All things being equal (of course they never are), I will vote for the non-white-male candidate over the white male candidate. I do think inclusiveness and integration are good for their own sakes.
www.fivethirtyeight.com has some very interesting posts about race and polling. I highly recommend reading there.
Groups do not run in elections, individuals do, and there is no “tent”. You pick one person or the other.
You can’t choose Candidate A on racial grounds without simultaneously rejecting Candidate B on racial grounds, any more than you can travel by bus and plane at the same time.
Why? I mean, in politics: I hire employees, and I find having a mix of male and female employees, as well as a mix of black and white employees works well because it reduces interoffice cliquishness, as well as increase the ability of my office to handle varied circumstances (e.g.: Rape victims tend to respond better to female employees than male ones). However, in terms of political leaders, I don’t see where that comes into play.
It’s called “representing constituents.”
There is most definitely a tent, and you are most definitely voting for a group. No “individual” ever gets elected President.
Cliquishness and varied circumstances are part and parcel of politics. You don’t know what different perspectives a different life experience might bring to the office until you actually elect someone with different life experiences, and growing up female or black or hispanic (or all three!) in this country is a very different life experience than growing up WASP-y and male.
Being president isn’t some sort of exception to the idea that a mix of people, hopefully with varied backgrounds and ideas, allows strong, good ideas to rise to the top instead of never being heard.
It seems a lot of people complain that “all politicians are the same” while refusing to vote for politicians who are different.
See, I think this illustrates the difference between “racist” and “prejudiced.”
I think your co-worker falls in the “prejudiced” camp: uninformed, unsophisticated but reachable. His prejudices about black people have not been sufficiently challenged.
While he’s still misinformed, your co-worker was at least willing to consider the possibility that Obama would “be for whites,” whatever that meant to him. He still holds onto the notion that “I think he’ll be for blacks,” but quite possibly can be convinced that, as you said, Obama will work for what’s best for all Americans.
Optimistically, Jon
The idea that black people voting for black people on a racial basis will balance out with whites voting against blacks on a racial basis is not logical. Blacks are 12 % of the population. They are a smaller percentage of the voting population. They have been predominantly Dem voters for a long time. The black that votes for Obama because he is black would have minuscule impact on the presidential election.
On news channel last night they said the racist impact on this election is about 6 percent. It of course referred to whites who are anti black.
Anyone who concludes that a black guy is automatically going to side with “them” over “us” is by definition being racist. I saw nothing in Dio’s anecdote that leads me to believe that this guy can be dissuaded from his position about black people, so where are you finding all this hope to cling to? I mean, the man still stuck to his position even after finding out about Obama’s white mother!
Don’t let your optimism blind you.
The ironic thing about that guy is that a lot of his favorite celebrities are black. He loves rap, he loves the NBA and he he likes a lot of black actors. He’s not somebody who has ever struck me as racist before, he just seems to have this heretofore unspoken fear of putting a black man in power.
Don’t let pessimism stop you from trying to change someone’s mind.
I still see Dio’s co-worker as more prejudiced than racist, a term I’ll reserve for those whose prejudices have become so concrete that they refuse to reconsider their stance.
I know this guy said, “I think he’ll be for blacks,” but he did demonstrate some willingness to listen to Dio and consider what he said. Otherwise he would not have asked Dio if Obama “might be for whites.”
He wasn’t able to explain what he meant by being “for blacks” or “against whites,” and, as Dio has indicated, he has some level of respect for black musicians, athletes and actors.
I don’t think this guy is unredeemable.
I have never said we have outgrown racism and sexism, and neither Obama nor Clinton (back when the primaries were still in mid-swing) would be hurt by those factors.
What I did say, and will repeat now, is that there could not be a better year in which to run a black person or a woman as Democratic presidential candidate. If it can’t be done this year it would be harder in a year with fewer aces in the Dems’ hand.
He’s still got to run one hell of a race. I’d say he’s doing nicely though, wouldn’t you?
Why do you think racism is unredeemable and can’t be dissuaded? I think that’s your first mistake. Seemingly because you don’t see the guy as an intolerant evil ogre, you choose to put him in some special category called Prejudiced that in your mind is different and somehow better than being Racist. But why? You’re not improving communication when you do this. You’re just playing with semantics.
The guy in Dio’s anecdote was being racist with his characterization of Obama, and he was also exhibiting prejudice. Why is this so difficult to see, honestly?
Reading this thread, an impressionable person would easily think that a black person stoked at the prospect of another black guy being President for the first time in US history = a bigot, while a white guy who can’t get with voting for a black guy because “he’ll side with the blacks over us…he doesn’t like whites” = a misinformed bloke with a heart a gold. Not that I’m not saying you’re making this argument. But think about it: The question of your thread is “Will bigots cost Obama the presidency?” If the answer is no, bigots won’t cause BO to lose…but prejudiced idiots might, what good does it do your debate to make all these distinctions between a racist or a prejudiced idiot?
Then I suppose I should have seen my grandmother, who called Brazil nuts “nigger toes,” as an intolerant evil ogre.
She wasn’t intolerant, evil or an ogre. She was embarrassed, however, when I told her some people would be hurt to hear her use that phrase. She wasn’t trying to be hurtful, and only called them “nigger toes,” because that’s what she heard them called when she was growing up. She stopped when I called it to her attention.
Those with prejudices, idiots or otherwise, can only cost Obama the election if their numbers are great enough. And the only way I know of keeping their numbers down, is to reason with them and not see them as unredeemable racists who deserve only my disdain.
We all have prejudices. The trick in making society work is not to allow our prejudices to guide our actions, and that includes the prejudice that those with prejudices we find wrong-headed to be beyond reason and lost to ignorance.
Thinking about it some more, I think the guy is not so much affected by Obama’s race, per se, as he has been swayed by a lot of the propaganda that Obama is “anti-white.” As was evidenced by my questioning, I don’t think he even has any clear idea of how being anti-white would translate to policy as POTUS, but I think he’s been confused enough by Fox News and right wing radio to fear that Obama might be hostile to whites (he’s not exactly a genius, as you might have guessed, and he’s the kind of guy who can be influenced by the last person he talked to).
A few months ago, he was repeating the Muslim meme, but I think I was successful in refuting that for him. He is the kind of guy who will listen, but the flipside is that he’ll listen to somebody else ten minutes later. He does seem to respect my opinion, though, and thinks I’m more informed than the average asshole on the street (which is true, but no special trick).
He’s young, by he way, only 21 and this is his first Presidential election. Until recently, he still lived at home, and I suspect that his older brothers get into his ear a lot with the Limbaugh talk (he often mentions his bothers being religious conservatives).
Hey Diogenes, your posts in this thread are kinda like mine in the “lying” threads (i.e., arguing that a word doesn’t mean what other people are insisting that it does).
I’d like your take on a more fundamental issue (so we can get past the definitional issue on “racism”):
If a black voter has decided that he or she would never vote against a black candidate when presented with the opportunity, is that voter doing anything in any way “bad” or “wrong” or “illegitimate” or “:dubious:-worthy” in any way, shape, or form, however you define any of those words?
It’s seems to me that the “anecdote” about “a coworker” and “he’s for blacks” and “Limbaugh” and “religious conservative brothers” is **too **convenient. It’s almost like the guy (the co-worker) had a script or was playing a character.
(BTW, I’m not saying that he made it up)
I couldn’t possibly make it up. I don’t have that much imagination. I also don’t see anything “convenient” about it.
No.
Then why would you chastise a woman for voting for Palin? I honestly don’t see the difference.