watched that news segment and I have to admit it was very disturbing. The woman who was afraid of Obama because “he is a Arab”. The man in the gallery who expressed his rage that the “Socialists were taking over the country” and the people they interviewed outside the venue that thought he is an “Islamic terrorist.”

I don’t think I’ve seen that kind of reaction since watching news reports when I was young, from Little Rock Arkansas or Selma Alabama. In my mind it is racism, pure and simple.

I grew up in the fifties and came of age in the sixties. A simpler time, also a time of hangings, bombings , shootings , beatings and riots during the civil rights struggle. I had hopes that we had finally put all of that behind us but now I’m not so sure. The faces in that crowd were the faces of the people of my generation. I know what we talked about a the dinner table at that time. My Father said "it is the end of the Civil War, 100 years later. Finally justice for a large part of our society". I Wonder what those people at that rally talked about around the dinner table when they were kids?