I’ve been down in the states, visiting family over the American Thanksgiving weekend.
When I was growing up, Norfolk, Virginia was a southern city with typically southern racist attitudes. The huge military presence provided a broader world view, but while the military has long been better on race than the south generally, it’s as socially conservative otherwise.
Going back to visit in recent years, I’ve found a new cosmopolitan attitude in Norfolk— it’s a grown-up city now, with a big city concept of itself. Racial barriers have eroded considerably since my time; neighbourhoods are still segregated, but not as totally as before. Blacks and whites rub elbows in workplaces, and at bars and other social spaces to a degree unimaginable in my youth.
Virginia voted for Obama last month, a historic shift for the state. Certainly the black population came to the polls in large numbers, but that alone wouldn’t explain the election result. Rather, lots and lots of white people embraced Obama, which again would have been unimaginable in my youth. Walking through middle-class white neighbourhoods, three weeks after the election, I still saw dozens of Obama yard signs posted.
That the election results will translate into better race relations overall seems inarguable— lots of black and white people worked together, for months, as volunteers on the Obama campaign, and thousands of those relationships will likely continue into the future.
On American election night, I stopped by Charlies here in Halifax to watch election returns and struck up a conversation with a black man at the bar. Turns out, he also grew up in Norfolk, just a mile from my house; but given the racial divisions of the time, we may as well have lived thousands of miles apart. Now, I think, black and white boys in the neighbourhood know each other and play together. With the Obama campaign, still more so.
It’s hard to say with such a short visit, but I sensed last week that racial barriers have eroded even further. Was I just imagining that people of both races were a little less ready to throw up the old defensive protective shells, and little more willing to engage openly with each other?
I don’t think it was entirely wishful thinking on my part.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 3, 2008.