Election offers chance for more racial dialogue

Racism didn’t die Tuesday.

But the historic ascension of a black man to the White House has forced a re-examination of what’s racially possible. Barack Obama’s victory unleashed a flood of discussion about race and change —- even in Atlanta, a city that prides itself on harmony and progress.

“I certainly hope it will advance [the racial dialogue] and allow us to make progress in ways we haven’t before,” said Ron Segal, the senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Sandy Springs. “But, at the end of the day, we all live our lives in our nice little boxes, in our own places of work and worship. By and large, we’re not very culturally or religiously diverse. So we have to be very intentional about acting upon this experience.”

A busload of Segal’s congregants will attend the Rev. Gerald Durley’s Providence Missionary Baptist Church in southwest Atlanta on Sunday for some cross-cultural racial and religious understanding. The gathering has been planned for months. The timing, though, proves ideal.

Durley’s sermon will tap the Old Testament to offer a spiritual road map for one nation under God and Obama.

“Racism is very much alive,” the preacher said. “Whites may say, ‘Well, [blacks are] good at athletics or music. But, when it comes to handling my dollar in the economy or the security of the country, they can’t handle it.’ But this man is calm, cool, collected. Once the fear factor is gone, people will see him as a competent person and president.”

In post-election interviews across metro Atlanta, blacks and whites lauded Obama’s historic victory as an only-in-America parable of progress and possibility. Young and old, Republican and Democrat, blue collar and white, all said they had no problem with a black president and that Obama will be judged on merit, not skin color. Those sentiments were echoed in a USA Today poll released Friday. Two-thirds said they were “proud” of and “optimistic” about Obama’s election.

As with any discussion of race, though, people oftentimes hide true feelings. Race relations remain the third rail of polite discourse. Obama’s election peels back the country’s racial scab. Many wish it would stay covered up.

Loretta Gay’s euphoria over Obama’s victory was tempered Wednesday by some white co-workers’ behavior and comments. She sat by herself at the end of the bar playing video poker at the Taco Mac in Tucker.

“I work with a lot of Caucasians, and many of them snapped at me today who usually don’t snap,” said Gay, an administrator with a building supply company. “All through the week, I got negative e-mails about Obama, about him being a Muslim. That’s harassment. Most of the Caucasians are good ol’ boys.”

Dean Masson filled another barstool at the Taco Mac. The truck driver and John McCain supporter motioned toward Gay.

“A girl comes in and sits down at the end of the bar, I’m not prejudiced against her,” said Masson, 45, of Lilburn. “People are people. I don’t care if you’re black, white, Mexican, it doesn’t matter. You’ll always have some prejudice, but it’s going away fast.”

Polls showed that younger voters, who weren’t exposed to the racial vicissitudes of the civil rights era, overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Race, to them, isn’t a big deal.

“The color on the outside is not really what we were voting for. It’s more about the mind,” said Charlie Pomponio, a Southern Polytechnic State University student walking across campus with a black friend. “Most of my friends voted for McCain. But it’s not a racial issue.”

Churchgoing Atlantans weren’t waiting for Sunday to begin the racial dialogue. At Oakhurst Presbyterian in Decatur, 40 Obama worshippers gathered Thursday evening to reflect upon Obama’s victory and dream about a racially harmonious future. One by one, in an open-house fashion, the biracial crowd spoke freely of “hope,” “a new day” and how “the country transcended color.”

All, though, is not nirvana.

“This struggle goes on,” a white man added. “There is rampant racism in this country.”

But Marietta’s Flora Bogan, a retired public housing official from Chicago, hoped this week that the racist old ways were history. She recalled the time in high school when white kids spit on her at the bus stop; how her daughter was automatically put in remedial classes upon transferring schools; and how an unhappy granddaughter once told her, “I want to be white.”

Obama’s victory, Bogan said, offered sweet justice.

“Whites who don’t want a black president have to look at it like this: God created us all equal,” she said in the hallway of Cobb County’s Windy Hill Senior Center. “It’s time to get away from prejudice. Obama is a start. It may not happen this year or even during his first term, but, in time, white people will come around.”

Maybe. An elderly white woman, who overheard the end of Bogan’s comments, let it be known that she was a McCain supporter.

“Do I got to look at Obama’s ugly face for the next four years?” she asked. “No, thank you.” She declined further comment and wouldn’t give her name.

But Obama’s visage hides a more fundamental truth about race in modern America. The president-elect is biracial, the son of a white American mother and black African father. He’s also a product of the world at large, raised in the polyglot melting pots of Hawaii and Indonesia. “Obama is not just black or just white,” said Lula Turner, 49, who works at a Jamaican restaurant in Decatur. “He’s the new race of people. At his [acceptance] speech, the crowd was very diverse. That’s America.”