A personal story about how I know Obama's speech worked VERY well....

[scheming daemons]

My wife is a Republican.... but a "soft" Republican... apolitical, almost. She's Republican because her parents were and she grew up in a WASP neighborhood, went to a WASP school, and a WASP church.

My in-laws are as white as Pat Boone.

I'm Italian.... and Catholic. It rocked their world when their daughter fell in love with a "dago".... but that's another story.

My wife and I have hardly EVER talked about race, at least not in an in-depth way, in our 17 years of marriage.

Yesterday, she was home from work due to our child's illness, and I had taken a sick day as well to get some things done around the house.

During a break in our morning routine, we tuned in and watched the speech together. When it was over, she said simply,

"Wow."


That's it. This apolitical, but wonderful wife of mine gave a one-word response to what I feel was the greatest speech in a generation.

I prodded her... "that's your entire reaction? 'Wow'??"

Her response... "Yep. Just ..... wow."


She's a white, 40-year-old, soccer mom. She has no black friends. She has, through her life circumstances, never really had to deal with race in any overt way.


This speech reached her.


And if it reached her, it reached middle America. I didn't push it further, but I think another Obamacan was born.


ON EDIT: fixed a typo in the subject.

[saltpoint]

1. I loved that you watched it together.

I just love that.

Great story, too -- and good for your wife and Sen. Obama to share a moment of high citizenship together.

I'm recommending this post and hope others will, too.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. What a great story...

I hope you're right...

K&R

:patriot:

[FrenchieCat]

3. It is a speech that makes one think.....

And I believe a lot of folks are thinking today.

That's what made a "wow" speech. Not for the fact that it was eloquent and well done in a serene and Honest Abe sorta of way, but that its one of those you take with you when you leave where you were and go elsewhere.

Tell you wife that, when you have a chance....that Obama will do a lot of that when he's President; make everyone think about those "just words".

Thanks for sharing.

[Cha]

4. Everything came together at that

moment in time for you to watch it together..how poignant!

Interesting to see how this developes.

[NanceGreggs]

5. Sending this off the Greatest Page ...

... with REC No. 5 was the highlight of an already good day.

[boppers]

6. Does she know how we treated Italians in this country?

http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/pics_06.html

Lots of white folks have never been exposed to our shared American history, because, well.... maybe hiding it was easier?

One thing that continues to confuse me, though, is how it could be possible to *not* have black/latino/asian/gay (etc. etc.) friends. Maybe, uhm, living with the amish? Part of an american culture that lives in a bubble? I dunno. :shrug:

[scheming daemons]

9. We live in a 98% white suburb of Pittsburgh....

Very VERY few latinos or asians in this part of the country.

I imagine the percentage of gays is the same as anywhere else.


I'm not saying that we haven't come in contact with blacks, latinos, asians, gays, etc.... I'm just saying that none of my wife's circle of friends is.

Myself, on the other hand.... I've had a more "diverse" group of friends throughout my life, because of my job and the neighborhood I grew up in and my parents still live in (a more ethnically diverse suburb of Pittsburgh).


Anybody who knows anything about Pittsburgh knows that it is a series of ethnic conclaves... there's Polish hill, the predominantly black Hill District, the predominantly italian Lawrenceville, etcetera for other ethnic groups. It's a lot like New York that way.

My wife grew up in a WASP suburb.... and we live in a different WASP suburb now. She just wasn't exposed to it as much as I was.

(which explains why I'm a Democrat to the core....and she's not.)

[Divernan]

10. Bloomfield? Del's? Pleasure Bar? Tessaro's?

Small world.

[boppers]

11. I didn't know much about it... here's some city data:

"According to the 2000 census there were 334,563 individuals, 163,739 households, and 74,169 families within the city limits. The population of the surrounding metropolitan area was 2,658,695. The largest groups in terms of race were 67.63% White, 27.12% African American, 2.75% Asian, and 1.32% Hispanic (of any race)."

From what I've read so far, the whole city sounds, uhm, kinda segregated, block by block. I guess another way of putting it would be "New York, 80 years ago". I guess I should prolly visit there soon, to get a real feel for the place.

[Tarheel_Dem]

7. SD, you & Patrick Murphy have much in common...

His interview with Tavis Smiley made me grin from ear to ear. His wife, like yours, is a lifelong Repub, but guess who she's supporting for Pres? You guessed it...Sen. Barack Obama. I find these stories fascinating, and so does the M$M, which is why they will stop at nothing to derail this guy.

Obama is a wonderful gift to us all. If we're lucky, this sort of thing only happens once...perhaps twice in one's lifetime. I was just a kid when MLK and the Kennedys were assasinated, but I remember my mother being inconsolable when Bobby was killed, and the mood of the entire community was one of deep sadness. The heavens permitting, Obama will get to live out the legacy that these great men aspired to, and I think we'll all be the better for it.

GOOOBAMA!

[PetraPooh]

8. I had a similar experience.

On another local forum, one woman and I kept getting into it because she kept posting all this Hillary spin and was bashing Obama like no other. Though I've not known her before this primary to be republican in anyway, I was beginning to seriously have my doubts about her. I mean she was ruthless and full of Hilbot dissertations.

Within 15 minutes of his speech, she posted a thread titled and sincerely OP'ing; "Obama just hit one out of the park. Best speech I've ever heard." Her OP was completely sincere and pro-Obama.

[Stephanie]

12. FYI, WASP does not equal Republican

My WASP family has been progressive Democrats for at least three generations. But thanks for the sweet post!

[still_one]

13. I hope you are right. I have been sending his speech to associates

and friends. I just hope people listen to it with their OWN ears, and not some idiot news commentator who tells them what they should think about the speech

[Rhiannon12866]

14. K&R. And I felt the same way about the speech.

I was not particularly an Obama supporter until I watched that speech, previously saw little daylight between him and Clinton. But that speech set me straight.:wow:

And I've never given much thought to race, either. I've traveled and known all sorts of people, went to school with kids with all kinds of backgrounds and never gave it a second thought. I liked the nice kids and didn't like the mean kids, regardless of what background they had. My parents never mentioned race, nor did my teachers, so I never thought about it, which proves to me that prejudice is learned, not innate. But this speech did wake me up. I thought that we were past this, but obviously not. Sad, but true...:-(

I also never thought of Italian as being a minority, amazed that your in-laws still did. Kudos to your wife for overcoming family prejudices. But, Yikes!:shrug:

I'm Polish-Irish, very WASP looking, I guess, so never thought about this, either, until I was in college and one of my professors, a very educated man whom I respected, turned to me one day and said "You're a Mick, aren't you?" I never forgot that, since it shocked me. There are still all kinds of prejudice, more's the pity...;(

I'm hoping that Barak Obama, with his unique background, and the courage to confront this, and the eloquence to speak about it, will help educate the American people, so we can overcome this, once and for all. It's way past time...:-(

[Yael]

15. Please encourage her to get a registration change in by Monday

so that she has the option to vote in April. If she doesn't, then the choice is made for her.

Thanks for sharing!

[blm]

16. I can see it plain as day....great post, s_d.

.

[Adelante]

17. I remember when my uncle married an Italian woman

I was very, very young, but it was the first EXTREME family emergency I was conscious of :D

They are still married, over fifty years now. Nobody can understand how she puts up with him.

So came the day their son married a Puerto Rican girl and my Aunt Marie just about had heart failure she cried so hard for weeks.

Who knows how all this works :shrug: