In the past week, I was struck by a couple things forwarded to me from newspapers around the country. The first was a simple letter to the editor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The letter by Kelvin LaFond begins, “What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?” The letter then cites other examples in the McCain and Obama histories where a white person may have escaped much more intense scrutiny than a person of color would face in similar situations.

At about the same time that a friend in Blacksburg had sent me the LaFond letter, a friend in Radford sent me an article by two Associated Press writers. The headline read, “Racial Views May Cost Obama the Election.” I was interested to see this article because, in my opinion, it seems like race has been the elephant in the room throughout this campaign.

I lived most of my life in the state of Alabama, so I feel that I have an understanding of racial problems. And there’s one thing I know: America is a racist nation. No, not every single person, although most of us have more racist tendencies than we might want to believe.

I’ve long had a theory about prejudice and our tolerance levels toward others. It basically goes like this: The more in common we have with someone, the more slack we will give them. Pretty simple theory, right?

Take this example. As those who know me can attest, I am a die-hard fan of Alabama football. I am therefore sworn to hate all things Auburn or Tennessee. I hate the color orange. If a driver cuts me off on the Interstate and he has an Auburn or Tennessee bumper sticker or license plate, I will curse him like the low-life I know him, at that moment, to be. If the same thing happens and I see an Alabama sticker or tag, then that person must be having a bad day. Maybe the driver is rushing to the hospital to see the last breaths of a dying parent. Perhaps they should receive sainthood. They’re a Bama fan, after all.

And that mindset is the same for other things. I will cut more slack to Subaru drivers, Mac users, and golden retriever owners and less to Hummer drivers, PC users, and cocker spaniel owners. It’s just a gut reaction. They are different from me. That’s a long way of saying we will always face racism as well as other prejudices. It’s just a matter of how well we deal with it.

It’s 2008 and racial attitudes haven’t necessarily changed a lot since 1968. It’s just most racists are a bit more subtle about their views than they were 40 years ago. I had hope that my generation would change racial feelings in this country. Then I pushed that hope onto the next generation, and now the next. Admittedly, things are getting a bit better. We seem to be taking baby steps.

But one thing I’ve found very interesting is how much skin color actually matters. As you know, Barack Obama has a black father and white mother. He was raised primarily by his white mother and her parents—so, white grandparents. But all some people seem to see or care about is the color of his skin, the width of his nose, and the style of his hair—all black characteristics. Seems to make little difference that he was essentially raised in a white culture. Conversely, if Obama looked more white, would he have fewer black supporters? Probably.

The aforementioned article states that, “Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama’s support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.”

A poll released this week by Mason-Dixon (ironic, eh?) Polling & Research shows McCain’s strongest support in Virginia to be in the Piedmont/Shenandoah (55 percent) and Southwest (54 percent) regions. Is it surprising that those are vastly white areas of the state?

I’m certainly not calling every McCain supporter a racist. I promise that I’m not. In fact, I admire your party loyalty. Many Republicans would vote for a Republican come hell or high water. (And the eight years of the Bush administration have certainly seen both, so why stop now?) Likewise most Democrats are likely to vote for the Democrat. Or are they?

The AP article stated that, “More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that. Three in 10 of those Democrats who don’t trust Obama’s change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.” What changes don’t these Democrats want? Are they afraid “Hail to the Chief” will be replaced with “Swagga Like Us” by Jay-Z & T.I. (featuring Kanye West and Lil Wayne)? Are they afraid that Obama will show up for the State of the Union address and give a big smile showing off his grill with the letters PREZ glowing in gold?

The fact that 30% of Democrats are pondering a vote for McCain, to me, is an obvious sign of racial fear. When the opposing party has run the country into the ground for eight years and you still think it’s a good idea to vote for their candidate, that’s a huge statement.

And that’s just Democrats who are already admitting they won’t vote for Obama. A lot of folks, when asked in a survey, might say either they are undecided or might even say they would vote for Obama, but when they get in the voting booth his race will sway them to pull the lever for someone else. Or if they just absolutely disagree with McCain, they may end up not voting at all. So whatever Obama’s numbers are now, some of those “supporters” will abandon him in the voting booth or by simply not voting.

The article states, “On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks.” From a racial standpoint this is a concern. It indicates, again, that we as a country want to vote for someone who looks like us. And while that’s true, blacks have generally voted Democratic for years, even when the candidates have been white. So black support for a Democratic candidate is not unusual.

Back to the Mason-Dixon poll from this week: 56 percent of white voters polled in Virginia said they planned to vote for McCain while 35 percent favored Obama. Meanwhile, 89 percent of black voters said they would vote for Obama while only 4 percent favored McCain. In that same survey, 56 percent of white voters said they would vote for Democratic Senatorial Candidate Mark Warner.

So let’s break this down: 56 percent of white voters in this state will vote for the white Democratic candidate for Senator but only 35 percent of white voters will vote for the black Democratic candidate for President. So you don’t think racism is alive and well in Virginia? It’s time to call a spade a spade. And let’s hope that while prejudices will never die, we can at least think reasonably and logically and not make all our decisions simply based on who is most like us.

Tim W. Jackson hates to have to get all Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder on you, but has to ask, “Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony side by side on my piano keyboard, oh Lord, why don’t we?”