. Or, now the primary’s passed, in Ohio. Or even Florida. I’m reminded of the 2004 election, when readers of the UK Guardian wrote letters to soccer moms in Ohio telling them why the Jews urban liberal elite mainstream media controllers simply couldn’t tolerate another term of Bush. The result? Obvious…

Trumka does a good job of rallying the base, I think, without alienating the racists. But it’s such a tricky line he’s walking. And I think it accounts for why nobody here in bubble town, or anywhere else on the coasts of this fine country, is chomping at the bit to discuss backwoods racism, or frontwoods racism, or racism of any kind, when it comes to this election. It’s just not worth our while.

Matt Davis was news editor of the Mercury from 2009 to May 2010.

3 replies on “Union Boss Speaks Out On Racism and Obama”

  1. It’s ‘just not worth our while?’
    Is that what constitutes a ‘dialogue’ about race we’re ‘finally’ having?

    And this – ‘recounted a conversation he’d had there with a voter about the Democratic primary … she ultimately admitted she just didn’t trust Obama, “because he’s black.”‘

    That quote is so vague and unattributable it’s laughable.

    It’s almost like those bumf#@$ white trash lowlifes in Pennsylvania are being judged by the color of their skin.

  2. What made the Oregonian article “insightful”? It basically said, sure, Portland’s a great place to live, but guess what? Lots of other places suck! We know that. That’s why we all moved here. We know that most places want to vote McCain/Palin or still use styrofoam or whatever. That’s where tons of us came from. So what’s the point?

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