Completely false, of course. And yet I know one person who brings it up on a regular basis, and I’m sure among certain groups it’s a common sentiment.
The thing is, I’m sure this person (and many of those who would espouse this view) wouldn’t consider themselves ractists. But is there any way in which that statement isn’t racist?
It’s a matter of inclusion vs. exclusion. Saying ‘Even if he’s not the man for the job, he’s like me’ is light years away from saying ‘Even if he IS the man for the job, he’s not like me’.
What sucks is that I usually enjoy this person and I’m really close to them, and yet I’m going to start a confrontation. I just want to be prepared before I go in to a potentially relationship-harming discussion.
Keep in mind that voting for Obama just because Obama’s black implies you are NOT voting for Romney, just because Romney is white.
Same thing with the AA thread we had a few weeks ago. “Positive, helpful” racism is still racism. Whether you are talking about an election, a college admission, or whatever… someone is going to get the short end of the stick after you completely dismissed them because of their skin color.
I vote republican but last election considered voting for Obama because I felt he would be such a valuable roll model for young black kids who could use more roll models. If I would have voted for him it would have been because he was black and I felt he was at least somewhat qualified. So a social issue came close to overriding economic and foreign affair issues that I favor Republicans on. I was actually very proud of my country the day he was elected even if I did not vote for him.
I really don’t want to get into what political party I’m a part of or how I voted, but your post really struck me. When they had their first debate, a coworker was telling me how well Romney did. I said, I don’t think Obama is that great of a public speaker. I wonder if he’s consider such a GREAT public speaker because he is black. I can’t really imagine a white man saying things the way Obama does with the same voice and people raving about what is said.
I think it’s bad when we set up** any **group to think they should have something because they meet the bare minium standards. It creates a sense of entitlement.
So, yes voting for anyone based on their skin color soley is just as bad as not for the same person soley based on their skin color. Unless, you want to live in a world where certain people can have things easier than other or can get the same things others do without as much effort. I don’t.
Obama’s blackness does, in itself, supply some good reasons for voting for him. They apply to some degree whatever color your own skin is, but they are rightly bound to be felt more acutely, and carry more weight, for black voters.
Heck, my kids are white, blonde even, and female, and I think Obama provides a good aspirational model for them. Maybe not as much as a woman president would have been, but much better than yet another rich white man.
These are not the only, or main, sorts of considerations that one should be making in choosing who to vote for as president, but they are legitimate considerations. They do not apply to Romney (or any other white, male candidate there might have been).
I largely agree with the statement in the thread title, but what’s objectionable is the implication that there are large numbers of people who are doing so. In order to test this theory you’d have to nominate a conservative black person to run against a liberal white person. The percentage of AA’s who vote for the GOP candidate, minus 10% or so, would be a good measure of the number of people who think that way. I’d reckon he’d get around 20%, since the GOP usually gets 10% anyway from AA’s and it dwindled down to around zero when Obama ran: now we need to test the other end of the scale.
Not so coincidentally, this is also on the order of magnitude of the dropoff of white support for the Democrats once Obama took office.
Scenario #2: “I’m not voting for Obama cause I don’t think he’s from my culture.” Still as racist as your Scenario #1. Which is worse?
That’s pretty much my take. And in practice I voted for Obama because I liked his ideas and personality better than I liked those of McCain or H. Clinton. (Personality covers a lot of practical things like ability to inspire and willingness to compromise when necessary.)
This week I’ll vote for Obama because I like his ideas and personality better than Mitt Romney’s.
If it was an absolute toss-up whose ideas and personality I liked better, I’d probably choose the one whose name came first in alphabetical order. Skin tone and facial features would be way down the list.
I never take chances on this. I just write in my own name. That way I know I’m voting for a candidate I can relate to and whose positions I agree with.
White people, you guys can calm down, okay? Even if every black person racistly checked the box for the other dark skinned guy, there would be no usurpation of power by the negroes, there would be no unfair boon in votes favoring the Democrats, particularly considering the non-existent droves black people have voted for Republicans in past, there would be no white second class citizenry, no oppression, no permanent underclass. Now if white people were to decide to make deliberate attempts to keep blacks out of power…
Could be, or it could be that after eight years of Dubya, a Speak and Spell sounds like the greatest orator there was. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go vote for the black guy.
People aren’t voting for Obama just because he’s black on any large scale. Some people are/were motivated to vote when they otherwise wouldn’t have bothered, but those aren’t people who actually prefer Republican platforms but are voting for the black guy anyway.
I would have definitely voted Democrat anyway last election, but I probably wouldn’t have worn a t-shirt for our 44th white male president like I did for Obama. People get excited over new things. That’s okay.
Oh yes, I’m clearly in hysterics over here. Typing “u mad bro?” would have taken less characters.
Yeah. There’s obviously historical significance to Obama’s election, and people are excited about that, but the nonstop injection of race into Obama’s presidency that my ears have been talked off about for years insinuating at times, and often stating outright, that there are large swaths of people voting for Obama because he’s black is the most tiresome thing there is. I can’t wait til Obama finishes his second term so we can go back to electing rich white guys, and we’ll never have to hear about who’s voting for who based on skin color ever again. Guys, the Obama voters were never going to vote for McCain/Palin or Mittens and that one guy anyway. So not only is this talk about the Obama race voters largely made up, even if it weren’t, big whoop. The five black people who voted going for the guy who looks like them isn’t going to send us into the inverse of Jim Crow.
Well hell, you mean we won’t have any more black candidates to look forward to?
(Joking yes, but to be clear - I expect race will continue to be an issue for future black candidates for the foreseeable future - something I consider a sad reality.)
It’s different when it is a minority. Minorities have an expectation of solidarity which majorities don’t have. Instead, majorities split themselves into subsets, until they find minorities that they identify with.
Voting against Romney because he’s a Mormon (a minority) is far more bigoted than voting for him because he (and you) are Mormon.
Minorities themselves can split into sub-minorities. Orthodox Jews might well vote against Liberal Jews. Conservative Mormons might vote against Liberal Mormons.
If an American of Irish descent votes for, say, Ronald Reagan because of Reagan’s Irish descent, it is seen as a vaguely risible kind of solidarity; if someone voted against Reagan solely on that basis, it would be seen as an absurd kind of chauvinist bigotry.
Things are different, depending on whether a group is large, or small.
Of course it’s just as bad. In a murder trial where the defendant is black and the victim(s) is white, better to put in a mixed jury. If it was an all-black jury, they’ll convict the guy in 10 minutes.
