To domini:

He should go on the view and talk about the importance of family and the impact of poverty on the family, including the impact of rural poverty. He can talk while he is there about it is time that our nation acknowledged that families come in many forms and that many households are headed by women and that is why Pay Equity and the Lily Ledbetter Law is important.

They won't do to him what they did to John McCain.

Except for Hasselback, and he can handle a hard question. I think the View would be a start. But it has to be personal. The economy lost 84,000 jobs in August. Black people did NOT take those jobs, as the racist wedge issue goes. It's time to go door to door about the economy. It's time to go after religious leaders who don't preach against poverty.

Southern blacks need to go after Southern whites now.

And for the idiot who keeps saying that 93%+ of blacks voted for Obama, here's a clue: that's impossible. 11% of registered blacks are Republican. 40%ish + of blacks are not registered. Of the remaining 50ish% Half voted for Clinton before South Carolina, and between 10-13% of the remaining registered black Democrats voted for Clinton. So approximately 63%+ of registered black Democrats over all voted for Obama.

In other words, dude, you flunked stats. When you repeat that bigoted talking point, people who DO understand stats tag you for dumb or racist or both.

-- AKA Smith

I didn't delete the --AKA SMith. The stat argument is NOT aimed at you. I agree with you. It is time to strategize how to bring poor whites and blacks together. It can happen in the South. Progressive whites and blacks need to start getting in faces.

I wonder if I will live to see December 21, 2012. We shall know then if anything extraordinary happens.

In any case, it made for some interesting reading. They have calendars within calendars, lunar and solar -- like the Chinese.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is unfamiliarity aligned with mistrust. A couple of years ago, I moved to a town that has a large black population, many of whom would be the descendants of former slaves. Some of the old white families here are the descendants of former slaveholders.

I was actually attracted to the town because where I previously lived in the desert Southwest had an extremely small population of black people. Hispanics and Anglos with a few Native Americans were most of the population. Hispanics and Anglos, after some tensions in the 70s managed to get along pretty well in the 90s. Both Hispanics and Anglos held powerful positions in city and county government -- although the University was dominated by Anglos, with many of the faculty being from out of state -- up north -- you know ... Yankees.

More misunderstandings seemed to arise with people from -- NEW YORK CITY!!! -- and other bastions of "elitism" than were ever a problem among Anglos and Hispanics who had lived in the town many years. For instance, why did those people (Yankees) always have to be on time? Why did they not understand that when someone did you a kindness that you actually owed them one in exchange? Why did they talk so fast and act so abrupt and have such bad manners?

So culture counts; yes, it does.

Then I moved to this small town where I am now and was actually looking forward to getting to know some black people. That shouldn't be hard. There are plenty here.

That is when I discovered it. They don't mix here. White don't mix with blacks and blacks don't mix with whites except for necessary business and in the most cursory ways. There is almost no social life between black and white people here. They go to different churches. They meet in different restaurants and, although they may now share some neighborhoods and the schools are mostly integrated, it is clear that the economic power here is mainly in white hands and I cannot figure out if someone enforces this or if it is just habit.

Moreover, black people are not especially friendly here. White people are a bit more friendly. And they all that I have met tend to be very religious. That "Praise Jesus!" stuff is just not me.

I guess I am actually shocked that this town can be like it is.

So how does one begin to bridge these gaps in places that seem to be voluntarily segregated?

If I weren't a shy and introverted woman (in person), I would say that I should just start some sort of "mixing" club but people would just laugh at me probably for upsetting the established order.

Now, domini, don't go laughing at me.

(Sorry for all the weird quotation marks but I was not sure how to convey my meaning.)

As to what Obama should do, I really don't know. I hate to be pessimistic, but I am not sure there is much he can do.

thanks for putting this piece up and attracting the comments. given what the piece says and what the posts on average say, the problem with 'the campaign' is that it does attempt to communicate with people who for all intents and purposes can not be communicated with.

when there are still people in the country who are willing to say 'he is a muslim' you have to write that 'demographic' off as permanently out of touch with reality.

spending time and money attempting to 'reach' them is pointless. if people do not know what

Obama stands for and what his general ideas are for running the country by now, they are in exactly the same boat as Sara Palin is in in terms of foreign policy. Not interested.

personally i am willing to point a finger at organized religion for 99.9% of the blame simply because it fosters belief in the irrational.

i've seen some of the right leaning commentators ranting recently about statistics that they claim demonstrate success of the current administration. that things have been improving over the last eight years relative to the eight previous to those. i know a few people in small business and follow the financial markets and clearly, those who hold this belief are smoking something that i have not seen in a while. but again, i point to organized religion and the belief in the completely irrational that it fosters.

perhaps the saddest part of the entire situation is that there is no escape from this mindset at this point in time. it's pervasive globally. i sometimes wonder how many hundreds of years it will be before cultures around the globe grow up in a meaningful way.