Oh puhlease. There are not enough rolly eye emoticons in the world to properly respond to this.
You come in here certain that a “fairly large swath” of black people are voting for Obama just because he’s black, claiming not believing this is “denial,” number dropping that a larger percentage of black voters opted for Obama than did Clinton or Kerry. The response was “Yeah, so? As did a lot of other demographics, racial and otherwise. What’s your point?” I’m not sure what your point is other than some alleged stray observations of racism you’ve heard have convinced you a great deal of black people are single issue voters based on race alone. I find it endlessly eye-roll-worthy that when we’ve seen trends to the left in other demographic groups in the last rounds of elections, it can be for a variety of reasons, but when we see a small trend to the left in another already reliably left leaning group, there can be no other explanation but race. Why can’t black people have the same reasons for going lefter as the other groups who did, especially considering the shift has actually been smaller among blacks than in other demos?
And I’m really not sure what “group” you think I’m lumping you into, but I’ll tell you just so there’s no ambiguity: Irritatingly and needlessly paranoid white people.
This is kind of a sore topic for me
But I’m jumping in anyway.
I have friends of all kinds.
I can tell you of three friends who never voted in their lives, never cared to, never wanted to, who registered and voted for Obama because they are black and he is black and they wanted to see a black man in office.
For them it was a huge moment, the thought that a black man could become president was a very big deal for them.
I understand that for them.
On the other hand I have two black friends who didn’t vote for Obama because they are hard core Republicans and they don’t care what color the candidates are they will always vote Republican.
What made it such a sore spot for me was when my Obama voting friends told me that if I didn’t vote for Obama it was because I was racist.
I wouldn’t vote for him because he is black, I wouldn’t vote against him because he is black.
Race is not part of the equation.
It really pissed me off and hurt my feelings though to be accused of racism, especially by people who never gave a shit about politics one way or the other until a black man ran.
They will tell you that anybody who doesn’t vote for Obama is racist because in their eyes that is the only issue.
This is why I never never talk politics with friends and family.
It goes both ways, you do have blacks voting for Obama because he’s black, and you do have whites voting for Romney because he’s not black. Hopefully those people are in the minority so the people who are voting without regard to race are the ones who have an affect on the outcome.
I think the last 4 years have been difficult for a lot of people no matter what color they are.
And it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the color of the president.
There’s no difference between voting for someone because of the color of their skin or voting against someone because of the color of their skin.
It’s anyone’s right to vote for whomever they want for whatever reason they want.
But for anyone to tell me I’m racist because I don’t vote Obama is bullshit
when race had nothing to do with it.
And the really bullshit part is they don’t even know WHO I voted for because I won’t tell anybody.
However I will admit I voted yes for questions 4, 6 and 7.
At very least, this definition should be footnoted as applying mostly to pedantic academic types. Many disciplines have formal terms, which are shared by the rest of us in a less-formal, colloquial fashion. I can say, “The traffic today was murder” without some law student saying, “No, because murder is a form of manslaughter requiring intent.” Pfui!
re the main issue, I see it as the difference between, “I’m voting for Jones because he’s from the same state I’m from” and “I’m voting against Smith, because he’s from Texas.” The former isn’t bigotry, but the latter is.
You’re hilarious, MOL! Absolutely hilarious. You’re up in arms at the suggestion that there are some black people who vote for Obama because he’s black, yet you can lump ALL White people together in having a difficult time with Obama being in office (this despite the fact that a probably 10x larger percentage of white voters voted for Obama than black voters who voted for Romney–I know you love statistics so I threw that in there). I’m not sure if it’s funnier or sadder how people like you think.
Anyway, I have an Angry White Man meeting to go to for the next four years, even though I voted for the guy who won.
This is false and only acceptable because we’re still in a state of political correctness trumps all.
The reality is that ‘positive’ racism is more harmful than ‘negative’ racism.
The difference being that negative racism is just ignorance
Positive racism is either ignorance OR an informed decision made based on the color of someone’s skin.
There is no justification for it and sadly, ethnic persons vote with race in mind.
Meanwhile the other guy, who isn’t ‘like’ them, has the best platform and would actually be better for EVERYONE.
Yet they won’t vote for him. They say the party he represents is inherently or secretly racist.
What this translates to is : “I would vote for him on policies, but I heard they are racist, so… I can’t. I know everyone else will suffer if we don’t vote this guy in, but they feel racist, so I just can’t.”
Great, thanks for that.
Or the best one I heard was “Obama isn’t like REAL black, but he’s blackER, so he’s keeping it more real than the other guy”
Funny you should say that…as sweeping as it was.
I read through some quotes from George W. the other day and was impressed at the things he had said. Insightful, honest, truthful and even prophetic.
The same ‘monkey boy’ and ‘hitler’ that dealt with the worst attack on American soil and dealt with all of Clinton’s left over crap..ya that George W.
Maybe he wasn’t the best oral speaker, then again he also did something other speakers don’t - he would refuse flash cards or prompters and just wing it.
You ever winged it in front of three hundred sixty-five million people?
No didn’t think so…
Maybe you have a hard time reading like George W. had speaking…
As to the comment about Obama, you’re damn right he can get away with what he says because of his skin color.
Yes! Isn’t she an absolute stitch? But I’m afraid you’re not actually getting the joke:
No, she’s “up in arms” at your implication that all - not some, all - black people vote for Obama because he’s black. You said [bolding mine]:
So black voters, in general, tend to vote for Obama because he is black, and your evidence is the “fairly large” 8 percentage point increase in black votes between Obama and Kerry, versus the (apparently negligible) 5 percentage point increase between Kerry and Clinton. Yeah. That’s… not blowing me away. But! We *can *safely assume that at least this 8% of black people voted based on race, right? It must be true, because if it were just a matter of more people voting Democrat, then there would have been similar gains for Obama over Kerry in lots of demographics.
Oops, there were:
And further, according to the Gallup site that Marley posted, here are all the groups that had an increase in voters for Obama over Kerry:
Men, Women, White (incl. Hispanic), Nonwhite, Non-Hispanic white, Nonwhite (incl. Hispanic), Black, Under 30 years of age, 30 to 49 years, 50 to 64 years, 50 years and older, College, Postgraduate, College grad only, Some college, Midwest, South, West, Urban, Suburban, Rural, Republican, Conservative, Liberal, Protestant, Catholic, Attend church weekly, Attend church monthly, Attend church seldom/never, Married, Not married, Married men, Married women, Unmarried men, Unmarried women, Veteran, Military household, Gun owner, Gun non-owner
But even though all of those groups had more voters for Obama than Kerry, you still think the increase among black voters is… noteworthy:
Because what about the primary?
Um… again, Obama did better than Hillary with a lot of groups. That’s how he won the primary. But even then, he started well behind in the polls. People who didn’t initially support him changed their minds along the way. Do you think that’s it’s more likely that they liked what they heard him say about policy, or that they suddenly noticed he was black?
Sure, don’t dismiss such claims offhand. First, ask for their evidence, and ask them to explain any contradictory evidence. If their evidence isn’t convincing (as yours isn’t), then you can dismiss it.
Yep, that’s why the overwhelming majority of black people have always voted Democratic: they always blindly choose the black candidate over the one they’ve “heard” is racist.
Thanks for a very thoughtful response. Here’s another statistic for you:
In 1990 David Duke got 9% of the Black vote in Louisiana vs. his white opponents. David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK.
Yet in 2008, McCain only got 4% of the Black Vote against Obama. Now I know McCain is not known as any champion of African American causes, but surely he is no David Duke is he? A 96% to 4% margin is UNHEARD of in almost any demographic within any election. So I will repeat what my point has been from the outset, and which is obvious to anyone who has both:
A) A Brain and
B) A willingness to make observations that are unbiased by his or her own prejudices.
That point is, like just about all other races, some black people will vote for a black candidate because he is black. Note, I’m not saying “JUST because he is black.”
I truly am lost in this thread. Is it any question that many black people vote for a black man when they get the chance to put a black man in office for the first time in history? Can that even be called “not voting on the issues?” For a lot of black people that IS the damn issue!
Same with Hillary. I have a rad fem friend who was all Hillary all day. Sure, Hill possessed a lot of qualities that my friend was very into, but the fact that she wanted to see a woman take office was really her main issue that she was concerned with. I can’t for the life of me see how that is even something to judge her on.
If a person responds to a system that has been historically racist or sexist with a desire to see the ones who were disenfranchised in a position of power in that system, how is that remotely like a white man, who has seen nothing but white men in the chief office since the office began, voting for white men based on the fact that they are white?
Listen, I’ll cop…I was one of those people who didn’t do my civic duty in staying up on politics and voting before Obama came along. No excuse for that. But pretending that black folks who have never seen a black face in office and voting to change that is the same as white folks voting for another one man is just silly to me. I honestly don’t get it.
I think, some of the reason this thread puzzles me, is we aren’t considering something here…sooo many black people who have always kept themselves informed on politics and have voted on many issues totally divorced from race (how do they do that? Everything is race with me). So maybe that is throwing people off, because we are mixing up political black people who may take umbrage at this “vote for the black man thing” with truly shiny eyed black folks who never used to vote and are just like, “Yes! Vote for the black man!”
It’s not the anger.. it’s the insult. In none of her post did MOL state that their weren’t black voters voting for BHO on a racial basis. What she stated is why is this same lense not applied to Hispanic voters.. (BHO got 76%) or Asian voters?
The insult being that any other minority group will and have substantial reasons for voting for a candidate.. but blacks.. It strictly comes down to the jersey..
You’re comparing a couple of unlike things: the black vote nationally and the black vote in Louisiana, which I assume would be more conservative, and of course you’re comparing 1990 to 2008. I can’t find any data on the exact percentages but I gather that black voters in Louisiana voted for Obama in 2008. White voters supported McCain and he carried the state. George H. W. Bush got 11 percent of the black vote in 1988 and 10 percent in 1992 (Perot got 7 percent), so it sounds like Duke did about the same in his 1990 Senate campaign.
fjs1fs, first of all: of course some black people will vote for a black candidate because he is black. Some. (And so will some white people, and some asian people… but we’ll leave that for another time.) No one in this thread has disputed that idea, although it’s true that more than one poster has quite reasonably inquired, “So fucking what?”
But that’s not what you’ve been arguing. You’ve said that voting for a black candidate is something that “black voters tend” to do, or at least a “fairly large swath” or “very large number” of them, and that this is a fact that should be obvious. Well, it’s not obvious to me, and I have to say, it’s a bit insulting to say that this is because I’m brainless, prejudiced, or both. The real reason your conclusion isn’t obvious is that the data you present (without cites, mind you) doesn’t mean what you think it means, especially when you put it in the appropriate context.
For instance: you point out that David Duke got 9% of the black vote in Louisiana in 1990, while McCain got 4% of the black vote in 2008. (And again, I can’t find a cite for these numbers, but we’ll just go with them.) But this is comparing apples and hedgehogs. For one thing, Duke was running for Senate, not president. It strikes me as plausible that at least some of the people - black, white, and otherwise - who voted for him were more concerned with his (R) than his KKK, because as a senator, that’s really as far as his power extends. President, however, would probably have been a different story. And of course, this was only in Louisiana. Are you suggesting he would have gotten 9% of the black vote nationwide? Or perhaps you want to compare their votes within Louisiana only? I can’t find a breakdown by race of votes for McCain, but he did win the state handily, while Duke lost. If I had to hazard a guess, that would lead me to believe that McCain also had a pretty good percentage of the black vote. But I really can’t say. Also, the two elections are 18 years apart. A whole lot happened in those 18 years to change the political and social climate in Louisiana and across the country. There’s just no way to reasonably compare the two events.
And speaking of unreasonable comparisons, I’ll add: voting for a black man because he’s black versus voting for a white man in because he’s white.
ETA: and of course, Marley and Nzinga said what I wanted to say, but faster and better.
I’m amazed at the thought process that some people have. Either it’s wrong to discriminate based solely on race, or it’s not.
Shoplifting a candy bar is not as bad as beating a man to death for insulting you. That doesn’t mean shoplifting isn’t wrong, or that we shouldn’t discourage shoplifting.
A better analogy: The stereotype that blacks are stupid is far more damaging to blacks and to American society in general than the stereotype that East Asians are smart is damaging to East Asians and to American society in general. But both stereotypes are still racist, they’re both still damaging to American society, and the perpetuation of people using both those stereotypes should still be discouraged.
There’s certainly no danger (at least not in my lifetime) of blacks gaining a dominant political position over whites in America then using that power to discriminate against whites. It’s worth pointing out that I don’t think there is a single current black senator at the federal level. I think the danger is that if society tacitly approves of racism from black people, that’s going to encourage racist thinking from whites which is going to make inequality between blacks and whites even worse than it already is.
Terrific, and I agree, but if anyone in this thread ever stated or even suggested that it’s dandy if people vote for Obama because he’s black, I missed it. The point of the OP was that it isn’t just as bad as not voting for him because he’s black.
HOD, You are absolutely right that the stats I have thrown out there, in addition to not being backed up with cites, have lots of problems from an apples and oranges perspective.
My main contention has been that I think it’s clear that “large swaths” (a term used originally by Mean Old Lady and not by me) of black voters have voted for Obama because he is black. Again please note I did not say JUST because he is black–that’s quite a different statement.
I’m not sure we can all agree on the definition of what a “large swath” is–so that is one potential cause of disagreement on whether the large swath of such minded voters actually existed. In my opinion, the percentage of the black vote that Obama garnered was so high that it clearly reflected something beyond some move “to the left.” It’s very rare to see ANY demographic vote in such huge percentages for ANY one candidate, and I defy anyone to show me a comparable statistic from another vote. My reference to the David Duke election, while not truly Apples to Apples was an attempt (in vain obviously) to quickly (because I have a job I’m supposed to be doing) find an example of a situation where I felt there should be an Obviously Very HIGH percentage of Black Voters voting for or against a given candidate. You have to admit that my Duke example should have satisfied that requirement. Here’s the site, by the way:
Excerpt: “David Duke received 44% of the vote in the Senate primary race in Louisiana, 60% of the white vote and 9% of the black vote!”
So David Duke garnered 9% of the black vote in Louisiana in 1990, whereas McCain could only get 4% of the black vote for President in 2008. All of the problems you cited with my comparing these two distinct populations 18 years apart are valid, no argument from me. It just seems that if a famous Klansman could get 9% of the Black vote in ANY election in the US, then a guy like McCain should be able to get at least that percentage. Here’s where my logic now adds the following “. . . except if his opponent was a black man trying to win an unbelievably historical Presidential election.”
My logic isn’t perfect, but the other statistics, such as how he destroyed a very liberal Hillary Clinton among black voters, to me indicates there’s something there. But I could be wrong, and will never convince some people to agree with me.
Another Doper chimed in about knowing three black voters who said they never voted before (I believe) and voted JUST BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK. Maybe the Doper is lying, I don’t know, and maybe they were kidding. Also, Nzinga has made a similar claim–and there doesn’t seem to be any reason for her to lie about her own vote.
In closing, I need to make my position clear: I voted for Obama, and I can certainly understand black voters Wanting to Vote for a black Candidate. I just disagreed with the assertion made by Mean Old Lady that the number of voters who voted for him because he was black was negligible.
