I just said. Because white Americans have never ever needed to worry about someone looking out for our interests. Our interests are so looked out for that it’s resulted in centuries of egregious civil rights violations against other groups. It’s better than it used to be, but still biased in our favor.
The only people who are worried about the interests of white men being protected are extreme bigots and/or paranoid schizophrenics.
I think we are simply operating under different definitions of racism. To me, voting for a candidate based on their race, simply to promote the success of that culture/race is…racist. Whether or not your culture is a long downtrodden group, the fact remains your choice is still solely based on promoting a race, rather than on individual merits of the candidate.
If you are operating under the idea that a downtrodden group that promotes it’s own members based solely on their race is not racist because of the power differential… then we’re simply going back and forth because we are using different definitions.
In the bald statement which is the title of the thread - they are just as bad as eachother.
Everything else is cultural filler that you are supplying to the statement.
Scenario #1 can re rephrased as “I ain’t votin’ for Romney 'cuz he’s a honkey.”
Yes, exactly equal.
The definition of the word racism isn’t really the point though. You can classify actively trying to oppress other already-oppressed groups as racism, and also classify just trying to ensure equality for your own group as racism also, and I don’t think that makes a great deal of sense but I don’t feel compelled to argue with it. They’re still different situations though. The motivation and desired outcome are both different.
Again, no one who isn’t a paranoid schizophrenic genuinely believes that having a black President will actually cause white people to become oppressed.
You are the only one who I have heard put that forth as a reason for voting for the white candidate. You seem to be setting that up to argue against.
Also, whether that makes someone a paranoid schizophrenic or a jerk or simple-minded is besides the point. The question was does that make them more racist. Again, that goes back to the fact that you are using a definition of racism that takes into account power differential.
This says it all.
That’s probably just because I think the power differential part is the whole entire point. Otherwise we may as well just be talking about some “blondes are better!”, “no, brunettes are!” bullshit.
I always wondered if Obama paid that girls mortgage yet…
I myself didn’t have one of those given to me.
I didn’t know there was a line for them, or maybe I was too busy working to notice a line, or maybe it was my whiteyhonkeyness that dissuaded the mortgage givers to tell me about it, so that the (cough)disenfranchised(cough) could peruse their own (cough)endeavors(cough). :rolleyes:
In case you couldn’t tell, effectiveness was not my goal. There are some people on Earth who apparently believe that there are swells of black people voting for Obama solely because he’s black (which there aren’t), and that somehow black people wanting to see a face like theirs in the Oval Office at long last, after having our country run by the same ruing class of elite white men since its inception (and it still is, to be honest) is on par with white exclusion and racism. I’m not going to argue with those people, and I’m certainly not going to argue with anyone who will say with a straight face that all of the race baiting in these elections has been by liberals playing to white guilt. That’s pretty goddamn absurd considering every five seconds there’s some Republican apologizing for making snide remarks about Colin Powell’s allegiance to Team Negro, loudmouth pundits harping on Obama’s imaginary racism toward white people, or there’s a new viral web image from the righty tighties showing black people near voting booths shrieking “Look what the Black Panthers are doing to the white vote!” This is way too stupid of an argument to have, so if people want to make the case that all the gratuitous shoehorning of race in everything has been by the left-leaning white guilt crowd, I’m just going to tell them their stance is pretty goddamn stupid, and then I exit stage left. Capisce?
Well, as a left-ish type, I am confident that if a presidential election were between, say, Andrew Cuomo and, oh, Alan Keyes, race would not guide my vote and I would hardly feel guilty about who I voted for.
Then why bother posting? I would think that you, as a would-be apologist for black racism, would be particularly interested in the effectiveness of your posts. Afterall, convincing people that black racism is okay, but white racism isn’t, has got to be a hard sell.
nm
I am reminded of some interviewer around the last time of the election asking a black women who she would be voting for and them saying who do you think? Like it was really obvious who they would be voting for. It always kind of stuck me as funny that if white person had acted in the same way with the implication being they would obviously vote for the white guy it would be looked on quite differently.
That’s actually not what I’m trying to convince anyone of, but I’m not surprised that you don’t get this.
I voted for Obama because he was black. I had no idea he would actually turn out to be an awesome president…I had assumed he would be the same ol’ slick politician as usual. Turned out he seemed to sincerely try to change things for the better. Whoda thunk.
Well there you have it, folks. Always bet on black.
Yes please. It’s interesting how fascinated people (often white people) are by the way race affects the voting habits of people in every other group except theirs. They get very scrupulous about racism right about then. Voting based on race is pretty shallow regardless, but no, voting for someone because of his/her race is not the same as refusing to vote for someone based on his or her race.
As a reminder - since these days this issue is pretty much discussed only in terms of the monolithic support of African-Americans for President Obama - in general black people have been supporting white candidates for as long as they’ve been able to vote. The history of white people supporting black candidates is a lot shorter. The number of African-Americans elected to the U.S. Senate since reconstruction remains three, and the number of African-Americans elected governor is just two.
I really don’t care what the motivation for voting for a candidate is. Racists and idiots are part of the country, they have their say in who leads it.
In terms of voting for Obama because he’s black, I don’t think it would as much be a vote taken away from a white candidate. It is much more likely to be someone who usually doesn’t vote being motivated to participate.
Hi Mean Old Lady, I absolutely agree with the historical significance of Obama’s election, but for you to dismiss out of hand that black voters tend to vote for him just because he is black sounds like a little bit of denial. Here are some statistics:
Bill Clinton got 83 and 84 percent of the black vote in his two elections ; Kerry in 04 got 88%; Obama got 96% of the black vote. That sounds like a fairly large swath.