Report From Obama Delegate From Ohio
Here is a convention update from the Obama delegate from Ohio and Ohio State Representative, Tyrone K. Yates:
Last night I attended the Democratic National Convention in a
non-Delegate status because I donated my credentials to an Ohio Young Democrat.
Few if any of them will get to the floor to experience a national
convention. On his last visit to Dallas in November 1963, President John F.
Kennedy’s personal notes include a reference to insuring that Young
Democrats have seats at the TradeMart luncheon.Hillary Clinton’s speech was very good-excellent. At the breakfast this
morning I sat at a table where Governor Strickland sat. The national
president of AFSCME spoke and said that American labor must confront its
racism and any labor member refusing to vote for Obama and any
rationale against him is “bull….”We are experiencing a turning point in American race relations and
presidential politics-a point where our ideals and deeds must meet and
clash. The battle for our racial souls “augurs” well.
Yates lives in Cincinnati and is President of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. He and I have been friends for many years.
Doc:
I am not sure in what context you published those comments, but this passage bothered me:
The national president of AFSCME spoke and said that American labor must confront its racism and any labor member refusing to vote for Obama and any rationale against him is “bull….”
Dr. King was hopeful that someday the measure of a man would be the content of his character, not the color of his skin, a concept that I hold very dear.
By discounting all character issues by claiming that “any rationale against [Obama] is bull@#$%”, Mr. Yates has explicitly stated that unions should vote for Obama because of his skin color.
I am disappointed in Mr. Yates.
Chris–Thanks for your comment.
I suspect the AFSCME president has had a number of conversations with people and has some sense of what his concerns are.
It seems to me the AFSCME president is not concerned with either color or character, but with the views towards organized labor and towards all working people that the candidates have. That is what he is telling his membership to see.
Again, though, the problem I have isn’t that he has identified racism in unions, which I would imagine exists in some form, or that he is concerned about how his membership votes, which I am sure he is, and should be.
The problem is that it reads like he is promoting Obama because he is of African descent. In short, who cares? I am, and I believe everybody should be, interested in his platform: economic, military, domestic, and otherwise.
In short, I am interested in the content of his character. The passage I quoted said, explicitly mind you, that any argument against Obama as President was bull#@$!, otherwise I am not “confronting” my “racism”. In other words, this paragraph read that any argument against Obama as President was racist, specifically because he is of a darker hue than all other Presidential candidates before him.
I (and no serious pundit in his/her right mind) would never promote McCain because he is the “white” candidate, so how does the AFSCME president promote Obama as president specifically because of his African heritage, while discounting all other opinions as “racist”? This language is unconscionable, and I have no idea how any enlightened individual can support it.