This campaign season, on this Board, some Dopers seem to be taking it as a given that African-Americans voting for Obama because he is black and whites voting for Clinton or McCain because they are not are equally instances of racism. But they’re not. There’s no equivalency here. Black voters have legitimate nonracist reasons to prefer candidates of their own race; white voters have not. The reason being that more than 40 years after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, African-Americans still have a lot of problems because of their race, and white Americans do not. Getting more AAs into high public office won’t solve those problems, but it is an indispensable precondition to solving them. All of which is so obvious I can’t believe I need to point it out.
You are half correct.
Blacks DO have a self interest reason to vote for a black politician. The belief that a black politician will benefit them more than a white one. This might not be correct, but it is certainly a good hypothesis. It is not racism, it is presumed self-interest.
Whites can follow the same reasoning, and assume that a white politician will benefit them more than a black one. This, again, is not racism, it is presumed self-interest.
Exactly what legislation/policies would you propose which, in your view, would solve the problems of African-Americans? Or go as far as possible towards solving such problems?
I suppose the question is whether it is legitimate to vote for a particular candidate out of self-interest.
Isn’t rational self-interest one of the foundations of economic well-being and prosperity? (per Adam Smith)
If you cast your vote based on race…well, you are casting your vote based on race, regardless of color. They are equal.
IIRC it was mostly white politicians (and white voters I suppose) who passed the Civil rights Act, no? So…seems your logic is faulty in so far as it didn’t take black politicians to get change.
I don’t see how voting because of the color of someones skin is less racist if you happen to be black than if you are white (or yellow or brown or green).
Why not just pull ‘AAs’ off the street then and put them into office en masse then? IOW, it doesn’t depend on ‘the color of their skin but by the content of their character’. So, voting solely based on the color of that skin is equally ‘racist’…defined as oriented toward race instead of content.
It may be obvious to you…but then, a lot of things that are obvious to YOU aren’t exactly obvious to everyone (me included). Remembering some of the (myriad) threads you have started in the past…well, I can’t believe I need to point THAT out, it’s so obvious. ehe?
-XT
Isn’t this self-contradicting?
I find it a hard pill to swallow that one group of people can choose a candidate because of skin color and it be racism, but the other group can choose based on skin color and it not be racism.
Since it is already illegal to make African Americans suffer because of their race, it is difficult for me to see how having more African Americans in office will help blacks as a race. Discrimination is illegal. Are you saying these laws are not being enforced? And, if so, are black politicians the only ones to enforce them?
Yes, certain blacks have problems. So do certain whites and Latinos and Asians. I’d like to know what problems blacks suffer because of their race that aren’t already illegal. And I’d like to know why a black politician is uniquely suited to solve these problems.
You didn’t specify what the problems actually are, so I am not so certain that having African Americans in high public office is an indispensable precondition to solving these problems. We came a long way toward resolving racial and gender issues based mainly on the support of white males.
Having more African Americans and women in public office would probably have brought about positive changes more expediently.
Barbara Jordan should have been our first African American President.
BrainGlutton, I understand exactly what you mean to say but you might want to figure out a better what to phrase that in the future. What I’m getting at is that your statement contains some unfortunate ambiguity.
Marc
Per Adam Smith, sympathy for others and a commitment to natural law are two other such foundations. If we’re taking Smith’s word for it, then, (and if we’re assuming his economic views can translate directly into views about citizenship and politics,) it might be a big mistake to vote based purely on self-interest.
-FrL-
That’s not an ambiguity any reader would play on whose reading we should care about.
-FrL-
Sure, I would agree 100% that self-interest (as constrained by ethics; morals; and the law) is completely legitimate in the marketplace. Simply put, there’s no shame in trying to make a buck.
However, I’m not convinced that this principle always applies in connection with public policy. For example, if Scrooge McDuck hires lobbyists to get laws passed that will put his competitors out of business, that’s somewhat questionable. On the other hand, if Scrooge McDuck votes for a Republican because Democratic candidate wants to raise taxes on the rich, one can hardly blame him.
If we assume that self-interest is a legitimate basis for deciding whom to vote for, then Brainglutton’s argument obviously breaks down.
There are other questionable assumptions in Brainglutton’s argument as well. For example, why is it necessary to elect black politicians in order to “solve the problems” faced by blacks? Let’s assume that in a hypthetical state where the problems of blacks have been solved, election of black politicians would take place in numbers proportional to their population. That would be an effect, not a cause, of “solving the problems”
If a black pol is going to benefit black people more than a white pol would, then in many cases the black pol will benefit black people more than white people. A white person would have the same justification for not voting for the black pol.
Culture of victimhood.
Bill Cosby would like to speak with you, sir. 
A black president won’t have to pass any laws to help out African Americans, just existing will do a tremendous service: it will help overturn the preconception of a lot of Americans, both white and black and everything else, that in order to be truly powerful in this country, you really have to be a white man, that black leaders, at best, are leaders of black communities, not leaders of the broader organizations.
What if a black mother looks at her babies and thinks that a black president would be a shinning example that race doesn’t limit ambition, that she wants her children to grow up in a world where it’s obvious that a black man can be president? That doesn’t seem like racism to me. It’s not a matter of thinking one person is more qualified than another because of their race. It’s more akin to casting a black person to play Jim in a Huck Finn movie because that actor’s blackness is essential to the role.
While I don’t think it’s racist, I also don’t think in and of itself that it’s a good reason to vote for someone, but I can see it as playing a role in the decision making process.
I have no particular programs in mind, I’m just basing my approach here on the assumption that a group’s political representation has a significant effect on its freedom, power and status in society. See Robert Dahl’s Polyarchy.
Understand, I’m not a multiculturalist. I don’t even approve of race-based affirmative action (it should be replaced with color-blind class-based affirmative action). The best possible future for America is one in which there is no African-American community, except in the vague and attenuated sense we have an Irish-American community – an “identity” that, except on ethnic holidays, matters hardly at all to its holders or to anyone else. And if we ever get there I will think it is, not perhaps racist in the hateful sense, but rather silly, for blacks to prefer black candidates. But getting there from here won’t be easy.
Put it in perspective: Rev. Jeremiah Wright talks a lot of trash (and even more truth) about the white power structure, but Rev. Wright is not a racist; he has no problem with white people as people. He’s concerned with the troubles his community has because white people have historically oppressed it and, in some usually more subtle ways, still are. Louis Farrakhan is a racist. He thinks whites are somehow fundamentally different from blacks, and fundamentally malevolent. That’s just the difference.
Some definitions:
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Racist (rac·ist): Main Entry: rac·ism: racial prejudice or discrimination: prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment <racial discrimination>
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Prejudice (prej·u·dice): preconceived judgment or opinion
So how is voting for someone based on the color of their skin not being racist? :dubious:
To my mind the true test of “racism” is like that for true benevolence - and that is, what would someone do if self-interest was removed from the picture? That is, would they care to make judgments or have preferences based on race, if those judgments and preferences could not befefit them or hurt them personally?
By this standard, voting for someone of your race because you think it will give you an advantage would not be “racism” in either case, whether Black or White. It is simply self-interested, and the real question is whether there are other factors (such as historical justice, reciprocity, etc.) which someone would, in their opinion, believe sufficient to cancel out self-interest.
Thus, if I was writing the OP, I’d say something like “Resolved: Whites should, in the interest of historical justice and reciprocity, be more willing to vote for someone not of their race, even though it is reasonable to assume that a person of one’s own race is more likely to benefit one personally. Because of the unique history of race relations in the US, Blacks have less of an obligation to do so”.
“Racism” doesn’t even enter into it.