A Vote for McCain is a vote for a maverick, a reformer, experience....and whiteness?

I do not know about anyone else, but this Presidential Election in 2008 is both very exciting, but also very nerve racking. Like a drug, I feel like it is bad for me to continue watching CNN for 5 or 6 hours each day, yet I cannot break this addiction. So, to add to the cacophony of analysis and discussion out there in the world about the fate of American politics, I want to talk about the nature of race in this election. This election will prove to be critical not just because of the implications of a failing economy, a president with the second lowest approval rating in history, and the rising dependency on oil, but also because of the implications that for the first time in America’s history, there is the opportunity to elect an individual that does not happen to be a white male. Some individuals would make the claim – dumb as it is – that race has no impact on this election; note Lou Dobbs of CNN. He had the audacity to say on National television during the primary season that Barack Obama was wrong for even insinuating in his primary speech to the country that race was an issue anymore in this great country of America. Dobbs stated, almost as fact, “99% of the people in this country want to be right. They do not want to be racist.” (I believe it was redacted by CNN. However this racial unawareness is not uncommon to Lou Dobbs -see here, and here. I feel the missing comment from Lou Dobbs happened somewhere around where Roland Martin tries to clear up confusion by clarifying that Obama never said that America was a racist country.) 99%!? That means if I took a random sample of the people of America today, say 1,000 people, that I would only find 10 people that would say to me that they are not voting for Obama because he is black. Hmmmm, race does not play a part? Let us see what evidence I can find to refute this claim. My argument is that IF Obama loses, it will be in large part due to his race, because it has been claimed by political analysts that Obama should be up more than he is in the polls right now due to Bush and all the events that have transpired since this campaigning began.

First, this idea that 99% of Americans want to be right…a bunch of bull. I will not demean the progress that has been gained in this country from slavery to where we are today, but I will not and cannot accept that 99% of America is essentially done with racism. If that were so there would not be a market for such websites that sell t-shirts and clothing with n*gger jokes or where people express on camera that race will prevent them from voting for Obama., seen here

I would imagine the ease with which I found just these and many other sites and videos from typing in two simple words says a lot about the statistical impossibility that 99% of America is NOT racist. I cannot tell you an exact percent, nor will I attempt to project one. What I will say is being real about it and being honest about the potential effects it can have is important. I support Obama, and I have already sent in my absentee ballot, but should he NOT win, I would be remiss if analysts attempted to downplay this issue in the media.

Let’s fast forward to Palin and McCain and their rallies as of late. Recently, these rally members have been getting more vocal. Note this video below:

Why is being Arab such a dirty word? No one, neither McCain or Obama, have spoken up to say not only that calling Obama Arab is a lie but also that if he WAS and Arab, that should not disqualify a leader of Arabic descent from being an effective president. No one has payed lip service to the fact that continuing to draw this line where an Arab running for president would be dangerous spreads lies about Obama as an individual but continues to spread stereotypes about Muslim Americans that they are “risky”. I applaud McCain for stepping up to try and refute this man and then this woman, but the impression I received was that because Obama is not Muslim, and because he IS a decent, family-oriented man, then Muslims must not be decent people according to McCain and those who try to make this connection. This is sad that the deeper issue continues to be glossed over, and this, “my friends”, is racism and profiling. Palin mentioned in a People Magazine interview that “…I have heard though are comments like Barack Obama has made outright asking his supporters to go out there and argue with us and ‘get in their face.’ I’ve heard things like that directly from, of course, Barack Obama via the news waves. But I haven’t heard such a mean-spirited and ugly comment as you mentioned at one of our rallies.” Maybe the rally was too loud to discern those words, but it was surely picked up on National Media Channels, so I wonder how she missed the comments?

Again, racism is evident.

Finally, let us talk about today. A campaign worker in Pittsburgh filed a police report that she was attacked by an African-American Barack Obama supporter, who went so far as to etch a backwards “B” on her face to attack her for being a McCain supporter. The kicker is that the report was a false one. While the motives of this woman have not been identified, I will go out on a limb and call this good old fashion race-baiting. The fact that she reported a black man attacked her because she wasn’t supporting a Black candidate, knowing that news would spread about it, could have incited others who saw through this to see the racial undertones. I can’t even lie…I laughed when I found out it was false, because it was so ridiculous. I did a quick search of news articles too, to see how many would report on the full allegation made – many omitted the fact that she accused a black man of doing this to her. Many stories glossed over this detail she shared, simply saying she accused an “Obama supporter of attacking her.”

Let me be clear, it is a beautiful country that we have, and there is more overt racial oppression that is going on in the world than we can even begin to fathom within this country’s borders. Yet, being comparitively better off should not make us complacent as a nation. I wonder, if Obama had the same educational credentials that either McCain or Palin had, would he even have reached the primaries as one of the top 3 democratic candidates? I look at these questions in strongly considering where America really is with the race question. I completed a research paper where I studied the effect of Race on the Presidency while in college in 2006. In a self-designed survey, I issued winning political platforms with the pircutre of Black and White men and women. While asking the question “was America ready for a black president in 10 years” the solid majority said yes. When asking to vote on who was more presidential on the basis of the platform and pictures, the winner was overwhelmingly the white male. While it was not a research design worthy of presentation at an APSA conference it was interesting to note the results when pictures were provided with the survey.

Denial is the easiest solution if avoiding a problem is the answer. After all, believing something doesn’t exist makes it impossible to address it even if it stares you in your face. Acceptance – admitting this country still has problems with racism and profiling is not repugnant, so long as acceptance leads to action. America is a great placem but it is not devoid of problems. Electing Obama will not prove that racism has been eradicated in America, but it will prove that we have climbed one step higher on this ladder of social responsibility and equality.

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