Frank talk of Obama and race in Virginia

CAMPAIGN '08

YOU CAN’T JUDGE A MAN THIS WAY’: That’s what Obama supporter Ruby Hale says she tells people at church in tiny Rowe, Va. “I am convinced he is a Christian.” She’s pictured with granddaughter Stephanie Webb last month outside church.

As Obama supporters push to win the dead-even battleground state, they are talking directly about race, betting that the best way to put neighbors at ease is to open up.

By Peter Wallsten, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 5, 2008

WHITEWOOD, VA. -- The isolated towns of Virginia's Appalachian coal region are home to strong labor unions and Democratic political machines that date back generations. Yet voters here who eagerly pushed Democrats into the Senate and the governor's office are resisting Barack Obama. Some Americans say Obama's race and uncommon background make them uncomfortable -- here those people include Democratic precinct chairmen and get-out-the-vote workers. Many Americans receive e-mails falsely calling Obama a Muslim -- here a local newspaper columnist has joked in print that Obama would have the White House painted black and would put Islamic symbols on the U.S. flag.

When Cecil E. Roberts, president of the coal miners union that shapes politics in much of this mountain region, talks to voters, he tells them that their choice is to have "a black friend in the White House or a white enemy." When Charlie Cox, an Obama supporter, hears friends fretting about Obama's race, he reminds them that they pull for the nearby University of Tennessee football team, "and they're black." Union organizer Jerry Stallard asks fellow coal workers what's more important: improving their work conditions or holding onto their skepticism of Obama's race, culture or religion. "We're all black in the mines," he tells them.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-virginia5-2008oct05,0,7655182.story