At a recent rally, Sarah Palin was reading through one of her scripted attacks on Barack Obama when someone in the audience yelled out, “. . . and he's a nigger!”  Palin looked momentarily flustered, paused, stumbled over a word, then soldiered on bravely as though nothing had happened.

I'd like to think that you or I, if we'd had the microphone at such a moment, would have stopped, chastised the woman in the crowd for her remark, perhaps asked security to have her removed from the hall, reminded everyone that we didn't approve of such language and didn't want the support of those who use it.  But of course Sarah Palin and John McCain do want the support of people who use the n-word — that's the whole point of their rhetoric painting Obama as a not-quite-American other.  They just don't want people to shout the word out at them when the TV cameras are rolling — they want at least a cosmetic firewall between themselves and the dark thoughts they're summoning up in people's hearts.

Bad witch, Sarah.

But with Halloween so close now, let's not forget that there are good witches, too . . .

Part of the desire to contain it was undoubtedly inspired by anxiety arising from the sexual appeal of black charisma — the fear that white women might be attracted to it.  Minstrelsy as a form could not negotiate and neutralize this anxiety on its own — other cultural strategies were required.  One such strategy was the myth of black male aggressiveness towards white women — the notion that black males possessed an instinctive desire to ravish white women.

The myth is usually presented in pseudo-historical terms.  The Birth Of A Nation, a fiction film from 1915, asserts its historical authenticity in presenting the campaign for the political enfranchisement of blacks during Reconstruction as motivated primarily by the desire of black males to ravish white women.  The film draws on a body of now discredited scholarship about Reconstruction which essentially promoted the same mythology.

We need to understand this mythology in order to understand the recent incident in Pennsylvania in which a young white woman claimed to have been beaten and sexually assaulted by a tall black man because of her support of John McCain.  She's probably never seen The Birth Of A Nation, but its mythology is still alive in the culture — she clearly drew on it when concocting her false story, assuming it would be plausible to many, as indeed it was.

News organizations reported it widely and immediately, before it could be confirmed.  John McCain's campaign instantly assumed it was true and began to publicize it.  McCain and Palin even went so far as to call the woman to express their sympathy.  All of this occurred before the actual facts had been established, and in spite of the fact that the story was objectively implausible.

The woman said her black attacker had carved a “B” on her face, for “Barack” — but the letter was carved backwards, as though it had been done in a mirror.  The woman also had a reputation for being emotionally unbalanced, and the supposed attack occurred at a time when Obama was kicking McCain's butt in the race, with the overwhelming support of white voters — hardly the time one would expect spontaneous eruptions of black rage against whites.

But the story “felt” true to many — because it reprised a mythological script buried deep in America's cultural psyche, a script in which black political power is forever linked to sexual assaults by black males on white women.

Try thinking of Todd's “script” with different racial actors.  Suppose she'd been a black woman who said she was attacked by a tall Irish-American with flaming red hair who, enraged by an Obama sticker on her car, carved a backwards “McC” on her cheek in the course of beating, robbing and sexually assaulting her.  She would probably have been sent immediately to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.  News organizations would not have rushed to disseminate the outlandish story before having it confirmed.

I got an e-mail from MoveOn.org asking me to post the text below on my blog.  I don't think MoveOn.org has the slightest idea whether or not I have a blog — I think they assumed that so many people do have blogs that a message aimed at their entire e-mail list would hit enough bloggers to be worth the shot.

In any case I'm happy to comply with their request:

Here's part of a memo an Obama Regional Field Director in North Carolina (where I was born) sent her volunteers last week:

Barack really is
expecting a lot out of us — and there isn't much else for him to do.  He
has placed this election in our hands at this point.  It's up to us now. 
We may never again have our hands on history quite like this again for
as long as we live.  That makes each hour so, so precious.  We can slack
off, sleep in, and make excuses for the rest of our lives.  But today —
and for the next 3 weeks . . . whether we knew what we were getting into
or not . . . we have ended up with people's lives, livelihoods, and dreams
for their children — all dependent on our performance day in and day
out.  This is our one chance at history . . . our one chance at perfection. 
Our one chance to live forever.  So today — breathe this in . . . realize
that your grandkids will be reading about you . . . realize that you will
miss this feeling very, very soon . . . and win every single hour.

The Regional Field Director is talking about that moment in a battle when the generals have done what they can do and it's time for the men to move up to the line and march to the sound of the guns.  She's talking about that moment when the disciples leave the teacher and head out to obey his command, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations . . .”

Obama isn't just running a campaign, he's training citizens for acts of service, crowding their hours with meaning, touching their hearts with fire, giving them a duty and a place among the generations of men, which really is one way of living forever.  Obama's success or failure in the campaign, or in the Presidency, is beside the point now.

The sticker on my shirt pocket says it all — I voted yesterday in Clark County, Nevada.  It was great — I went late in the afternoon, as advised, to a senior center in a park near my home.  There were a fair number of voters on hand but no lines — I was in and out in less than fifteen minutes.

Honoring the convention of the secret ballot, I won't reveal who I voted for, though I will go through the thinking that led me to the choice I made.  My criteria for a candidate this year were quite rigorous.

First, I wanted a candidate who was a celebrity.  We've had so many Presidents in our history who could never have made even the semi-finals on American Idol that it's getting embarrassing.  We need a rock star in the White House.

Second, I wanted a candidate who has such a dim view of America that he's willing to pal around with terrorists.  That, to me, shows a refreshing sense of open-mindedness.

Finally, I wanted a candidate who's a socialist — someone who wouldn't blink if called upon to nationalize the American banking system should that ever, God forbid, become necessary.  (Oh, wait . . . we've already started nationalizing the banking system — but we could never have done it if the current Republican administration hadn't summoned the courage to live up to its core socialist convictions.)

I think I found my guy, and I hope I'm not giving too much away when I tell you how good it felt to look at that odd name at the top of my provisional ballot print-out and then touch the square on the screen that read “Cast Ballot”.

It's been reported that ACORN, a nationwide syndicate of community organizations, has submitted voter registrations for a number of fictional characters, including some, like Mickey Mouse, who are animated figures.  John McCain and Sarah Palin have drawn attention to the serious threat this poses to the American way of life.  “Suppose Mickey Mouse shows up at a polling place in Ohio?” Palin asks.  “Will his vote be counted?  Will a ballot submitted by a cartoon character affect the outcome in this important battleground state?”

When the McCain campaign was asked how an animated character could physically enter a voting booth and cast a ballot, a spokesman directed reporters' attention to the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which demonstrated that cartoon characters could interact with live human beings.

Of course, you and I would never use that kind of language about Cindy McCain, even though she's now gone back to taking digs at Michelle Obama, after apologizing for doing so the first time.  “I've always been proud of my country,” says Cindy, with her cute little Sarah Palin smirk.  Why wouldn't she be proud of a country where a girl can inherit 100 million dollars, bust up a war hero's marriage and become the trophy wife of a pathetic old man who's got a shot at being President?  This is, truly, the land of opportunity — if you're very, very lucky and have no morals to speak of.

I'm sure John was just joking when he used the “c” word about his wife.  The guy has a sense of humor, after all.  Here's a joke he told at a Republican fund-raiser back in the 1990s:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?  Because Janet Reno is her father.

When you and I hear things like that, we just laugh it off, right?  The phrase “sick, twisted motherfucker” doesn't even enter our minds.

That was before Sarah Palin, before she and McCain began their program of coded hate speech against Obama, which has emboldened many of their supporters to echo the vile suggestions implied in their rhetoric and take them to their logical ends — overtly violent speech and overtly violent threats against a terrorist other.  Posing as the leaders of a sheriff's posse bent on cleaning up Dodge they are in fact the leaders of a lynch mob bent on stringing the colored guy up from the nearest cottonwood.

This is not acceptable morally, and will have heinous moral consequences for the nation if their irresponsible tactics succeed in carrying McCain and Palin to the White House.

Consequently I've decided that it's o. k. to send more money to Obama's campaign as long as I make an equal contribution at the same time to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is bringing suit to overturn the telecom immunity bill Obama voted for.

You can and should do the same.  Contribute to the EFF here.  Contribute to Obama here.  Do it for the good of the country and the good of your own soul.