Reply #16: Thank you for this post.

[MoJoWorkin]

Damn. You brought this white 63 year old woman to tears again. I have been shedding a lot of them over the course of this campaign.

I was 15 when I went door to door for JFK. He inspired me to want to go into public service. My father was a Democrat, but was, and still can be racist. I remember having more than a casual interest in a young black student in high school, but didn't even dare to talk to him for fear my father would find out and would kill me or him. My father's favorite musician was the African American jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. He had all his records--went to his concert when he was in town. He liked many other black jazz musicians as well. It seems as long as "they kept to what the white man would allow" he didn't mind. My father would also cuss MLK out every time he was on tv. What a contradiction. I fought this every day I lived at home--just one reason I left as soon as I could. I was 18, and in my first year at a local state college, when JFK was gunned down, and I was so devastated. Then came Martin and Bobby's assassinations. My three heroes gone, and I allowed my dreams to die with them.

I have reluctantly allowed myself to dream again, with the possibility of an Obama Presidency. My heart goes out to all the young people that have been so inspired by him. I am revisiting all those youthful feelings of hope and possibility--and it does make one emotional at times.

Oh, my father at 84, is coming around a bit. He prefers Obama to Hillary-- more out of the fact he can't stand her, than he likes him. He was for Edwards. I'm still sure more a race factor than not. But the fact that he is even this open to Obama gives me hope for the future.

And even though my relationship with my father was strained at various times over the years---I never disowned him, but tried as best I could to understand why he was like he was--the fact that he never really knew anyone of color, as I had the chance to do in school. He never was exposed to enlightened teachers, as I had been. I am so thankful that I had those opportunities outside my father's ignorance, or I might have ended up the same.