# CBS says Obama has 95% percent of the black vote in Penn. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 5, 2008, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183 "2008-11-05T01:36:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/41 "2008-11-05T14:40:09Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Should Obama be judged by the color of his skin or by the content of his character? Was Jackson crying because of the content of Obama’s character? Jackson was crying because Obama had _been_ judged by the content of his character, and not the color of his skin. I would have thought that would be easy to understand. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/42 "2008-11-05T14:46:10Z")
Could be racism, but it’s pretty close to what the Democrats usually get. I don’t know why some people are so pissed at the idea that it might be racism. People are racist. It’s in our nature as members of the species _Homo sapiens_. We have to struggle very, very hard to not be racist. Most people will never be fully successful at overcoming that tendency. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/43 "2008-11-05T14:53:19Z")
> [@Rapier42](#): > > Putting this here because I imagine it’ll end up here anyway. > > Could this be anything other than racism? Rational self interest. The Republicans are heavily influenced by ( and probably outright dominated by ), and cater to white racists. Therefore, blacks tend to vote Democrat; they’d be fools not to. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Could be racism, but it’s pretty close to what the Democrats usually get. > > I don’t know why some people are so pissed at the idea that it might be racism. People are racist. It’s in our nature as members of the species _Homo sapiens_. We have to struggle very, very hard to not be racist. Most people will never be fully successful at overcoming that tendency. We are not naturally racist, as race is an artificial construct. Naturally xenophobic yes; racist, no. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/44 "2008-11-05T15:42:12Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Could be racism, but it’s pretty close to what the Democrats usually get. > > I don’t know why some people are so pissed at the idea that it might be racism. People are racist. It’s in our nature as members of the species _Homo sapiens_. We have to struggle very, very hard to not be racist. Most people will never be fully successful at overcoming that tendency. People aren’t pissed at the idea of possible racism. People are pissed at the disingenuousness exhibited in this thread. The OP says, “CBS says Obama has 95% percent of the black vote in Penn. Could this be anything other than racism?” A carefully crafted statement, sans context, coupled with a wide-eyed-innocent question. Goodness! 95%! What a large number! And such an obvious posible reason! Of course, that’s ignoring that a) the Democratic candidate has had 90% or so of vote in 2000 and 2004 (as you’ve noted), and b) Obama has improved numbers over Kerry’s 2004 numbers in nearly _every_ demographic area. So a more appropriate question might be, “does the near-halving of the African-American Republican vote, when the Democratic option is a Black man, indicate racism, a perception that the Black candidate is more attuned to the needs of individual Black voters, or simply a concentration of the overall appeal of the candidate?” Too bad no one asked that. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2008, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/45 "2008-11-05T16:11:39Z")
If Clarence Thomas were a running for the presidency on a Republican ticket and received 95% of the black vote, the OP might have a stronger argument. But Thomas wouldn’t get 95%. I dare say he wouldn’t get 25%, probably not even 15%. The vast majority of black voters weren’t voting primarily for a black man, the were voting for a black **Democrat**. That the black demographic got a lot more fired up and voted in slightly higher numbers for somebody from the same general ethnic group with the same general politics isn’t racism. Rather it’s identity politics, which is not at all the same thing, whether or not it is laudable in of itself. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/46 "2008-11-06T15:04:20Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > We are not naturally racist, as race is an artificial construct. Naturally xenophobic yes; racist, no. “Foreign” is a social construct, too. But technically you are correct. Racism is just one form of “groupism”, and we’re naturally inclined to distrust people whom we see as outside our group. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/47 "2008-11-07T04:12:43Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I’m sure that Jesse Jackson was crying last night because he was happy that Obama’s tax plan was going to be enacted. Surely those tears had nothing to do with race. Good point. After all, nobody other than Jesse Jackson cried in Grant Park Tuesday night. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/48 "2008-11-07T06:26:17Z")
> [@Rapier42](#): > > Could this be anything other than racism? Short answer: [Yes.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=468929) ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/49 "2008-11-07T07:20:24Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > When Kennedy ran for president, my parents were giddy with excitement and canvassed for him and voted for him and were incredibly passionate about him. Why? He was a Roman Catholic. So were they. They were thrilled and moved to be included. > > Was that an “-ism”? Was that a horrible thing for them to do, to want to be part of the American dream that says, “My kid can grow up to be president of the United States of America”? Well, of course! Out-and-out religious bigotry that was, for sure! What possible other reason could any Catholic have for voting for JFK except for _those people_ sticking together? How else could Kennedy have finagled nearly 80 percent of the Catholic vote? Why, stands to reason, don’t it? You know how _they_ are. /snark ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/50 "2008-11-07T07:30:04Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > There are only two reasons I can think of why Jesse Jackson might be crying: > > 1. He thought he should have been President instead of Obama > 2. Now that Obama is the President-Elect, he has Secret Service protection, which will make the Reverend’s attempt at castrating Obama really, really hard. 1. He was in the middle of dicing some really strong onions when the results were announced. 2. Tear gas attack. The sneaky kind of that only affects African Americans. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/51 "2008-11-07T07:34:46Z")
What most impressed me about the Pennsylvania vote is that after all those Republican pundits - including _Senator Arlen Specter,_ who really ought to know better - claimed that the polls were misleading, and the Commonwealth would go Republican because Pennsylvanians are really all closet racists – after all that, the vote went just as the polls had predicted, and more strongly Democratic than in the last several elections. The lesson the GOP should learn from all this? **Do not piss off Pennsylvanians. We bite.** (None of which should be seen as denying the real race issues that do indeed exist in Pennsylvania, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/52 "2008-11-07T07:58:55Z")
dnftt ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183/53 "2008-11-07T10:19:24Z")
> [@Rapier42](#): > > Putting this here because I imagine it’ll end up here anyway. > > Could this be anything other than racism? Certainly mate, taken with the history of the moment. Given a very reasonable centre left candidate of their ethnic group (roughly), given their historical predilection for his party and roughly his politics (centre left, but relatively culturally conservative or at least highly centrist and non-radical), and given an opponent that could reasonably be perceived as moving to the hard right and race baiting [one can argue about that, but as an outsider, I can say that I found it highly reasonable to perceive that at the least]… a high level of voting by blacks need not call on racism at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-says-obama-has-95-percent-of-the-black-vote-in-penn/471183.md?page=2)