I can't shake the thought of this one guy I heard on the radio the other day. Some guy called in saying he's a democrat but he'd sooner vote for McCain than vote for Obama. And he was very up front and candid with the reason why. The Race Factor. He flat out stated that (Obama's) race was one of the reason's he couldn't vote for him and left it at that, no nuanced explanation of what he really meant, no nothing. Neil Conan (host of the program) seemed slightly stunned for a split second then conveniently skirted the issue. However, the next day while broadcasting live from Morgan St. from an auditorium full of people, the subject came up again.
I'm almost grateful to that caller for having the gumption/stupidity to show his true feelings. We all know they're out there. Hell, even in my own poll the leading response is "Libruls are fags and Whites rule". Whether that's someone trying to mess with me or whether each of those votes cast was an actual distinct person who stumbled onto my blog, we'll never know, but I have no illusions about whether these people exist and hold onto such beliefs.
However, its good that these views get expressed into the light of day, before society. Otherwise they fester in the darkness and people in general don't have an opportunity to think in their own mind whether that viewpoint, that belief has any credibility whatsoever.
That's the point of Corvallis Open Forum as well, to give everyone and anyone the opportunity to hold ideas up to the light of day, to the scrutiny of our peers to see whether they are solid, or full of holes, or mostly solid with just a tiny hole that we couldn't see for our own ego but an objective third party sees clear as day.
What really spurred me to write this though, was the report from Sitemeter saying that there are actually people checking out the blog. Thanks for stopping by and commenting, ahem. Please feel free to comment on anything you see on this blog not just the post at hand.
2 comments:
I must admit, I voted for the "libruls and whites" part of the poll... I looked through all of them and that was the only one that made me bust out laughing. It was really, really funny for some reason.
We should talk about this a little further, but not on blog comment spaces, the race issue. If people are afraid to express their true feelings b/c people will think they are backwoods idiots, of course they'll keep quiet.
One cannot be a part of modern culture and not have some sort of racist, sexist, political, monetary or other such "prejudice" belief somewhere within the conscious or subconscious. One way to get discussions going is for everyone to present either a current or past prejudice-type thought.
I tried voting in one of your polls last year and it wouldn't take. In this one, I like the Love is the way one. Although, many days I'd opt for the perpetually dazed and confused one.
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