Union workers campaigning for Obama

Listen to a podcast of This American Life story To listen to the segment on union workers campaigning for Obama, go about half-way through.

Yet another one of my blog entries that has originated from a story on NPR - can you tell that I listen to that station a lot while I'm driving? This story caught my attention because it touches on the subject of class as well as race. This American Life has followed union workers in PA who are actively campaigning for Obama and encounter the issue of race daily.

At one point in the story commentator Ira Glass states that if you equate white male union worker with McCain, you're wrong. A lot of these union workers have had to confront racism in themselves and their fellow workers in making a decision about who to vote for in this race. One worker shares a story of confronting a co-worker and friend who states outright that he won't vote for Obama because he'd never vote for a black man. I thought it was especially poignant how this man expressed disappointment in his coworker's views, and stated that he felt "betrayed" to know how this man truly felt.

Probably the most striking story for me was the man who said he did not consider himself racist, but when it came to voting he was leaning more towards McCain. Then he heard a union leader speak and encourage everyone to imagine that race was not part of the campaign - i.e. if both candidates were white, who would you vote for? Only then did he realize that his views aligned more with Obama's, and he became an adamant supporter of Obama.

This story is encouraging to me because it represents not only the ground war on the voting front, but also the ground war on the racism front. I think as someone who is middle-class and college-educated, I have the misperception that it is my responsibility to educate those who aren't as "enlightened" about issues such as racism. In reality, though, these fellow union workers are doing a much better job than any intellectual argument would, because they are meeting their coworkers at their level and speaking with the power of experience behind them.