The United States is facing a reckoning with racism and an Obama run for the White House is hastening that movement. America is ready for it. Racism is a dead horse. Although, like many diseases, it can not be fully eradicated we can inoculate ourselves and our children against it to limit those that are made sick by it. In that vein I have hope that during an Obama Presidency, possibly during a second term, Obama would offer an apology for slavery on behalf of the United States.
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.
