All Blacks Are Racist Voters, All Conservatives Whistle Dixie

Choosing Dark Skinned Beer

Yesterday the streets in the vicinity of the St. Patrick's Day Parade here in Phoenix were flooded with color... green.

We didn't catch the parade ourselves , and like most things in Arizona, it's a pale comparison to what real cities (NY, San Fran, Boston, Chicago) can pull off in their sleep. When in high school in Manhattan, we blew off classes one year to catch the parade and photograph politicians. We ended up with Mayor Ed Koch, Police Commissioner Bradley, and Mario Cuomo. I think there was a Pat Moynihan shot in there as well.  Back then politicians had a lot of personality. It's one of the things that makes Obama popular in his more casual moments when not looking aloof or bored to death by trivialities.

But the enthusiastic support of all things Irish got us thinking about the 2008 election, where blacks were accused of supporting Obama because he was "black". This accusation, which is still often reshaped and repeated, reduces black voter participation to one of racist loyalty, and serves to support the falsehood that Obama was unprepared and surely the beneficiary of blind enthusiasm by simple people. Indeed, that actual accusation is racist.

We would offer this assertion: In the same way that people are out there celebrating St. Patrick's Day, in part, because it's related to Irishness, so too, many blacks supported President Obama, in part, due to his blackness. Of course many people celebrate St. Patrick's Day because it's fun and for a host of other reasons having nothing to do with Irishness (as in "beer"), and so too, did blacks support Obama for reasons having nothing to do with skin.

Many conservatives that support the blacks as racist sheep theory of voting fail to allow for a complexity in voter choice. Reducing the black voter down to one sole goal allows them a comfort and greater vantage point to take shots at a president they don't like. They can climb on the backs of the perceived "racist" voting choice, and from atop the black mass, take better aim at Barack Obama with slings that would assert his deficiency. After all, if we can rationalize that blacks ONLY voted for him because he was black, that would negate him having any good qualities. Or rather, he has no good qualities, so blacks must have voted for him because he was black.  There is no other reason.

But people vote for multiple reasons in the same manner that they make life choices in multiple ways.

Nobody holds the average white conservative voter to account for the fact that they probably are not pushing a black boyfriend for their daughter, that they are not choosing to move into a black neighborhood, that they are not excited about all black schools for their kids, that some choose to support church congregations that are minimally black, or that, unlike blacks, most conservative whites have never, ever voted for black politicians. Nobody denies the white conservative his joy at downing a pint on St. Patrick's day either. We assume that in every choice, there are reasons beyond mere avoidance of blackness. (The level of whiteness in the average white life is accidental, uhm, right?)

Oh, oh, but that's different, goes the argument. You can't compare choosing white friends, or a white school, or a white boyfriend to choosing a black president. Choosing a president is of utmost importance. "I would never allow racial or ethnic considerations cloud my vote, it's about principals I support and our constitutional obligations" said one conservative pseudo friend of mine. That's a paraphrase, and something I've heard from others as well.

This assumes that blacks are disproportionately, and completely, oblivious to issues like health care reform, war, taxes, and assorted other things of constitutional importance. It also assumes that black voters would support a black candidate who was conservative over a white candidate who was liberal, but we know good and well that actual election results usually prove that construct ridiculous.

There is no problem if conservatives railed at the 90% plus of blacks who always vote Democrat. Amen to that travesty. Blacks need to periodically shift their vote, even if it's for a Klan member, just to show politicians, "Hey, we can do that too, and even vote stupidly, so don't neglect us."  That is the real issue and problem. The black voter is not quick to seek alternatives, though in part because alternatives and their delivery are not presented properly by conservatives or libertarians. You can't expect blacks to rise to your whistle when you are at the same time whistling dixie to your dogs. Blacks are not dogs.

In 2008 blacks were faced with Hillary Clinton and Obama. McCain was a non factor by virtue of his party, positions, and methods, not his race. The space between Clinton and Obama as far as policy was concerned was nearly zero. You pretty much would expect that either one would do those typical Democrat things.

Policy not being a deciding factor, and yet, with Obama pushing hard and specific on many issues, like ending the Iraq War, like saving the economy, like reforming health care, it was not a huge leap for many blacks to say, "Hey, after all these years, let's give this black guy a shot. He seems atop the issues that matter.  Further, because he is black, he just might understand a few things that your average white person doesn't." Whites make the same calculation constantly, subconsciously, and without grief or guilt.

The entire Republican campaign against Barack Obama has been to paint him as different, and essentially, as, not white.  If you can permute him into a Kenyan, or a radical black activist, a thinner Al Sharpton with Marxist tendencies, you've moved him as far from the average white American mental stance as possible. The voter need only say, "Oh man, he is so not like me."

Which may be true if Obama was actually Kenyan, not part white, a Marxist, and proposing policies that had never been proposed before, or doing things that have never been done. But when you strip away the lies that would allow that agitated white conservative to say he is against Obama on "policy", you find out that it is the exact opposite. Because the policies had been done by whites, and in the same Republican party, and, supported.

Romney does a mandated health plan. Republicans propose national plans just like Obama's. It's okay. Obama proposes plan, it's the end of American life. Reagan has higher tax rates. Fine. Reagan and Clapton are God. Obama might allow a temporary tax cut to expire to rates way below Reagan's. Oh no, it's class warfare! Bush increases deficit and voices are muted. Obama increases deficit during major collapse and he is deliberately trying to destroy America. (And mind you, any increased spending at all is largely to deal with pre-Obama issues, but lets not force the details).

There are more than a few social issues that Obama has supported that one would imagine the legitimate conservative, of either race, would be angry over. But in nearly every other area the critiques by white conservatives against Obama amount to a heavily veiled discomfort with race. Obama has transposed any number of ideas from previous politicians and conservative politicians into his own, but a good Republican idea wrapped up in blackface is abhorrent to those who can't really fathom a black face, a black person, as doing anything remotely constructive or complex. (It's how the majority of conservatives can ignore Obama holding his own against a room full of Republicans, and swap in the teleprompter meme instead). And if they are hitting the point where are starting to realize the effort against Obama is futile, you begin to hear the comments about "Well he is not really black anyway." (Ignorance atop ignorance, for the majority of blacks are not really black anyway either, mixed and matched).

Regardless when we hear this nonsense that all blacks voted for Obama because he was black,we bristle, both because it dismisses the policy considerations that blacks make, and, it demeans recognition of black experience. If you ran black and white lives back through a 200 year blender, blacks would come out shredded for worse, and by an entirely different set of experiences. Past racism collectivized the black experience to the point where there is always an assumption (and sometimes wrong) that fellow blacks are like fellow marines, and understanding of the grind. Part of the black vote was a Semper Fi moment due to shared experience, but balanced on the policies that shared experience might create. The minute the policies change, the moment and bond loses strength.

Was a McCain talking gun rights or mocking the black candidate ever really going to beat the black candidate talking health care reform (to a population under-served by good health care)? Or if Obama were Irish and white, would McCain have gotten the black vote?  It all comes down to perceived policy issues.