‘When I challenged them on the issue of race, their vehement and animated denials told me that at best they were kidding themselves and at worst they were lying.’

A letter to the editor in the Washington Post reassures us that unless you voted for Obama, you are, indeed, racist:

Eugene Robinson’s Nov. 4 op-ed column, “A New Kind of Pride,” reminded me why I am proud to be an American and gave me hope for brighter days ahead.
However, I’ve spoken with a lot of supporters of Sen. John McCain who listed many reasons for not liking Sen. Barack Obama, never mentioning his race. They twisted themselves into convoluted and illogical justifications as they tried to make a case for Mr. McCain, but it did not take much to unravel the rationalizing. When I challenged them on the issue of race, their vehement and animated denials told me that at best they were kidding themselves and at worst they were lying.* So it came down to the real, unspoken and unadmitted reason that they wouldn’t vote for Obama: He is black, making him still unacceptable to too many people.
To have such a close election in the face of so many obvious positives about the Democratic ticket and so many negatives about the Republican ticket shows that as far as we’ve come, there is no denying we still have a long way to go.
PAUL J. DECEGLIE

Fairfax

Let the healing begin.

* Because only racists react to being accused of racism with “vehement and animated denials.”