Hazel Green, Alabama: “Where are your redneck clothes?” a girl named Hannah asked me from the bleachers. I wore a green polo shirt and khakis. Everyone else wore sleeveless shirts and jeans.
The Hazel Green annual tractor pull attracted some 1,500 people to watch as local farmers showed off their 4,000 horsepower diesel tractors (for competition use only). The event began with a tractor sitting at the start of a dirt pathway. A group of men hitched an enormous trailer carrying a weight known as the sled. The machine revved its engine sending a geyser of grey and then black smoke into the air, and suddenly, took off down the path with a deafening shriek. As the tractor careened to the end of the path, the sled slide down toward the front end of the trailer, pushing the weight into the back of the tractor and eventually causing it to stop. Whoever pulled the weight the farthest, won.
In addition to being quite a spectacle, the tractor pull was also a meeting ground for local young people. One guy described it to me as “the perfect place to find girls.” Groups gathered away from the roar of the tractors, beside concession stands shilling corn on the cob and T-shirts that read, “I love HIS big tractor” and “Long Live Dale, Jr.”
Despite being a clear interloper with my “country-club” attire, I decided to brave the masses and see what the average young tractor-pulling enthusiast felt about Barack Obama and John McCain.
“Here’s what I have to say about politics,” said a friendly sounding baby-faced high school graduate named Adam, “fuck it. Still though, I’m going to vote for John McCain because I don’t want to black Muslim in charge of this country. You just can’t trust a black man with this country, what can I say?”
His girlfriend, Brittney stood beside him smiling. Parting her short blond hair and standing up as tall as she could, (no more than 5’2”) she spoke next.
“It’s nothing personal to Obama,” she said with an eerily sweet drawl, “but it’s like I learned in church: As a black man trying to be a leader, he is like the anti-Christ. If he were to become president, it would be the beginning of what could be called an apocalypse.”
The third member of the group, another recent high school grad named Chris, chimed in.
“There’s really nothing I can do about it,” he said. “I’m a Southern boy, born and bred, and I just can’t have a black president, and there’s nothing more to say about it.”
The next group I approached was a group of six, the most prominent of which was a 19-year-old who weighed well over 300 pounds and went by Big Cal.
“Ah, man,” he said, “you don’t want to know what I have to say about it. Plus, ain’t know newspaper that would print what I have to say.” When I told him I wanted to hear what everyone had to say he reluctantly responded in a slow southern drawl, “All I know is I’d rather not see that Jew win. Having a Muslim nigger as our president, that’s not OK.”
Two of his friends, who referred to themselves as “Little Curt” and “Littler Curt,” nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, it can’t be a black or a woman,” Little Curt said.
When I told him he didn’t have to worry about a woman anymore, he had an answer.
“Well,” he said, “we damn sure have to worry since Obama is going to make her his vice president. And everyone knows that motherfucker is going to get shot.”
One day after writing this post, the Washington Post leads with this story about racism in the U.S.
11 responses so far ↓
Matt // June 22, 2008 at 2:51 am |
Is this still in Huntsville?
Also, they learn in church that a Black man as president will be the Anti-Christ? Ho boy…
Susan T. // June 22, 2008 at 11:35 am |
Obama comments here very disturbing, Ben. What’s the consolation? These good ole-young boys will never get off their beer-drinking asses to stand in line & vote!
Sarah // June 22, 2008 at 7:20 pm |
This is the most terrifying entry yet. Can anybody tell you’re (whisper) Jewish?
Lynn Lipton // June 22, 2008 at 9:27 pm |
Racism and stupidity are still alive and well in the good old U.S. of A. Damn! This is frightening.
Eric // June 23, 2008 at 12:24 am |
Despite my obvious immediate reaction to these kids’ statements, I’m still curious to know what they think beyond identity politics. If John Edwards were the nominee, would they support him? Do they think about universal health care? Do they HAVE health care? I guess I’m saying, recycled hate-babble aside, what do these people think about the state of their country and their place in it?
felicity // June 23, 2008 at 3:08 am |
hey ben,
i’m checking your blog every so often and your entries are always fascinating. what i’m wondering is, when you talk to people you meet along the way, how far do you follow up on their comments? when these people kept calling obama a “muslim nigger”, did you point out that he’s christian? how hard is it to remain calm when you meet people with these views?
Marci // June 23, 2008 at 10:34 am |
Ben – I’m enjoying reading your blog! It’s interesting the fascinating (if chilling) comments you’re getting as you interview John Q. Regularperson in interesting places like tractor pulls and Rocket City!
keep on trekking -
bterris // June 23, 2008 at 10:54 am |
Eric: I was curious about their thoughts beyond identity politics as well, but when I pressed these particular kids, it seemed like they didn’t have anything to say beyond this theme. In fact, when I asked them politics-based questions (healthcare etc.) they basically said they didn’t give a shit about that stuff (this is of course not to imply they didn’t have views on healthcare, but just that it didn’t interest them to talk about it with me). When I brought up the names Obama and McCain, however, they felt they had something to say.
Felicity: To be honest with you, it was not very difficult to keep my mouth shut when these people spewed hatred. Being the lone outsider standing in a group of drunk locals, was unnerving enough that I didn’t want to set anyone off by correcting their misguided hatred. I would like to say I stayed stoic out of journalistic integrity, but to be honest, I was scared.
Eric // June 24, 2008 at 12:23 am |
Ben, so, I find your response interesting. We’ve heard lots about how mobilized young people are for this election, but only a particular kind of young person has mobilized for Obama (or for the Dems more generally). Their numbers were enough to sway a primary, but I wonder if the Obama youth are really numerous enough to continue to be a presence and a target of the campaign in the general.
We’re already seeing Obama shift to the center (accepting FISA immunity, the whole Jim Johnson fiasco). Has the hour of the young, progressive voter already come and gone? More constructively, what would it take to mobilize the kids you are talking to toward progressive causes? I wonder, Ben, if you might ask the people you meet whether they’ve voted in past elections and whether they actually plan to vote in November?
By the way, I love that a tractor pull inspired all this.
Jeff // June 28, 2008 at 10:45 am |
Provocative stuff (and a little chilling); the kind of thing that you can’t really separate from its context, ie. the desire to mess with the outsider. What comments about Republicans do you think you could get at a Radiohead concert?
And it ends… « Across the Great Divide // September 12, 2008 at 9:01 pm |
[...] zines and keeping himself informed. Even in Hazel Green, Alabama where I went to the infamous tractor pull, the internet had its role. The group of high school graduates felt confident calling Barack Obama [...]