Last weekend's Washington Post/ABC poll of white and Black voters racial attitudes revealed, well, not much at all.
The headline was "3 in 10 Americans Admit To Racial Bias". According to this poll, when asked the useless question of whether one experiences "feelings of personal racial prejudice", Blacks (34% of respondents) rate worse than whites (30%). (I say Black respondents are more truthful. Meanwhile, yellow and brown apparently are still not worth polling at all.)
But the piece really focused on some obscure "racial sensitivity index" whose methodology apparently couldn't be fully disclosed for fear someone might actually call b.s. on it. According to this fantastical statistical invention, whites who have a Black friend on speed-dial, just bought a brownstone in Harlem, and have downloaded a Weezy mixtape in the last 3 years are about 20% more likely to vote for Barack Obama than their Lil Abner cousins.
(In the fog of a rowdy Saturday night wedding reception, I watched Sunday morning pundits making big hay of this "fact." Not to stereotype unfairly, but White Northeastern pundits shouldn't be so self-congratulatory. If I was a Southern white, well, I guess I wouldn't hate 'em any less than I do now. You see? I don't stereotype unfairly.)
So after creating a thoroughly bunk way of measuring how racist white American voters actually are -- the numbers go: 21% "congratulations you're not racist", 50% "you're pretty much not racist or probably you are a little," and 29% "you're embarrassing to us so please stay home unless John King needs to interview you"-- much of the poll's conclusions are completely useless.
Or just plain tiresome. Of the racially insensitive 29%, the Post intones, "Obama has some convincing to do..." Yes, colored folk--when your boss calls you a terrorist-fist-bumping radical Muslim baby daddy, you must excuse him and tell him nicely no, he's wrong, would he like to have a conversation about it. (Please excuse us if we spit instead.)
What was news to me was that the gaps in perceptions of race relations are as bad as they were on the eve of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
More than six in 10 African Americans now rate race relations as "not so good" or "poor," while 53 percent of whites hold more positive views. Opinions are also divided along racial lines, though less so, on whether blacks face discrimination.
Right.
After Katrina, No Child Left Behind, Incarceration Nation, and two oil wars, it's apparently more difficult than ever to find any consensus that race relations aren't so great and racial discrimination still exists.
That's not just depressing, it's "two Americas" depressing to both of my consciousnesses.
But wait, it gets worse.
To wit:
Many think Obama has the potential to transform current racial politics. Nearly six in 10 believe his candidacy will shake up the racial status quo, for better or worse....
African Americans are much more optimistic than whites on this score: Sixty percent said Obama's candidacy will do more to help race relations, compared with 38 percent of whites.
Is it possible that Blacks -- and the great, underpolled mass of Latinos and Asian Americans (who will likely vote Obama in much greater majorities than whites) -- place too much faith that Obama can reverse the national course on institutional racism?
And why are whites -- who say they are overwhelmingly ready to elect a "Black president" (one almost hears the caveat "if he's qualified" being attached like a reflex) -- less likely to believe that race relations will get better if Obama wins? Do they know what's in the Kool-Aid? Or are they are sober about what may happen if Obama actually challenges white privilege?
It's impossible not to appreciate the kind of Jackie Robinson-like line Barack Obama must walk right now in this campaign. All of this comes in the face of the growing list of white pundits who would presume to lecture Obama on just how to win white voters, from the soccer moms to the lunchpail dads. Yes, forget all you've heard about angry feminists and people of color and feminists of color, because here are the real identity politics at work.
For as unilluminating as this poll is, it poses a key question for Obama's supporters and anyone concerned with racial justice, not just "feelings of racial prejudice": how do you find and engage those who don't want to know what change really looks like?
Originally posted at Vibe.com
Follow Jeff Chang on Twitter: www.twitter.com/zentronix
Secondly, Barack Obama is African American the way that Teresa Kerry was African American, except second generation: the son of a scholarship student from Kenya to Harvard. He gets the slavery legacy only from the prejudices of particular communities (which, oddly enough, he never knew in his childhood.) In the old pattern of Caucasion and whatever, Kenyans have the dark skin color, but they were considered to be the most Caucasion by blood of Africans.
Thirdly, Senator Obama is well regarded among those who know him and especially in his own generation. The issue of his experience compared to Senator McCain who doesn't seem to have learned much from his also involves the "passing of the torch:" always controversial but the most hopeful if only it should be done well.
I understand very well Chang's "distrust" shall I call his sarcastic attempts. I see these phony liberals all the time posturing their "purity""o themselves, while blaming others. A most blatant example being in college when one of these so-called liberals, leading a crowd, launched an attack upon some white athletes in the crowd inciting Blacks in the crowd to attack them. Thusly incited, the Blacks attacked, and were thrown back in a hail of flying chairs/infuriated would-be victims. Other people's injuries disregarded, the white liberal weaseled away and the admin just "kept things quiet". This model is followed (more smoothly) everywhere I look, and of course the weasels slink away, self-righteously blaming others.
Chang's distrust of MSM in it's racial pronouncements is rooted in reality. He will discover their are many others from other races who agree and would love to deal more positively with the situation than does MSM.
I'm sure that nice lady who said everything used to be friendly and nice in Jena before people from out of town showed up was sincere, but the black people she used to see around did not have the same easy town and high school experience. I'm not naive enough to think that just talking and listening to each others' experiences, but MyNameIsJames, we have common issues of justice to work on too, and there are powers that are afraid that people of different colours might work together.
Peace
I understand very well Chang's "distrust" shall I call his sarcastic attempts. I see these phony liberals all the time posturing "to themselves" of their purity. A most blatant example being in college when one of these weasels, in a lead-the-crowd setting, launched an attack upon some white athletes in the crowd and incited Blacks in the crowd to attack them. Thusly riled, the Blacks attacked, being thrown back in a hail of flying chairs and infuriated would-be victims. Injuries disregarded, the weaselly white liberal weaseled away and the admin just "kept things quiet". This is the model followed (more smoothly) everywhere I look, and of course the weasels slink away, self-righteously blaming others.
Chang's distrust of MSM in it's racial pronouncements is rooted in reality. He will discover their are many others from all the other races who agree and would love to deal directly and positively with the situation.
A bullet item at the bottom says:
[bq]
Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.
[eq]
Yet the methodology in the report says:
[bq]
In each contacted household, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adult male currently
at home. If no male was available, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adult female at
home.
[eq]
lollll....How do you draw conclusions about male and female responses when your sample set was intentionally designed to prefer the responses of males?
Further, this is a poll about religion, so ask yourself: If you are NOT religious, would you be likely to say "No, I don't wanna take a poll on religion.".?
Then consider the response rate quoted by the report's full PDF (http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/report2-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf):
"Thus the response rate for this survey was 24 percent.".
Now compare that to the approach the MSM media took - for instance, CBS' story (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/23/national/main4202617.shtml) begins:
"America remains a nation of believers...". .
How do you get THAT, with only a 24% response rate?
I am not a statistic, I am not a category.
It's a much needed salve for every time I've wanted to throw something at the TV (usually my copy of Newsweek) as yet another pundit advises Obama on how to apologize to racists for having been born with a non-WASP name to a non-American father.
> "feelings of personal racial prejudice"...
True enough, this is a useless question. We have neither the need nor the ability to change how our fellow citizens FEEL. So why devote attention to this survey.
> place too much faith that Obama can reverse the national course on institutional racism?
For the country as a whole, there's a consensus against institutional racial discrimination. Within the left-wing of the Democratic party, though, the consensus FAVORS institutional discrimination. When it was last on the ballot in California, over 70% of Berkeley voters were FOR institutional racial discrimination, and held passionate rallys urging the government to CONTINUE to categorize its citizens into "racial" groups and discriminate accordingly.
Stuart's "Random Thoughts" blog
The one point I have heard pundits make, to their credit, is that these polls are in no way an accurate sample simply due to technology. Many people don't have landlines (many never did - also a skew in the numbers) rather they use cell phones, which aren't included.
Probably the largest flaw with polls is that the demographic largely consists of those who have time and money enough to spend on the phone with a pollster. Folks working two or more jobs can't take the time to express their opinion - part of the same old systemic problem where the poor are too busy working to get food on the table to participate.
As for Barack Obama
He is a serious politician. He is also a political celebrity. Americans love their celebrities. So many people are pouring all sorts of hopes and dreams into his run for President.
When it comes to Barack Obama and race, I would like to issue a word of caution to White America. Electing Barack Obama will not absolve this nation of the work that still has to be done in the trenches on racial relations as well as economic, political, and social equity.
For those White Americans who believe that electing Barack Obama will mean that African Americans are finally going to shut up and stop disturbing their illusions of true fairness and equality - they have another thing coming. In fact, it would be better if those type of people voted for John McCain or Bob Barr.
If you believe that Barack Obama is truly the best person for the job, then by all means vote for him!
You all blamed Bill Clinton's presidency on Blacks while the few who did vote had only the choice of either Clinton or Bush again who struck down affirmative action so fast and hard that it could be used as a metaphor for 911!
And the Clintons did not try to strike it back up either. Another reason why I'm apalled that the Clintons think that Black people owe them while they've done nothing for anyone except "Big corps".
Don't blame Black people if or when BO wins. Blame yourself for wanting to hold on to the America that's disfunctional and does not work in it's same old never changing ways.