Obama's election is for you, Daddy

[VV note: This is an excellent piece written by a woman who lives in Garden City, Minnesota, population 700.]

We are farther up the road

By Rachel M. Busch
November 14, Mankato Free Press

I grew up in about as stereotypical a Midwestern, white, middle-class household as one can imagine. My mom was a full-time, stay-home mom, as were most of the moms of my friends. We were not rich, but we were very comfortable. We knew our neighbors.

Daddy was a Lutheran minister and a campus pastor at a small church college. I had some exposure to foreign students when my parents hosted dinner parties. It was a white community, with the exception of a few college students and one black family from Rhodesia, who lived just down the block. They were members of our church. I went to school with the three children, and our parents became good friends.

I remember, during those days, seeing images on television of the strife in the South, of Bull Connor, police dogs and fire hoses. I could see the fear in the faces of those being targeted by that vicious and evil form of domestic terrorism. It made me terrified, too, I could not understand how such things could happen in my country.

I also remember being in a shopping center in Atlanta when I was about 10 years old. As I came out of a restroom, there was a little black girl standing near a water fountain. She called me “Ma’am” and asked if she could get a drink at the fountain. I thought she was too little to reach it, so I hoisted her ’round the middle and boosted her up to get a drink. She shyly thanked me, and called me “Ma’am” again. When I got back to my parents, my dad had the oddest look on his face.

(Continued here.)