Double-standards?

There's a rather odd notion in some circles that black people voting for Barack Obama on the grounds that he is black is itself somewhat racist. Here's Iain Dale for instance:

I could hardly believe my ears this morning, listening to my old mucker Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on 5 Live, talking about the US election. Shelagh Fogarty quoted a poll saying that 97% of black voters in America are supporting Obama. She asked Yasmin if she thought it was OK for black people to vote for him purely because he is black. Yasmin said yes, she thought it was absolutely fine.

I wonder what she would have said to white voters voting for McCain purely on the basis that he is white. Sadly that question wasn't asked.

This, alas, strikes me a somewhat simple-minded nitwittery. Nitwittery that also ignores history. Black voters who voted for Obama weren't voting against McCain because the latter is white. However we know that there have been plenty of people who vote against black candidates on the basis of their skin. There's a world of difference between a positive reason for voting for a given candidate and a negative one. That's to say that white voters voting for McCain because he's white are really voting against Obama because he's black. The reverse does not hold. After all, black voters have had plenty of practice voting for white candidates. In any case, the rules are different for minorities as, generally speaking, they should be.

Anyway, read this post - by a black libertarian - to have a sense of what this all means. I think most white folk do not truly appreciate just how momentous an event this is for black Americans. I mean, we know that it must be and we can see and appreciate the joy our black friends are feeling, but we can't, for obvious reasons, feel it in our bones to anything like the same extent. A good day, however.

Comments

[MattF]

Electing an African-American President is a phenomenal political achievement-- and insofar as near-unanimous African-American support for Obama helped that happen, all I can say is "Thank you".

[ndm]

Many of the best memorable stories of the election concerned black people finally voting for the first time in their long lives. I defy anyone to call these people racist for finally voting for someone they can totally identify with and for finally voting for something they probably never believed would happen in their lifetime.

Andrew Sullivan had a great example yesterday:

At 3 p.m. on Election Day, the Foundry Methodist Church voting station in Dupont Circle was doing light but brisk business. As I signed my name to receive my ballot, one of the poll workers loudly asked another to ring the small bell on their table. "Everyone please listen up for a moment," he boomed while holding on to an old black woman standing perhaps 5'2" with a huge grin. "This is our special voter of the day. She's 95 years old and this is her first time voting."

As everyone in the room took her in and the thundering applause echoed through the old church basement, her glinting eyes quickly teared up and she somehow managed an even bigger smile.

Who dares call this woman a racist?

Somehow, I doubt Sullivan will mind too much that I stole his entire post.

[Mike Donohue]

Alex, you are correct. The Irish, Italians, Polish, all embraced the first of their community to reach certain electoral milestones, and this is not really different. Roman Catholics voted nearly 4-1 for JFK in 1960 in a similar spirit, which was a sharp shift from the 1956 election. In any case, this vote is hardly inconsistent with well established African-American voting patterns.

[ndm]

It is also worth looking at the election map posted by Matthew Yglesias. The map shows those counties where McCain did better than Bush - hard to believe, but it did happen. Andrew Sullivan noted that these McCain supporters were "[o]bviously concerned about marginal tax rates for those earning over $250,000 a year, I suppose."

[Richard T]

Accepting the obvious point about identity, it might also be that black voters chose to vote Democrat because of the nature pf the Republican party's campaign and their association with the white establishment in the deep south which is clearly where its power base will lie for the immmediate future.

[dearieme]

"The Irish, Italians, Polish, all embraced the first of their community to reach certain electoral milestones, and this is not really different." Quite: all those examples are racist too. No surprise - everyone's a racist is some sense of the term.

"In any case, the rules are different for minorities as, generally speaking, they should be. "

pretty racist to say, eh?

no comment