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I grew up in the Midwest, in a racially diverse neighborhood (i.e., there were middle-class black neighborhoods adjacent to, and later mixed with, mine, and I went to school with some black kids, although, unlike my slightly younger brother's generation, we didn't mix so much). I grew up in a Reform Jewish temple whose rabbi was a strong advocate of civil rights: he marched next to Martin Luther King in Selma, and he returned to tell us his stories and the lessons. This went on for several years during the Civil Rights movement. I was an adolescent then. And I remember one time (in my mind, it was at a "Purim" party after Sunday school, but perhaps it's only the McCain reference to Purim that is making me recall that), when he told us nice middle and upper-middle class, assimilated, mostly second-generation Jewish kids something like this: we know the Jews suffered terrible discrimination as well; we know what that feels like. But there is one thing that is different for you that you don't know, and haven't experienced: your skin isn't black. You can always be looked at as a normal American if you act like a normal American. A black person, however, cannot change the color of his skin no matter how he acts. He will always be seen as black first. I've never forgotten that, And I especially remembered it lately, when I saw that no matter how light-skinned or educated or no matter what record, people were always going to be reminded that Barack Obama was actually a black man, and there were certain things you couldn't be sure of because of that.
I am a "typical" white woman, I suppose. I, too, sometimes (though not that often, to tell the truth) get nervous when a black man is behind me on the street. However, not if it's a black man in a business suit. And I sometimes get nervous when a white man wearing certain markers of class is behind me on the street. I'm a WOMAN. I bet a lot of black women feel that, too.
I've seen a lot of mistrust in certain segments of the Jewish community (here and in real life) for the Obama campaign, and that saddens me. I think Jews, like Hispanics, feel a great loyalty to Bill Clinton, as do I. And the really mean and bigoted things that Jesse Jackson and Farakhan (not really in the same league ... but I have to admit they both had their moments; one properly atoned, one didn't) have had a tremendously deleterious effect on Jews with respect to black race relations. But I've never felt they were wholly representative of the black community, and my experiences growing up during civil rights, especially the Jewish link to the civil rights movement, is my greatest tie to trying to live up to the potential for racial (and religious) equality in this country.
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