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cloudboy -> RE: Racism is not Dead (9/20/2008 10:09:37 AM)
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The flip side is what a remarkable achievement it will be if Obama wins.
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While a high black turnout will obviously help Obama, whether he becomes president will hinge on the decisions of white voters. (Most Hispanic-Americans list themselves as white or don't designate a race.) In all, 94.2 million white Americans took part in the 2004 presidential election, as compared to only 13.5 million blacks; and 58 percent of whites supported George W. Bush against just 41 percent for John Kerry. So the Obama campaign, even if helped by external events, will have to change a lot of white minds.
There are already danger signs. In three states, race will in effect be on the ballot. Colorado and Nebraska are giving their residents a chance to ban affirmative action. The measures in both states carry the title " civil rights initiative ," at the urging of the black political activist Ward Connerly, who succeeded in outlawing affirmative action in California and has inspired similar campaigns in other states. The signs are that both measures will pass with votes to spare. This is what happened in California (1996), Washington (1998), and Michigan (2006), which tend to be liberal states. The reason isn't hard to find. Putting affirmative action on a ballot encourages white majorities to identify themselves by their race. It's their rights they are voting to restore.
What is seldom openly said is that a lot of white Americans feel racially aggrieved. They were represented by Barbara Grutter and Jennifer Gratz, whose petitions to end affirmative action reached the Supreme Court in 2003. [5] Their claims were that places which would otherwise have been theirs at the University of Michigan were given to less qualified black applicants. Thus, they argued, they were rejected because they were white, and there was an official preference for other races. In separate decisions, the Court narrowly upheld the law school's affirmative action method, while striking down the undergraduate admissions procedure.
What is rarely mentioned is that neither Grutter nor Gratz were outstanding candidates. To put it crudely, they weren't high on the "white list." And a lot of whites see themselves in the same situation. They are the ones who don't get admission or promotions, and thus feel they bear the brunt of affirmative action. Nor are they wrong about this, as Obama observed in his Philadelphia speech. Moreover, such feelings about affirmative action appear to be nationwide, even in states where it hasn't been on the ballot. Obama's word "bitter" may describe a good many blue-collar and middle-income families whose children have been rejected by their state's university.
This explains why close to 65 percent of white voters in California, Washington, and Michigan supported the bans, and why similar proportions are expected to in Colorado and Nebraska this November. So a task of Obama's campaign is to ensure that this white cause—which is what it is—does not carry over to the presidential contest.
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