Posts with the tag black voters

JUST BECAUSE HE'S BLACK!

Angelina from Greensboro, NC — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:21:38 EDT

A white man asked his black friend, 'Are you voting for Barack Obama just because he's black?'

The black man responded by saying, 'Why not? In this country men are pulled over everyday just cause they're black; passed over for promotions just cause they're black; considered to be criminals just cause they're black; and there are going to be thousands of you who won't be voting for him just because he's black!
However, you do not seem to have a problem with that!
This country was built with the sweat and whip off the black slaves' back, and now a descendent of those same slaves has a chance to lead the same country, where we weren't even considered to be people, where we weren't allowed to be educated, drink from the same water fountains, eat in the same restaurants, or even vote.
So yes! I'm going to vote for him! But it's not just because he's black, but because he is hope, he is change, and he now allows me to understand when my grandson says that he wants to be president when he grows up, it is not a fairy tale but a short term goal. He now sees, understands and knows that he can achieve, withstand and do . . .
ANYTHING... Just Because He's Black!!!

'Talking About Not Talking About Race'

Adrienne Zurub — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:36:08 EDT

This article about race is apropos to what will load the McCain arsenal in the next 50 or so days till the election. Be prepared for more ingenious yet subtle 'Racial Pornography' from the McCain political machine.

Why even the most well-meaning whites and blacks can't hear each other.
By Patricia J. Williams (http://www.somalilandtalk.com/node/3702)

On a short flight to New York recently, I was sitting behind two white, well-dressed twentysomethings chattering loudly and uninhibitedly about going to clubs and travel plans and the possibility of living in New Jersey. Then came the question: "So who are you voting for?"
"I was for Hillary, but now … I'm kind of undecided," volunteered the first woman.
"Are you a Democrat?" asked the second.
"Yeah. But I think I might go with McCain. It's just that, well, I don't know. You know." Her voice dropped. I leaned forward to hear better. "You kind of hate to say it aloud, but … " Here her voice dropped again, to a murmur lost in the roar of the jet engines, and I missed whatever came next.
Let's start with this concession: I have no idea what that young woman actually said. In a perfect world, I suppose that would be the end of the story and I would go back to minding my own business. In the context of contemporary political discourse, however, it did cross my mind that if this conversation were presented on one of those "finish the sentence" cultural-literacy tests, then pretty much every American, of whatever creed, color, or class, would have exactly the same guess as to how the woman completed her thought.
I think there's some consensus, in other words, about the one thing in America we really "hate to say" aloud. Yet by refraining from saying audibly that-which-must-not-be-spoken, was the young woman's political choice rendered rational, neutral, pure? Conversely, if I were to spell it out here, would I be the one accused of "playing the race card"?
This is a complicated monkey wrench in our supposedly post-race society. On the one hand, everyone knows that race matters to a greater or lesser degree; on the other, few of us want to admit it. Indeed, race is the one topic that's probably even more taboo in polite company than sex. Yet in the absence of fact or frank conversation, grown people get buried in the kind of whispered fear, fantasy, and ignorant mistake that a 5-year-old makes when explaining how icky it was when Daddy got Mommy pregnant using the garden hose and a large bowl of avocados. Is this misinformation really so different from when Fox News and Karl Rove fill in the blanks of those awkward silences with images of the perpetually pantyless Paris Hilton rocking the foundations of our civilization on the same stage as Barack Hussein Osama, oops, I mean Obama. This is racial pornography that exploits the barely suppressed caverns of imagined horrors that have haunted us since D.?W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.
Obama predicted this phenomenon and attempted to expose it to the anodyne of common sense: "They're going to try to make you afraid of me. 'He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?'?" The not-altogether-surprising backlash from McCain's campaign is a deflection, an expression of deep discomfort. The reflexive accusation that Obama was playing the race card has a certain resemblance to the juvenile retort one gets when the science teacher tries to explain the human reproductive system: "Ooooh! He said a dirty word!" In this way, the opportunity for thoughtful public analysis sinks, once again, below the sound of the audible. Yet the fear of race rolls on, pantomimed in palpably influential and consequential ways.
At the same time, the civil-rights movement has given us a moral conscience that was not as prevalent when The Birth of a Nation was made. Today, it's fair to say that the overwhelming majority of white Americans "hate to say it aloud" because they also hate to think of themselves as racists. But blacks and whites tend to differ in their very definition of racism. Some years ago, researchers conducting a study for the Diversity Project, at UC Berkeley's Institute for the Study of Social Change, asked black and white college students about their perceptions of racism on a given campus. White students tended to say there was none, but blacks and Native Americans said it was everywhere. In fact, the study documented an interesting phenomenon: As Diversity Project sociologist Troy Duster put it, "White students see diversity as a potential source of 'individual enhancement,'?" while African-American students were more likely to see the goal as "institutional change."
When the white students were asked to give illustrations that substantiated their positions, they spoke of their own experiences and of personal intentions. "Last night, I had dinner with a black friend," they might offer. Or, "I have a black roommate, and we get along"; "I play basketball with a couple of black guys"; "I've never used a racist epithet"; "I treat everyone the same."

The black students cited instances of relative privilege, things that were more structural, institutional, atmospheric. "The campus police are always stopping us"; "I get followed around in stores"; "Most of the white students don't have to think twice about how much it costs to take prep classes for the LSAT or to spend spring break skiing in Aspen or partying in Cancún."
It's a familiar, even ubiquitous, miscommunication over the last ten years of the so-called culture wars: A black person speaks of racism or white privilege. The nearest halfway-privileged white person protests, "But I work for liberal causes. You're lumping me with racists just because I'm white!"
The black person answers, "I'm not saying that you, personally, are a racist. I'm saying we live in a world where it's easier to be white than it is to be black."
"But I'm not part of that," comes the reply.
"We're all part of it," insists the black person.
The tendency to turn the commitment to racial liberalism into sheer denial is strong. "I don't see race" becomes "I don't see racism." But while some of us are listening to the soothing tones of National Public Radio, a much larger audience--and larger by millions--is listening to Rush Limbaugh singing those subterranean fears of "Barack, the magic Negro," or to radio shock jocks cackling about "jigaboos," or to Pat Buchanan fretting that Obama is a radical, unpatriotic, extremist "elitist" to whom the liberal media hands a pass as a "special-ed," "affirmative-action" candidate. Not that any of them mean it in a racist way. Hey, lighten up. Don't you have a sense of humor?
Then there are the real-life, on-the-ground, disastrous statistical disparities that burden the lived experience of the majority of blacks, people of color, and the poor in this country: from the still-unrepaired wake of Hurricane Katrina, to the greater infant-mortality rate and lesser life span, to near double-digit rates of unemployment, to cuny professor Harry Levine's study of stop-and-frisk statistics in New York City (blacks are eight times more likely than whites to be stopped for marijuana possession, for instance), to disproportionately high national rates of foreclosures and homelessness among blacks, Native Americans, and Latinos, to the almost complete resegregation of schools across the land, to a war on drugs so shockingly racialized and so aggressively executed that our rates of incarceration place us first in the world.
There is an interesting kind of cognitive dissonance at work in the American psyche. We rejoice in the warm symbolism of interracial bliss, particularly in the idealized and thoroughly mythic sphere of celebrity existence: Tiger Woods's Pan-racialism, Brangelina's adoptions, Steven Spielberg's handsome brown son. We tell ourselves we love the idea of diasporic enfoldment: bi-, tri-, and multiracial Kids 'R' Us. At the same time, there's terrible ambivalence on the ground. Does one really want "the race card" living next door, or being your boss? Do you really want your child marrying outside his race? I've had conversations with white friends who are rattled when a black classmate has bested their child in class rank but still can't let go of the feeling that the mere presence of blacks in the school must be bringing down the test scores.
Similarly, it's interesting to review the evolution of media commentary, from TV to the blogosphere, trying to fit the thoroughly unfamiliar Obama into familiar boxes. For a while, he was depicted as not having any "racial baggage." Then, in the blink of an eye, he was transformed into Exactly the Same Person As the Reverend Wright--who then could be demonized with all the well-practiced repertoire of insults reserved for Louis Farrakhan and armed revolutionaries.
Obama's comeback, his eloquent speech about race, showed that he wasn't exactly the same person, not by any means. So in yet another twist, he is now so uppity he needs bringing down, defamed as too famous, categorized as uncategorizable, displaced as unplaceable. Since, in actuality, more is on the record about every step of Obama's life than possibly any candidate on the planet, this particular brand of demonization has been accomplished by the insinuations of erasure: If you took away his "pretty words," he'd be nothing. If you took away his race, he'd be nothing. If only he didn't have a brain, he'd be nothing, nothing, nothing. It's a circular, nonsensical mantra--magical thinking, wrapped in the fiction of "but really, I never see race." This kind of denial masquerading as color-blind idealism cannot be our compass at this exciting and potentially transformative moment.

http://www.somalilandtalk.com/node/3702

Sarah Palin: Hypocrisy or Bigotry?

Black Issachar — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:12:52 EDT

The day after Sarah Palin basked in the accolades that labeled her McCain’s Barracuda, a notable GOP representative said that she is Presidential material because he saw her eating ice cream with her children and that’s the kind of thing hockey moms like, because it prooves that she likes children and are good with them. The not-so-subtle inference is that all the hockey moms, soccer moms and football moms will vote Republican because Sarah Palin is their Christian role model. Is she? Or would other words like “hypocrisy” and “bigotry” invite a deeper scrutiny to this hockey mom's Christianity?

For example, what gives Sarah Palin the right to attack Barack Obama as though he has never done or said anything of value? Christians don’t do that. Also, it seems that the Christian Sarah Palin does not care that 600,000 people lost their jobs already this year according to today’s figures; but, you know what, Obama cares. It is also evident that Sarah Palin does not care that 290 million Americans make far less than a quarter of a million ($250,000) per year; but, you know what, Obama cares. It seems that Sarah Palin does not care that hundreds of thousands of American children go to bed hungry each night, but Obama cares. Sarah Palin does not care anything about giving billions more to her oil cronies and gouging poor hard working Americans in order to do it, but Obama cares. Apparently, Sarah Palin has a different Bible from the one the rest of us use, because the Word from God’s Son named Jesus was that “inasmuch as you didn’t do it unto the least of these ye did it not to me.” What will Sarah Palin tell Jesus when He judges the world (John 5:22)? Will this Christian mom who admits to being a member of Christ's family say “John McCain made me do it?”

I ask that all true Christians, who know the Son and are filled with His Holy Spirit, to pray earnestly that God would bless Sarah Palin and grant her repentance so that if she makes the White House she would frustrate the conspiracy of those who have planned to make us slaves to a Machiavellian oligarchy. Pray for Sarah, the Christian, to be more gracious and show the kind of class only statesmen and stateswomen have. The kind of class that allows Barack Obama to ignore the pernicious attacks, talk about the issues Americans face, and still refrain from uttering one negative word against McCain’s character.

McCain and the Republicans want power, and everyone knows that Lord Acton’s thought about absolute power and corruption was correct. Sarah Palin and John McCain want the people to forget about the Abrahamoff scandal and his Republican conspirators. They want the people to forget that Halliburton charged us more than $600 for a screw and paid some 6 million dollars to avoid court trials. They want us to forget that the Republicans blatantly lied to keep thousands of Blacks from voting in Florida with a fake felony list, but they settled out of court for a million dollars 2 years later. So it is clear that our Christian mom, Sarah Palin, is Dick Chaney’s replacement, since she was tagged as the best one to control the flow of information in the McCain White House. It will be breathtaking and painfully sad to see Sarah Palin on TV pontificating to the women who were duped to vote for her and MCCain while the soccer moms beat their heads trying to figure out what to cook for starving children.

But have no fear, the intelligent Sarah Palin, who has cornered the market on all that is good and nice, is set to follow McCain and break a few dishes in Washington. But what hypocrisy? Out of his own mouth this so-called maverick acknowledged voting with Bush and for Bush’s policies 90% of the time. Does this mean that the 10% earned him the title of “maverick?” And does this mean that he and Sarah Palin will reform Washington enough so that 290 million of us working people will get a fair share of America’s pie? If not, is it bigotry? Or is it hypocrisy? Or is it both?

Only Sarah Palin can answer that question because she is the new kid on the block with all the answers, especially since she has never been this way before. Even so, come Lord Jesus and bring the light which needs to shine in this dark place; or better yet, will all Christians who like TRUTH please stand up?

For What it’s Worth . . .

Black Issachar

An email I sent to afterhours@msnbc.com

Joanne takes a stand — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:03:14 EDT

I sent this email after watching the election results last night into the early morning hours. I had a lot on my mind and wanted to be heard. Read below:

I tried to call in this morning but the phones were very busy. However, I feel that I had to tell you how I feel about the way things are going...I am a 25 year old African American (holding a B.A. in English) female that voted early by absentee ballot in SC because I was 9 months pregnant and afraid that I would miss the chance to vote for Barack Obama in January by being in the hospital. In January, I would have voted for Clinton if she was elected the party nominee. However, I don't quite feel the same now. Because of Hillary's extremely negative attacks on Obama and her dismissal of the power of the African American vote, if she was the front runner, I would not vote at all (instead of voting for McCain) because I am so angry at her. I am even angrier now, as a woman, because she has "lost" the race at this point and refuses to throw in the towel and unite our party. Could she, like the majority of her voters, be so against an African American president that she would actually make it hard for him to take the nomination, when she knows her chances are slimmer as every primary and caucus passes? I think so. As Barack has come closer and closer to winning the nomination, "Billary" has found innumerable ways to deny him the right: by changing the number of delegates needed, by claiming she's the swing state queen. What is even worse is that she's now claiming to lead in the popular vote, which shouldn't be taken into account because caucus votes are not included in the popular vote, and by which Barack would still lead. She's also so desperate that she's claiming Michigan when Barack wasn't even on the ballot. All of this is making her less of an "honest" woman and more of some sort of psycho maniac that wants to be controlling and feels that she has the right because her last name is Clinton. I have lost all respect for both of them. Would she have come this far in the election if she had divorced Bill when he committed adultery? I could go on and on, but I think you get my point. This election is really stressing me out and I've never even been that interested in politics, because of Barack, I am now, and might find myself in a political career in the future. Yes, he's had that great of an impact on me.

Joanne Green, endorser of Barack Obama, democratic presidential nominee of 2008. With Barack Obama, it's always "Yes We Can" (change is possible). ROCK THE VOTE.

The final statement above is my signature on my actual email address. Do you have any comments or opinions about the things I wrote above? I would love to hear them.

Colbert I. King Tells the Truth about the Black Vote!!

Leslye J Allen of Atlanta, GA — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:38:39 EST

Colbert I. King, a writer for the Washington Post made an accurate assessment of Hillary Clinton's position and relationship with black voters. With much needed clarity on this subject, King shatters the mythology that black voters will vote for a candidate simply because that candidate is black. A fabulous piece that expresses a viewpoint that we black folks have known for quite some time. Go ahead, Mr. King! I'm holding my breath and my pen until after March 4th. YES WE CAN!!! Peace, Leslye J. Allen

Truth the Clintons Can't Handle
By Colbert I. King
Saturday, February 23, 2008; A15

Today, it's almost an article of faith among pundits and pollsters that Hillary Clinton can't win the African American vote because Barack Obama has that bloc sewn up.

A year ago, many pundits held another unshakable belief. The polls showed Clinton sitting pretty with black Democrats. Obama, of course, was as black then as he is now.

But Clinton trumped him among black voters, said the pundits. The numbers told the story.

Turn the calendar back to December 2006 and January 2007. That's when Post-ABC News polls showed the New York senator holding a commanding lead over Obama among African American voters -- 60 percent to 20 percent. A Post-ABC News poll last October showed Clinton with a 13-point advantage among African Americans: 51 percent to 38 percent.

A CBS News poll published Jan. 22, 2007, also revealed substantial support for Clinton among African Americans: She led Obama by 24 percentage points.

She was the Democratic heir apparent to Bill Clinton, the nation's "first black president," as Toni Morrison famously dubbed him.

Name recognition, loyalty to her husband and the belief that she was more electable contributed to Clinton's standing. So did the strong backing of several older generations of black politicians -- or at least that's what the pundits and the old-school Democratic pols thought.

Last year, Hillary Clinton was riding high: The black vote was hers to lose. So what accounts for her sharp reversal of fortune?

Hillary made the mistake of assuming that what was Bill's was hers -- she believed headlines that shouted such things as "Poll: Many Black Voters Don't Identify With Obama."

Now that votes are being counted, the Clintons have changed their tune, suggesting that Obama's color counts more with black voters than her years of service to America.

She tried to sell that idea after her loss in Louisiana's primary, dismissing votes for her opponent as coming from "a very strong and very proud African American electorate." Bill Clinton pushed that line when he suggested that if Obama won South Carolina's Democratic primary, it was because he's a black candidate in a state where blacks are a large share of the population.

"They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender. That's why people tell me Hillary doesn't have a chance of winning here," the former president said.

The Clintons sought to marginalize Obama as a candidate for African Americans. It backfired.

African American voters and millions of other Americans aren't buying what Hillary Clinton is selling. They didn't regard her presidency as inevitable. Nor did they consider her years as first lady, or her time spent with Little Rock's Rose Law Firm or her service on Wal-Mart's board of directors as qualifying her to become the nation's commander in chief.

They recognized the yeast in Hillary Clinton's résumé.

And Obama's message of hope and transformation, as National Urban League President Marc Morial observed, is resonating across race and class lines.

Clinton and her advisers also misread where African Americans are in 2008.

Once upon a time, all a white politician had to do to win black votes was to be on good terms with the Congressional Black Caucus, suck up to black pastors and flatter their choirs on Sunday morning, and, oh, yeah, spread around a little money leading up to Election Day.

Those days are coming to an end.

Such condescension today is offensive to African Americans, who expect to be treated as thinking adults.

Equally off-putting was the Clintons' assertion, once Obama's black support became evident, that his pigmentation was the reason -- as if African Americans are so color-struck that in a contest between a white and a black candidate, any black face will do.

The record shows otherwise.

Nearly half of the primary electorate in South Carolina, where Obama trounced Clinton, is black. That didn't stop John Edwards from defeating Al Sharpton in 2004, 45 percent to 10 percent. The results were virtually the same for Sharpton in Virginia and Georgia in 2004 -- states Obama carried handily this year.

Racial pride is not without limits. Whatever Al Sharpton's contributions to civil rights, most African American voters simply didn't see him as presidential material and voted accordingly.

Obama is not Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Yes, he does evoke a sense of pride in many African Americans. But it's because of what he represents in the campaign: an inspirational African American who has strong personal qualities, excellent credentials, a vision for America and a family that will make the nation proud.

As they used to say in my old neighborhood, the Clintons "low-rated" Obama. Beneath their smiles, the Clintons are constitutionally unable to accept the possibility that he could be viewed more favorably or thought to be more capable of uniting and leading the country than Hillary.

Many African Americans have come to hold that view.

They aren't alone.

kingc@washpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202333.html?nav=hcmodule

Not Voting for Barack Out of Fear??

Amber — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:37:01 EDT

Here in Las Vegas I've discovered there is a prominent train of thought amongst some Black voters. It goes like this:

They love Barack Obama so much that they're not going to vote for him because they feel if he's voted into the office of president, he will be assassinated. So they're trying to keep him alive....

To the Black people here and around the country who have that attitude I would say: If you truly believe Barack is the answer to what is wrong with this country - GIVE HIM YOUR VOTES! Please leave the rest up to GOD! IF Barack is divinely slated for assassination it will happen whether he's president or not! In the meantime let's at least give him a fighting chance to help turn this country around! PLEASE!! He can't do it without your votes, so show some love the right way!

Daily Kos Reports SC Poll Moves Barack Forward!

vette58 — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:49:25 EDT

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/14/104042/398

Barack moves back ahead of HRC for the Black vote in South Carolina, but get in on the comments regarding the results of the latest poll and support our candidate and why he should be moving forward. As we know Daily Kos is a major player in the Presidential Election this year.

Barack Shines in Third Presidential Debate

Scott A. Giordano — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 22:41:24 EDT

Barack Obama outspoke all his opponents in a critical debate to keep black voters ...