Big ups to Richard Trumka, United Mine Workers President:
Union Leader Confronts Race Issue In CampaignTrumka is white. Asked why he is giving this speech, he told the story of a conversation he had the day of the Pennsylvania primary in his hometown of Nemacolin in the southwest corner of the state.
"This woman walks up to me. I'd known her for a long time, and I ask her 'Have you decided who you gonna vote for?' "
"There's no way I'd ever vote for Barack Obama," the woman responded.
Trumka said he pressed her as to why. First, she said it's because Obama is "a Muslim." Trumka responded that Obama is actually a Christian.
Then, she told him Obama never wears an American flag pin on his lapel. Trumka told her that, too, is false, then asked her why she wasn't wearing one if that is such an important issue.
Trumka said he continued to push, until "her eyes dropped down and she said to me, 'Well, he's a black man.' "
Trumka said he told her to look around at their town, the mining community where they both had lived for so long. "And I said to her, 'This town is dying — literally dying.' "
It's a line that he includes, verbatim, whenever he delivers his speech.
"Our kids are moving away because there's no future here," Trumka said in the United Steelworkers convention address. "And here's a man, Barack Obama, who's going to fight for people like us, and you won't vote for him because of the color of his skin? Are you out of your ever-loving mind?"
The audience erupted in applause.
