Noting that both Matt and Barack Obama are from the South Side of Chicago, a reader asks whether Matt is from the same neighborhood as Obama, and whether he intends to endorse Obama as a fellow Southsider.

Matt responds:

It is true that Barack Obama and I both come from the South Side of the city of Chicago.  We have much in common.  Chicago is made up of individual enclaves.  To some extent now, and especially when I was a child, all the Irish lived here, all the Italians there, all the people from Mexico here, the African-Americans there, and so on.  It was a wonderful place to grow up because you experienced all of the different races, religions, creeds, and ethnicities.

I was twice blessed, because everybody dies, and we lived in a funeral home.  So I got to see first-hand the interactions of different cultures, races, and religions—and how people reacted at the worst time of their lives.  When you were actually born in a place where somebody’s death was ritualized in a burial, it gives you a different outlook on life.  It tells you you’re not going to be around forever.  It also shows you that people react basically the same when somebody passes away, but they manifest it in different ways.

I think that subconsciously, that experience taught me it’s okay to be different.  We don’t all have to get on our knees and pray, or stand up and sing, or play an instrument during the funeral.  Whatever the ritualization was, it was completely acceptable to that particular culture.  So for me, Chicago has always been a great university.  To be able to learn by osmosis all the things that take place in a geographic area peopled by many different ideas, is the ultimate learning experience.

I think each and every one of us will take all the aspects we learn in our own particular university, whether it be Chicago or Dublin or Berlin, into consideration when we vote for whomever we vote for, no matter what office it is, but especially the office of President, which is the top of the heap.  As we work through our life story and how we determine what should be the qualities in a leader, we draw upon our innermost thoughts, ideas, prejudices, education, and outlook.

The thing I found very refreshing and fascinating in this election was having an African-American nominated by a major political party for President.  I think it shows that we as a people have come a long way.  Also with having a woman come so close to be nominated for President, and in the Republican Party to nominate a woman for Vice-President, I think shows how we are witnessing the falling of many different barriers.

In my way of thinking I think everyone should have a chance.  I don’t think it matters a bit what religion, color, gender, your height or shortness, baldness or hairiness, or any other part of the package we are as human beings.  What’s inside the package is what’s really important.  I look on this whole endeavor as a great endorsement of the American way:  one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.  That word “all” is so important.

Who will I vote for, personally?  I don’t even tell myself that, although Rose and I half the time disagree...  Sometimes we vote for the same people, and it’s a landslide, but sometimes we’d be better off if we didn’t go to the poll, because we cancel each other out.  I think that’s healthy for both of us.

Matt