Plenty of Blame

My Palin rally photos are a disappointment. It felt like I was getting something, but as Gertrude Stein said, "there is no there there." They are, in the main, bland. The rally was smallish. People stood in a neat, long line to get into the rodeo arena to get their seats. It was all very orderly. Most people held anti-Obama signs or "Pitbulls for Palin" or "The Arctic Fox" signs, all hand drawn. I walked the line many, many times, so everyone at the rally saw me again and again. I have become as much a part of their memory of the rally as anyone but Palin, I think. Some were suspicious, but none were openly hostile to my taking photographs. I saw one African-American family there. I wondered if they were there on a dare. Otherwise, it was a pretty homogenous crowd, maybe like a Walmart in Iowa City.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a bunch of Vietnamese holding McCain/Palin signs on the corner of a very busy road. I saw some irony there, so I grabbed my camera and shot a few frames. As I was shooting, several times cars of African-Americans drove by and often someone would shout out the window, "Fuck McCain." Often wild gestures accompanied the shouts. I also heard some racial slurs.

I hope I am even handed in what I am doing. There is plenty of blame to go around.