My grandfather was a bigot

…and I have lots of company.

Among the many good points made by Sen. Obama today was a near universality:

my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

– we all have some association with bigoted thoughts. Whether they come from our family members, our friends, or the depths of our own mind - they are unavoidable.

It’s too easy to call this smart tactics by the Obama campaign. Those who reflexively condemn the senator for his pastor have to step past their own racial baggage to do so.

That’s certainly true, but I think it’s more than that. You read the words that surround that quote and it’s clear the senator is making a larger point - a point worth making on a national stage.

You can't just turn a blind eye to your own prejudices, point the finger at the prejudices of others and expect this situation to get any better. We need to be challenged, and finally we have a national candidate who is asking us to do more than just point and denounce.

He uses the immediate (and entirely necessary) example of his pastor to make his point. Were this any other candidate - he'd hurl his pastor under the bus, bunker in for a news cycle or two and then try to change the subject.

But he doesn't say that - Obama takes great pains to say his pastor "has been like family to me," and then bothers to explain on why he feels that way. That's a huge political risk - the right wing smear machine is undoubtedly working overtime to parse out his language to manufacture the outrage their movement demands. (I bet they had to re-tool a few talking points, though. No way they thought this speech would be this courageous.)

Obama then goes on to his masterstroke and relates the story of his grandmother. Grandmother, drinking buddy, we all have anecdotes like this. He's using this anecdote to make the discussion personal - and not about him - but to get people to start thinking about their own attitudes.

Well, it works.

My Grandfather was a great guy - generous, loved to laugh, a brilliant storyteller. And he was a bigot. He'd tell this story about a guy he used to know back when he worked on the railroad. There was a watering hole in southern Illinois where the railworkers would have a few, and this guy would walk in every few weeks, order a drink, and hold up one or two fingers.

According to my grandfather - this would indicate the number of black people he'd shot since the last time he'd been there. And of course, he wouldn't say "black people."

My grandfather was an incorrigible fabulist, so I have no idea if this story was true - but that's not the issue. My grandfather would tell this story because it made him laugh. It was funny to him because this guy was doing what my grandfather thought everybody else would do if they had a chance.

I was ten when I first heard this story and I remember being incredulous. That, and my grandfather chuckling as if to encourage me. Go ahead, you can laugh - there's no one else around. I was ten, so I'm sure I smiled and played along. Over the countless times he told me this story, I think I might have worked my way up to a disapproving frown.

He was a bigot - and he was my grandpa. I remember blaming it on this Hungarian friend of his, on the coffee crowd he'd surround himself with. "They got him into all this," I'd think. "He's still a good guy."

And he was - but he also a bigot.

When the Yoshihiro Hattori killing happened - I can remember my Grampa working up a rant about how this fool student deserved to be shot - that all the angry Japanese citizens should be "taken to Pearl Harbor." And at that point I just yelled at him - "This kid had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor - he wasn't even born when it happened. He was a 16 year old kid!"

I'd love to think that my unswerving moral compass made me say this, but the likely reason was that I was a know-it-all college student at the time - a walking screed looking for a reason to happen.

I think Grampa was genuinely shocked by the exchange - and I don't recall how the subject got changed - but it did. I thought that was the end of it.

About a year later over breakfast (at Country Kitchen of all places), my Grampa said he was sorry about what he'd said. I doubt I'd changed his mind on the issues - but it was clear he felt bad, and thereafter he focused his revulsion on groups we could both agree on (like the government and people who romanticize the Confederacy).

Point is, my Grandfather was a good guy - but he was in an environment that would never challenge him. The coffee guys and the Hungarian would group think their way into all sorts of foolishness. You'd agree with your coffee buddies not because they were right, but because they were your buddies. Inch by inch, you'd end up in some terrible places.

Again, I doubt Grampa did a 180 on racial issues because I shamed him in a roomful of adults - but he at least had to think about what he'd said for a change.

People have been challenged very little in discussions about race in this country. Historically, demagogues (on the right or left) pick a target and feign outrage. They demand an apology, a resignation, some kind of concession that they can parade in front of their supporters -

- and then they move on.

The kind of probing discussion that Sen. Obama just put in front of Americans is entirely unlike that. It asks you to examine your own viewpoint as well as those held by people you disagree with. Obama illustrates viewpoints that are universes apart and asks people to think about them.

That, I would argue, is what a leader should do.