And About Race...

Still think that race is not an issue in America? Or embarrassed that it is? This new poll, conducted in conjunction with Stanford University, shows that Obama would lead by 6 more points than he is now if he were white.

Some excerpts:

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey."

"The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home — among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain."

"We still don't like black people," said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

About this last opinion, wow. And perhaps if whites hadn't enslaved black people, raped their culture, their women, exploited their labor, split apart their families, and then systematically terrorized them and disenfranchised them for over another hundred additional years to the present, maybe they would be better off.

Ignorant people have no idea what it is like to be systematically terrorized and to have governmental institutions support that oppression by criminalizing that same entire social and ethnic group. Because they are ignorant and most often white.

Until the late '60's, lynching was still prevalent. Ignorant people will often say, "Well, I feel scared walking down such and such a street." What they don't understand is that is an individual experience, it is not institutional. It is not on a collective, social level. Your entire neighborhood isn't terrorized while authority sits back and does nothing. People who go abroad and experience racism, they know. They can imagine what it is like to grow up with that feeling of fear, because not only does everyone feel that they can victimize you with impunity, but you also fear the supposedly authoritative, protective government institutions which are meant to protect people but not you if you're colored.

However, there is some hope that despite racism, people are seeing that Obama will do what is in their best interests, while McCain will merely continue the rapacious streak of exploitation and cronyism that Bush/Cheney have instituted. Read the story of one Pennsylvanian's change of mind, if not heart.

But then there is the other side. On Patt Morrison's show on KPCC 89.3, there was a man who said that on the one hand, he was concerned about Obama's lack of experience. But then in a dizzying display of circular reasoning, he thought that even though McCain had exactly the kind of experience that led us to this crisis (actually, McCain, Bushites and Cheneyites) it was alright that Palin had no experience because she was "like me." If that isn't a code for racism, what is?