“Barack Obama Day” Is A Holiday In One County … Wait Until Conservatives Hear About This

Perry County (Ala.) likely can soon expect to fall victim to random attacks. This onslaught, however, is likely to come from Republicans and conservatives. In a 4-1 vote, county commissioners decided to pass a measure that would close all offices on the second Monday of each November in honor of the election of the first black president of the United States, President-elect Barack Obama. The day officially will be called “The Barack Obama Day.” That means the 40-or-so workers will get a paid day off in honor of historic figure that President-elect Obamasuddenly has become with the recent election. I can’t say I’m surprised about this development. In fact, I called this after the elementary school was renamed in recognition of Obama and the historic nature of his election.

Here are a couple of passages from the story I found interesting:
Sponsoring commissioner Albert Turner Jr. said the holiday is meant to highlight the Democratic president-elect’s victory as a way to give people faith that difficult goals can be achieved. Perry County has 12,000 residents, most of them black. Voters there backed Obama by over 70 percent in a state that gave 60 percent of the overall vote to Republican John McCain based largely on strong support from white voters.

Obviously, the story was going to highlight the fact that the residents of the county were predominantly black. It’s debatable how much relevance that has to the actual story, or what the agenda was behind calling that out, but whatever. One of the intriguing things about bringing the race issue into the story was to illustrate how there is a bit of a racial division with the election as so many whites in Alabama strongly supported Republican John McCain while nearly all blacks supported Obama. Maybe we are not quite as close to the post-racial world as so many people have wanted to believe. At any rate, it is an intriguing story and I would encourage you to read it.

Huffington Post/AP:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/03/alabama-county-passes-ann_n_148216.html