ON DEADLINE: In this hometown, it's not about race

When Barack Obama paid his first visit to Flint this week for a speech on the economy, he was within walking distance of my mother's red-brick townhouse.

She proudly bought it six years ago, becoming a first-time homeowner at age 54 after decades of hard labor and single parenthood. She was often unemployed over the years due to economic cutbacks in Flint, but between jobs she earned a college degree and maintained her optimism and sense of humor even though she still couldn't find steady work.

She eventually got to sort mail at the Flint post office, with good government benefits that allowed her to dig out of debt and buy that first home, with its pretty garden off the tiny kitchen - no problem since Mom has never had time to cook.

With a home, anxiety didn't go away. Mom had to move to a one-story house when my grandma recently came to live with her, but selling the townhouse isn't an option in this housing slump. Several on her street have been up for sale for well over two years. No takers.

There's a lesson in this for Obama: Race may be most talked about when it comes to his campaign, but the economy - in Flint and scores of hard-pressed cities like it - is far more important to people with who are struggling to get by. To win, he has to convince them that he understands and can help.

When I grew up in this beaten-down community, race wasn't a great divider. Black kids and white kids played together, as their parents worked side by side in the auto plants around town.

What bound us all was a simmering angst as the factories shut and jobs moved overseas. Most of the kids I grew up with, black and white, had at least one parent who either worked for an automaker or supplier or had lost a job in one of their factories.

When times were tightest, Mom would send us to our friends' houses for dinner. When she got a paycheck, those kids would eat with us. To this day, we laugh about the friend whose father had a steady job and marveled that we got to have REAL butter - not realizing the USDA stamp on the box meant it was a government handout.

At its peak, General Motors employed 77,000 people in Genesee County, where Flint in located. Today, it's about 6,500. The unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent in the city, and more than a third of the residents live in poverty, according to census data.

From a young age, Mom's mantra was: "You will not become a statistic." She insisted my sister and I break the cycle of poverty and make a life somewhere that isn't so hard. We respected her plea and believed her when she told us we could be anything we wanted. I live in Washington, my sister in Los Angeles, but we both fantasize about returning one day to the people we love.

I come back several times a year, and it breaks my heart to see friends I grew up with gripped with an even stronger sense of economic fear now that they have jobs on the line and families to support.

One family friend was unable to get affordable health insurance for over a year since her husband lost his job. She paid cash for the sleeping pill prescription that kept her from lying awake in worry about what could happen to them.

Another had trouble making car payments when her husband's wages were cut. She was terrified to take the car out of the garage for fear it would be repossessed and she wouldn't be able to make it to her factory shift or take her infant to doctor's appointments.

One relative with 36 years on the job just recently got laid off and lost his pension, with the added insult of being told he could come back and do the same work as a contractor with no benefits. The worst part is that he had to take it.

A cousin's solution to survival in the Flint economy was to get a master's degree so she could teach. She has been settling for work as a substitute and tutoring, one of thousands of applicants competing for each full-time position that becomes open.

Obama didn't help his standing in this state when he spent the primary campaign telling the rest of the country how he really gave it to the Detroit automakers when he visited last year, saying they have to change their ways and make more fuel-efficient cars. "And I have to say that when I delivered that speech, nobody clapped," Obama would say with pride as part of his stump speech. "The room was really quiet."

Republican John McCain has not shown much more sympathy, saying flatly during the Michigan primary that the jobs that have left the state are not coming back. Their responses are reminiscent of the scene in Michael Moore's Flint documentary "Roger and Me" when President Reagan comes to town and suggests people move if they really want a job.

Here's some insight into why no one in Michigan is applauding, from the daughter and granddaughter of one-time shop workers. Those jobs fed their families and paid their mortgages, and the positions they've had in the aftermath of the layoffs pay less and have poor benefits. The cutbacks strike every part of the community, with ripple effects on other businesses when consumers can't afford to spend money. There are personal effects, too, like alcohol abuse and marital problems under the stress.

And while everyone understand the value of more fuel-efficient cars, especially in these times of gas that costs $4 a gallon or more, so far no one has figured out how those can be produced while Michigan workers keep their jobs.

General Motors announced this month that it would start building a new small car that could get 45 miles per gallon, but at the same time said it would close four factories that made pickups and SUVs, putting 8,350 people out of work.

In a speech at Flint's Kettering University, Obama hit all the right notes for this struggling community - middle class tax cuts, foreclosure prevention, retirement security, health care for the uninsured and more money for education. He promised to spent $150 billion over 10 years to create 5 million "green" jobs, with part of the money used to help auto manufacturers convert their technology so hybrids and electric cars "start rolling off the assembly line here in Michigan."

This time the audience clapped, hoping someone really will help.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Nedra Pickler covers Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Her proud mother never wanted people to know how they struggled financially when they were growing up, but says she's happy to share the story now that everyone in the family has made it through.