Comments on: Poll: Racism in Dems could cost Obama election

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:32:42 +0000

Anyone who thinks race doesn’t play a part in every facet of life in this country is naive or worse.

We will never know how much it plays into this election because most it’s no longer socially acceptable to be overtly racist so most won’t be honest about it.

By: karamel

karamel — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:07:48 +0000

While Obama’s youth and record make him a target in this year’s election, be mindful that ever since it became illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, there has been a strong correlation between “unqualified” and “member of a minority group,” regardless of what the ‘qualifications’ are. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if a study showed that that’s what a good number of the people who say that really mean.

By: karamel

karamel — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:59:35 +0000

AGAIN: Racism is a system of oppression that has historically and presently still TAGRETS members of certain out-groups, not just a bad feeing that one person has about another. And NOBODY says it’s heterophobic against straight people when Gays support each other. Especially when voting in IN THEIR OWN INTEREST ABOUT OTHER ISSUES- as most Black DEMOCRATS(DUH!!) believe they are. Why do people believe it is constructive, community support building when it’s their own group, but not when it’s another? I’m gonnna go with there was never a “brutal savage who will lash out at any moment without cause” mythology about gay men. There was never a law in this country that claimed that any group of adult male Gays congregating was equivalent to inciting a riot (even after the WAS a riot, whereas Black men hadn’t even rebelled yet when this fear was conjured in the White imagination) and therefore prohibited. There was never any deep-seated psychological fear, based in the guilty collective conscience, that given that chance and the power, “They” will do to “us” what “we” did to “them.” And I’m gonna go with stereotypes about Whites(and John, NONE of them are “sexually perverted”– that’s actually an old myth about minority sexuality that still pervades in Western Mainstream and fringe media, unless of course you’re counting fetishism and exoticism as stereotype about WHITE people. If anything WASP sexuality has always been considered the “norm,” but I don’t have to tell you that) are based more in statistical fact than intentionally constructed anti-truths and are certainly not based in psychological warfare on a WHOLE group of people. Let’s not get it twisted. Complaints of this sort completley ignore history and pretend that the present is anywhere near equal. Think about it: any “prejudice” of Blacks or any other minority against Whites is still largely IRRELEVANT to anything but hurt feelings (and a reality check to assumption that you should be liked by a member of another race- something minorities can rarely take for granted). When a majority of Whites start having trouble getting a job because of their address or how their name sounds, or for wearing the hair god gave them, or b/c they’re deemed “not a good fit” by WHOEVER’s in power, then maybe it will be something to mention.

By: John

John — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:29:54 +0000

But it is exactly that. While we cannot measure the precise influence race has on particular individuals’ decisions (only their attitudes), we can say with certainty that it plays some factor in the overall landscape. How much of a factor remains debatable. And it will probably be debated by statisticians until the next election.

But obviously, no politician would use race as a divisive issue if it wasn’t an effective way to win votes. And in elections from South Africa to Australia, it has had a significant effect one way or another.

Moreover, this survey is especially disturbing because it points to deeply entrenched racism buried deep inside the psyche of many Americans, including those who consider themselves liberal. That’s what word and image association is. It is a test designed to gauge snap judgments. You aren’t given time to think about your answers because that’s when the rationalizations and equivocations start to kick in. With this sort of survey, they flash a word or picture across the screen in front of you and expect an immediate response (agree / disagree; good / bad; yes / no).

By: Morgan

Morgan — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:18:26 +0000

I don’t care if a person is blue, violet, or purple or green so long as person can relieve us of 8 years Bush and maybe 4 years of McBush and do the good job our country needs.

I read in the Washington Post that Todd Palin can’t stay out of the way of his wife the governor. He is not even elected yet he is there with his wife prying into the halls of the Alaska legislature. He assert himself into every facet of what his wife is doing. He will do the same thing if his wife is our VP, helping to run the country when he wasn’t elected to her office by anyone.

We don’t need those kinds of scenarios of Todd Palin inserting himself into the running of our land where he has no business at all. He is needed as husband helping to raise the kids, nothing more.

The same with the Clinton while Bill was president. Hillary was helping to run the country when noone elected her. And husband Bill was just as unable to let Hillary run her own campaign show getting in the way when he would have been more useful on the home front. Same for Todd Palin, he is the Republic version of can’t leave the spouse as candidate be.

So, bring on the right person for the times we live. Race and gender are of course supremely irrelevant to doing the best job humanly possible to turn this country around.

Content of character is of course all
that counts.

A woman for US president, of course. Woman have been presidents and prime ministers of India, Ireland, Iceland, Israel, UK. The chancelor of Germany is a woman talking to the Russians
about getting out of their neighbor Georgia.

It’s about time an African American or a woman was US president and for the glass ceiling under the presidency to crack into a thousand pieces. Walter Mondale and his VP Geraldine Ferraro running for the White House back then.

This country is a changin’ much as it hates to change. It is a very different place than when I was growing up 50 years ago. Hungary was rebelling against Communist rule when I was 3,Stalin died when in born in 1953. It never oocured to me years ago that I would live to see gay marriage anywhere in the world let alone the USA, or that I would ever see a nonwhite or a woman become a US president. I watched my grandmother scrub clothes on a scrub ooard and her use a washer with a wringer arm. Clothes would dry on a line had no dishwasher or clothes dryer in her house back then. Got to see records that I always took for granted become obsolete. The world had changed in so many different
ways in my life over the years.

Never dreamed that I would one day live for 18 years with another man. Or that people would one day be talking about gay rights. Gay wasn’t something I thought about, or a term I started to apply to myself until I was 26. And gay rights I didn’t have any thougth about until I wss in my late 30s.

That is why I am exited to live in the 21st century, possibilities are so many. not just for myself but for US especially with so many more advanced countries than the US to show the US the way.

By: Ed Gould

Ed Gould — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:49:25 +0000

The democrats have to be careful about bringing up the race issue. The candidate is unqualified which makes it easy (too easy?) for people to say they do not like him. Just because people do not find him qualified does not make them racists. There is a strong case that people do not care for Obama because of his lack of back bone which could be called bigotry or at the very least lack of good judgement.
Don’t play the race card unless it is exactly that.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:35:04 +0000

So if Clinton won we would be reading this article: “Gender Issues with Dems Could Cost Clinton Election”. And in the article there would be stats on how a percentage of Obama supporters could not support a woman and others who would be supporting McCain. I think polls showed people were slightly more averse to electing a woman than a black man president. Either way people had hesitations. Maybe the only way they could had the best outcome is if they were on the same ticket, but then we’d lose supporters who didn’t like the other candidate. We’ll see how it all shakes out.

Also, it’s hilarious that some “Dems” as mentioned in the article think McCain would be more likely to bring about the change they want. What the heck are they talking about?!?! I’d really like to know how they define “change”. The article leaves us hanging.

By: John

John — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:45:30 +0000

TimD,

I think we can make an educated guess as to what the converse version of that little word association game might look like:

“Greedy, arrogant, selfish, self-righteous, dishonest, untrustworthy, sexually perverted, cruel, sadistic, and evil”

Did I miss anything?

By: Roger Ramjet

Roger Ramjet — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:29:17 +0000

This is nonsense. This is more propaganda from the republican controlled media empires to send unwarranted fears for some and hope for others. This is no different that what the republicans do with terror and threat assessments just in time for elections.

Democrats ARE the party of Diversity. Do not believe this crap. After the Palin debacle, women of all kinds are voting for Obama in percentage points LARGER than 68%. That leaves all the little republican woman who are part of GW BUSH’S Base. Yet Republican Media certainly isn’t reporting this FACT.

Get informed. Operation Chaos is a republican funded government operation – illegal at best!

No worries. Obama has got this!!!!!

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:12:05 +0000

Also, it’s hilarious that some “Dems” as mentioned in the article think McCain would be more likely to bring about the change they want. What the eff are they talking about?!?! I’d really like to know how they define “change”. The article leaves us hanging.