Do Black People Support Obama Because He's Black?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/black-people-support-obama-because-hes-black-180903550.html

ABC OTUS News – Sat, Oct 13, 2012

Surviving slavery, segregation and discrimination has forged a special pride in African-Americans. Now some are saying this hard-earned pride has become prejudice in the form of blind loyalty to President Barack Obama.

Are black people supporting Obama mainly because he's black? If race is just one factor in blacks' support of Obama, does that make them racist? Can blacks' support for Obama be compared with white voters who may favor his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, because he's white?

These questions have long animated conservatives who are frustrated by claims that white people who oppose Obama's policies are racist. This week, when a black actress who tweeted an endorsement of Romney was subjected to a stream of abuse from other African-Americans, the politics of racial accusation came full circle once again.

Stacey Dash, who also has Mexican heritage, is best known for the 1995 film "Clueless" and the recent cable-TV drama "Single Ladies." On Twitter, she was called "jigaboo," ''traitor," ''house ***" and worse after posting, "Vote for Romney. The only choice for your future."

The theme of the insults: A black woman would have to be stupid, subservient or both to choose a white Republican over the first black president.

Russell Simmons, the hip-hop mogul and Obama backer, called Dash's experience "racism." Said Barbara Walters on "The View": "If she were white, this wouldn't have happened."

Twitter users are by no means representative of America, and many black Obama supporters quickly denounced the attacks. But for people like Art Gary, an information technology professional, the reason Dash was attacked is simple: She is a black woman supporting a white candidate over a black one.

"It goes both ways," said Gary, who is white. "There is racial bias amongst whites, and there is racial bias amongst blacks. But as far as the press is concerned, it only goes one way."

Antonio Luckett, a sales representative in Milwaukee who is black, called the attacks on Dash unfair. But when people speak out against a symbol of black progress like Obama, he said, "African-Americans tend to be internally hurt by that."

"We still have a civil rights (era) mentality, but we're not living in a civil rights-based world anymore," he said. "We want to say, 'You're black, you need to stand behind black people.'"

Luckett said one reason he voted for Obama in the 2008 primary against Hillary Clinton was because Obama is black: "Yes, I will admit that."

Is that racism? Not in Luckett's mind. "It's voting for someone who would understand your side of the coin a lot better."

Such logic runs into trouble when applied to a white person voting for Romney because he understands whiteness better. Ron Christie, a black conservative who worked for former President George W. Bush, finds both sides of that coin unacceptable.

"It's not the vision that our leaders in the civil rights movement would have envisioned and be proud of in the era of the first African-American president," Christie said.

Martin Luther King Jr. fought Jim Crow laws, which deprived blacks of political rights after Reconstruction, upheld by Southern Democrats. But black voters switched after Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the 1960s civil rights legislation and Republicans successfully pursued the votes of white people who disliked the civil rights agenda.

Since then, Democrats have persistently wooed black voters with programs and platforms that African-Americans favor, and the party has been rewarded every four years.

Clinton got 83 percent of the black vote in 1992 and 84 percent in 1996; the third-party candidate Ross Perot probably sliced away some of Clinton's black support. Al Gore got 90 percent in 2000; John Kerry got 88 percent in 2004. Obama captured 95 percent in 2008, and 2 million more black people voted than in the previous election.

Christie says he, too, shares the sense of pride in Obama smashing what for blacks is the ultimate glass ceiling. He understands that black pride springs from a shared history of being treated as less than human, while the history of pride in whiteness has a racist context.

But he still sees black people voting for Obama out of a "straitjacket solidarity."

Christie sees it in his barbershop, where black men shifted from calling candidate Obama "half-white" and "not one of us" to demanding that Christie stop opposing the first black president.

He sees it in the comments of radio host Tom Joyner, who told his millions of listeners a year ago, "Let's not even deal with facts right now. Let's deal with our blackness and pride — and loyalty. . I'm not afraid or ashamed to say that as black people, we should do it because he's a black man."

The actor Samuel L. Jackson said much the same thing: "I voted for Barack because he was black," he told Ebony magazine. "Cuz that's why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them."

In 2011, as black unemployment continued to rise, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus said that if Clinton was still president, "we probably would be still marching on the White House . (but) nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."

And just last week, the rapper Snoop Dogg posted a list of his voting reasons online. No. 1 on his pro-Obama list: He's black. Snoop's top reason to not vote for Romney: He's white.

All of this may help explain why Veronica Scott-Miller, a junior at historically black Hampton University, directed the following tweet at Dash: "You get a lil money and you forget that you're black and a woman. Two things Romney hates."

In an interview, Scott-Miller said the GOP fought Obama's effort to provide funding for historically black colleges like hers. She dislikes Romney's opposition to abortion and thinks Republicans have a "negative stigma about us . they make generalizations in their speeches about our race in general, and they make up terms like welfare queens and stuff."

Told that some saw her tweet as racist, she said that's not what she meant. "I was saying that as a black woman, Romney doesn't have that much that would make us want to vote for him," said Scott-Miller, who is black. "Because Barack Obama lives with three black women in his house, he knows about what they need, he knows about the issues we may be facing, he talks to black women on the regular."

Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor at the University of Maryland, wrote a column last week exploring why so many black voters are rejecting Romney.

She said it has less to do with the candidate than with his party's treatment of Obama, such as John Sununu calling the president "lazy" after the debate, a congressman shouting "You lie!" during the State of the Union address, claims that Obama is not a citizen and more.

In an interview, Ifill said that for black voters, such accusations feel like white people are attacking their own dignity. "In essence," she says, "they are closing ranks around Obama."

She noted that women were justifiably moved by Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy and Catholics flocked to the polls to elect President John F. Kennedy. Comparing black pride in Obama to white pride in Romney is a "false symmetry" because of the history of black oppression, she says, and she asked for patience from America at large.

"There should not be this resistance to pride over the first black president," Ifill says. "If we get to the fifth one, I'll be with you."

Edited October 14, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[rade2rising 205]

do white ppl marry other white ppl bcoz they are the same color?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

do white ppl marry other white ppl bcoz they are the same color?

Lot of us don't anymore... LOL

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

do white ppl marry other white ppl bcoz they are the same color?

Yes. Unless they fall in love with someone other than white. Like me.

[Danno 1,228]

do white ppl marry other white ppl bcoz they are the same color?

Apples and oranges.

YOu marry people you know personally, very personally which gives you much more to select that person from.

How much did we really know about Hillary and Barry.. except their politics were nearly identical?

People often gravitate towards people they can relate to or are more similar than them. Thats why your friends are typically in the same intelligence range as you, most often the same race and just as often the same sex.

I don't think Blacks voted for Barack simply because he is black, or you would have to assume any conservative Black would have had the same record setting voting-block.

Black was a real motivator once the candidate was palatable.

I have no problem considering race in some aspects of life.... politics just is not one. I simply consider two things, the candidates character and what they will do in office.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

I think there are plenty of people who vote based on race. Plenty of black people who are voting for Obama because he's black, and plenty of white people who aren't voting for Obama because he's black.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I think there are plenty of people who vote based on race. Plenty of black people who are voting for Obama because he's black, and plenty of white people who aren't voting for Obama because he's black.

Just as there are voters who refused to vote for Kennedy because he was Catholic, as well as voters who voted for GWB believing that he was a fervently religious Christian. Heck, there's voters who'll vote strictly along party lines, even when their candidate was a weak choice during the primaries.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Commie Appeaser

[Penny Lane 8,159]

Just as there are voters who refused to vote for Kennedy because he was Catholic, as well as voters who voted for GWB believing that he was a fervently religious Christian. Heck, there's voters who'll vote strictly along party lines, even when their candidate was a weak choice during the primaries.

Exactly.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Just as there are voters who refused to vote for Kennedy because he was Catholic, as well as voters who voted for GWB believing that he was a fervently religious Christian. Heck, there's voters who'll vote strictly along party lines, even when their candidate was a weak choice during the primaries.

Exactly.

That is how the junior senator from Illinois with no executive, no military, and no private sector experience, became president, wasn't it?

[Penny Lane 8,159]

That is how the junior senator from Illinois with no executive, no military, and no private sector experience, became president, wasn't it?

I think his message helped a lot. After 8 years of Bush, "hope and change" is exactly what people were looking for. He was well spoken, had an energetic base, and was viewed as a refreshing alternative. Race and party probably got him quite a few votes but so did his campaigning.

[JohnR! 5,495]

I think his message helped a lot. After 8 years of Bush, "hope and change" is exactly what people were looking for. He was well spoken, had an energetic base, and was viewed as a refreshing alternative. Race and party probably got him quite a few votes but so did his campaigning.

You can also add to that the fact that the choice of Palin as VP helped ensure a few more votes for the democrats. Palin was the nail in the coffin, for many.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

That is how the junior senator from Illinois with no executive, no military, and no private sector experience, became president, wasn't it?

I thought he was Irish. That's why I voted for O'Bama.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

I thought he was Irish. That's why I voted for O'Bama.

[Teddy B 17,251]

That is how the junior senator from Illinois with no executive, no military, and no private sector experience, became president, wasn't it?

Exactly. By all rights, Hillary should have been the Democratic candidate, she out classed Obama in every way. There is only one thing that gave Obama the nod over Hillary and that is the color of his skin.

[JohnR! 5,495]

Exactly. By all rights, Hillary should have been the Democratic candidate, she out classed Obama in every way. There is only one thing that gave Obama the nod over Hillary and that is the color of his skin.

I believe that if Hillary had been the candidate, she would have won by a landslide...