I've often wanted to ask a white person if it bothers them when this sort of thing occurs, or is it a blunt statement of truth that should be unremarkable, even in 2008... from Tony Norman of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (with a hat tip to the CarpetBagger Report):
Gov. Ed “Don’t Call Me ‘Fast Eddie’ ” Rendell met with the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week to talk about his latest budget. But before turning the meeting over to his number-crunchers, our voluble governor weighed in on the primary fight between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and what the Illinois senator could expect from the good people of Pennsylvania at the polls:
“You’ve got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate,” he said bluntly. Our eyes only met briefly, perhaps because the governor wanted to spare the only black guy in the room from feeling self-conscious for backing an obvious loser. “I believe, looking at the returns in my election, that had Lynn Swann [2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate] been the identical candidate that he was — well-spoken [note: Mr. Rendell did not call the brother “articulate”], charismatic, good-looking — but white instead of black, instead of winning by 22 points, I would have won by 17 or so.”
I know I have a habit of sometimes zoning out in these meetings, but it sounded to me like Mr. Rendell had unilaterally declared Pennsylvania to be Alabama circa 1963. Was he suggesting that Pennsylvanians are uniquely racist in ways that folks in the states Mr. Obama has won so far aren’t?
Similar things are said by Black people, oh, like every day (along with the statement "I hope Barack doesn't win because somebody's gonna kill him.") When I hear it, I usually dismiss it as the old fashioned thinking of someone who doesn't know anyone from the MTV generation. But of course, I could be wrong. Hell, a year ago, I thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable...
The point, however, is that this race is shifting, and in some ways tossing out, all of the old paradigms. Exit polls suggest that Barack Obama may be taking about 48 percent of the White vote, a plurality of the blue collar vote, plus 70 percent of Independents and almost all of the Republicans who crossed over. If Barack CAN win so-called "downscale whites" after all, then the Rendell statement may be true, but it may be less true today than it was, say, ten or twenty or thirty years ago.
If it is less true, I think part of the reason may be that white men in particular, especially those in the cities and suburbs, have acclimatized themselves to Black men -- on the job, in the gym, on ESPN, on the athletic field, and in other facets of every day life. In fact, in some ways, a Black man like Barack, who is accessible and not overtly "racial," is probably more acceptable in some blue collar white households than a feminist woman (especially one who is running a more and more explicitly "female" campaign.) From ABC News:
In the Democratic contest in Virginia, preliminary exit poll results indicated that Obama not only won 9 in 10 African-Americans, but split white voters with Hillary Clinton. That came on the strength of his support from white men, who favored him by more than a 10-point margin. Obama has won or tied Clinton among white men in 12 previous contests for which we have exit poll results, and in seven of them, won the race. (The four he lost include California and Arizona, where Hispanics made the difference for Clinton. In Virginia, Hispanic voters were far fewer in number.)
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
