Pretty broad brush you’re using there. Maybe your east Tennessee fundamentalist family was uncharacteristically racist. Did you consider that?
First, as John Mace already mentioned, there are black fundamentalists.
Second, I’ve met quite a few fundamentalists that aren’t racists. They actually practice what they preach and consider people’s actions more important than their skin color.
Both of these categories are potential Obama voters.
Sure there are. Lots of them right here in Memphis. And you know what? Some of them are racists, too.!
Maybe. Maybe everybody at the church I grew up in was uncharacteristically racist. Maybe the other churches I visited were uncharacteristically racist, too. Maybe the pious woman I gave a ride home to last year who, upon hearing I lived in Memphis, immediately said “There are a lot of niggers there!” was an outlier. Maybe the unreconstructed Confederate sympathizers I have had to interview for my job are mere figments of my imagination. Maybe i don’t know know what I’m talking about, even though I grew up there, lived there and went to school there for the first 18 years of my life. Maybe the experience of Harold Ford, Jr.'s 2006 Senate campaign was a fluke. Maybe Obama’s big loss in Tennessee on Super Tuesday is not indicative of the prospects of a black candidate in Tennessee.
Or maybe there are a lot of fundamentalists and racists in Tennessee, with a considerable overlap between the two groups.
I should have been clearer, vibrotronica. I wasn’t saying that the people you’re speaking of were uncharacteristic of Tennessee. I’ve only spent 2 or 3 days there in my life, so I wouldn’t know. I was saying that they’re uncharacteristic of the country as a whole.
At the risk of people moving the “fundamentalist” goalpost all over the place, Obama is second only to Mike Huckabee in GodTube polls. He has the support of 26.3% of their members… Like this lady, for instance.
I’m sure you don’t. The use of “fundie” as a pejorative paints people I know, love, and respect who are intelligent, thoughtful, and kind as an inferior class, unworthy of a respectful label. And please don’t pretend the term is not intended to belittle and insult people. Otherwise, I’ll ask you for a cite in which “fundie” is used in a positive and edifying context. If Guin doesn’t want snark, she shouldn’t sling it.
You mean his loss by less than 3 percentage points? That hardly bespeaks an overwhelmingly racist state.
So, you found some evidence that some fundamentalist Blacks don’t like Jews. What does that have to do with whether or not they’ll vote for Obama? Or did you think people wouldn’t click on your link, and just assume that racist = anti-Black?
What are you talking about, John Mace? I very clearly state that there are black fundamentalists, and that some of them are racists, and I gave a cite of very public racist behavior by black fundamentalists in Tennessee. Are you accusing me of trying to be misleading? Are you saying that only anti-black prejudice is racism? I don’t know if the black fundamentalists will vote for Obama or not. That filer would imply that they would. But there are a hell of a lot more white racist fundies in East Tennessee, which is the subject of this thread.
IIRC, Ford was winning until they ran that ad of him with a Playboy bunny, and then his numbers went down. I’m thinking vibrotronica is probably referring to that.
The infamous “Call Me” ad.
More than what? You sound like a detergent ad. More cleaning power! More stain removal! More colors on our NEW box!
More white racists fundies than black racist fundies. I was not unclear.
Right, they ran that ad and he still lost by less than 3 percentage points. (A little more than 48% to a little less than 51%.) In a state with a black population of 16.9%.
That still doesn’t bespeak the overwhelming racism you claim exists there.
Those are the results from the entire state, which factors in his overwhelming support in West Tennessee. Ford didn’t conceed defeat until he was sure all of the Memphis votes had been counted, because he was hoping those votes would counterbalance the East Tennessee vote. Also keep in mind that the 2006 election results overwhelmingly favored the Democratic party. The only two Democrats that lost Senate bids were Ford in Tennessee and Ned Lamont, who lost to Lieberman. Even in the midst of a tidal wave of support for the Democrats, a black democrat still couldn’t win a statewide vote in Tennessee.
But what do I know? I just live here.
Where did you get the idea that “fundie” should be anything other than perjorative? Believeing in the inerrancy of the Bible is bad bad bad because it’s wrong wrong wrong!
First of all, let’s dispense with the notion that anti-semitism is racism. It’s a form of bigotry, but not all bigotry is racism. “Jews” are not a race.
Secondly, you made the claim that fundamentalists wouldn’t vote for Obama because he was Black. When I pointed out that many fundamentalists are Black, you come back with a cite that some Blacks are anit-semitic. That’s irrelevant to the discussion.
The “subject” of this thread is fundamentalists who won’t vote for Obama. The OP offered one example, who happened to be from Tennessee, but he clearly is not asking us to restrict our review to that particular region since Obama can clearly win without taking that state, much less the one town of Lynchburg. So no, the subject of this thread is not “white racist fundies in East Tennessee”.
John Mace, I was originally responding to this statement by Liberal:
But I reiterate that I believe this “Obama is a muslim” and “Obama hates America” stuff is part of a whisper campaign being spread through the churches. Whisper campaigns are a specialty of the Rove school of political character assassination, and churches, especially white evangelical churches, have been very effective organizing tools for the Republicans in the last two presidential elections.
From the fact that people have said it isn’t in order to excuse themselves from having to confine it to the Pit. Feel free to search.
Why should bigotry be given a free pass just because a bigot is right?
Yeah, and it all started at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, right?
Say what?