Who would have ever thought to be afraid of writing a letter to the editor?
At 5 a.m. on Oct. 9, the Strongsville mother of five sat at her computer and wrote a letter to the editor that she knew might enrage fellow residents. She began by recounting a recent conversation she'd had with her 7-year-old son:
"Mom," he said, "who are you voting for?"
"Sen. Obama," she said.
"Oh, no!" he said. "You can't have an evil president."
"I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," she wrote.
Hours earlier, Mahon had been driving home from the local mall with her 14-year-old daughter when they spotted some people carrying homemade political signs after leaving a Strongsville rally for John McCain and Sarah Palin. The worst of the signs called Obama a terrorist.
Mahon was stunned. She used the opportunity to talk to her daughter about the politics of fear, and race.
An hour later, her son was blurting out his alarm about Obama.
"That came from his friends," she told me, "and you know they had to be hearing it at home. I sat him down and explained that nobody who runs for president is evil, and that you can't believe everything you hear."
The whole article is worth reading: Connie Schultz: In breaking silence about hatred, Strongsville mom finds support
