Of course the WaPo never mentions in this report of racist attitudes that all the racism the Obama campaign received was coming from other Democrats:
For all the hope and excitement Obama’s candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed — and unreported — this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They’ve been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they’ve endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.
~~~Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: “It wasn’t pretty.” She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!”
Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across “a lot of racism” when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: “White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people.”
Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly positive
McQ notes that the majority of racism depicted in the article are anecdotes, hearsay, and history:
However, when it comes down to actually putting names to the incidents, only three anecdotes do that – and they’re all about Clinton supporters. That is to say, Democrats
Geez, I woulda thought it was only us Republicans who were the racists.
Oh, I’m not saying there are racists in this country. There always will be. But don’t gloss over the 92% of blacks that voted for Obama when you talk about racist. When almost a 100% of a certain race vote a certain way for another person of their same race, its not because of his policies.
And just wait till the general. The word “racism” will be thrown around like beads in New Orleans. Hope McCain is prepared.
stix1972 wrote:
Mata Harley had pointed out that on Obama’s website, he has a category labeled “people”, and what he’s done is divide his supporters up into special interest groups, including doing so along ethnic lines.
I get mixed messages by those who want to look past skin color and see only the content of character, but who think the path to doing so is by anchoring oneself to racial identity, and the promotion of racial interests.
Looking under the category, “African-Americans”:
That’s racial identity politics.
As far as dixiecrats and democrat segregationists migrating over to the Republican Party, Gerard Alexander of the University of Virginia wrote this:
He goes on to point out that the realignment of Southern voters did not begin in the Deep South, but in peripheral states. Eisenhower was not well-supported in the Deep South, but did well with the peripheral states. Nixon was also preferred over Wallace in 1968 by peripheral southern states. Alexander writes:
Republicans also benefited from the immigration of million of midwestern and northeastern voters to the south in the 50′s. They brought two things with them: more enlightened views on race-relations, and their membership in the Republican Party.
Here’s just a partial list of a history of Republican “racism”:
I believe Wayne Perryman has a new book out (“Unfounded Loyalty” is out of print).
“The fact is that Washington doesn’t consistently deliver what the people desire or need.” — Heru Ammen
And I can guarantee that Barack Hussein Obama, if elected (G-d forbid) will consistantly deliver what the people neither desire nor need.
“The fact is that white southern baptist conservatives NOW overwhelmingly identify with the republican party. White southern baptist conservatives were slave owners, klan members, and supporters of jim crow.” — H.A.
Why are you worried about Southern Baptist Republicans NOW, because of what they might have done as Dems, THEN [the KKK was a wholly Demokrat endeavor]? Their Conservative agenda TODAY isn’t Racist; it’s opposition to gay “marriage” and the murder of babies, which is what the Dems, including Obama, support. If you can dismiss the Dems’ racist past when they STILL harbor hard-core racists NOW, what’s your problem with Southern Baptists who have long rejected racism? You are not being consistent.
Don’t forget that both Jimmy Carter and Al Gore [who's father voted against equal rights] were raised Southern Baptist. Interestingly, neither are now, apparently for ideological reasons. I wonder if this has anything to do with it?
No, the Dems were, and are, a whole LOT more racist than Republicans.
But that isn’t the main problem with Obama, which is related more to what I touched on in the first paragraph of this post, and if I have time later I will address that.
Not about race, but about accomplishments – or lack thereof…
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/04/obama-and-ayers.html
Wordsmith, Stix, and Yonason.
Wow, you guys/gals really brought it on while I was away.
Thanks for the time and effort that you spent on the research.
I think I actually learned a few things myself.
I’ll have a few things to say regarding the issue with the Baptists later on.
Right now I have flowers to plant.
Aye Chihuahua,
“Right now I have flowers to plant.”
Yes, you have your priorities straight! I love to garden. Maybe if I do it enough I might eventually get good at it. (Actually, I had it together up north, but when I moved to FL everything changed. Nothing I know how to grow does well here, what with the heat, poor soil, and the bugs. But each year I learn a little more.)
“I think I actually learned a few things myself.”
You know, I do have to hand it to those Lefties. In order to answer them, I need to do research and think about how to put it together (more stuff I might get good at if I do it long enough), and I end up learning a lot that I wouldn’t have otherwise. So, I guess they are good for something, in a backhanded sort of way. Better than that, though, are the many conservative bloggers who really have it together, from whom I actually learn a lot of what I need to know.
Anyway, good results with your flowers. Here’s the first flower of the only plant that came up from a whole pack of seeds. A little fuzzy, but nice effect, I think. I just took that less than an hour ago by flashlight with my cellphone cam.
@Heru Ammen:
If you think all blacks are voting because of the issues you need to do a little more investigation and I have just the article for you to start on.
Check this page out first.
Boy, this cyber conversation can go no where. Hang, who you know in your personal circles is not indicative of the nation. Racists exist in both parties. And those that try to convince me that there is more in one party or another is just posturing in fantasy land. Sometimes racism is a result of the era they were brought up. Sometimes it’s a matter of parents passing on hate to their kids.
And are we including racists that are black? Or only white racists? It’s just all conjecture, theory. There will never be a poll with the question “are you a racist” that will be answered with a modicum of honesty.
What *is*, however, undeniably true is that an Obama loss is already being labeled as a race issue even today… the latest race card played by ol’ slow Joe Biden himself.
Try to point out Obama’s historic ties to socialism, and his proposed policies proving he is still socialist, and they cry “racism!”. Talk about a “distraction”.
The talking point against Obama’s socialism is the pat answer about the bailout. And yes… the bailout was started by the GOP POTUS. But it was shoved down our throats by 100% DNC… with love… and battled by only a few genuine conservatives. Who *also* caved.
But with an Obama-Pelosi-Reid govt, that socialism will grow out of control. Perhaps a more moderate Congress could keep a socialist Obama reined in. But that’s the the future in our cards.
The DNC will attempt to guilt voters into an Obama Presidency by calling every one racists in advance.
And to them, I spit in their eye and call them progressive Marxists…. no matter what color their candidate.
I wish the mainstream would call Dems out on this- that they are the ones making this an issue about race, to force guilt votes for Obama to prove to the world and to ourselves that we have moved beyond race. What a fairy tale crock and a dishonest slander of those who oppose an Obama presidency based upon policy and ideological differences.
@wordsmith: I have to disagree with you, I think people are just so sick of the direction we have been going, we need someone to lead us down a different path. I really don’t think MAJORITY of people are putting race into it quite as much as everyone here seems to think. There is always going to be the ones who do, but it is not just limited to the one side. BOTH sides are going to have that element.
It’s ok to disagree with me. I have no statistical studies to support my view. It might be that most voters aren’t voting so much on race, as on someone who seems to offer “a fresh start”, running on “hope” and “change”. But between the two parties, I am sure it’s those supporting Obama who are voting on account of race (or at least it’s factoring into their excitement to support him) more so than those who will vote against him on account of race. I’m 100% confident of that- and I’m never 100% sure of anything.
@wordsmith: While I’ll admit theres some level of excitment, but it’s excitment that there is a man worth while, with the vision, and leadership skills to move us forward, and he happens to be black, a plus. And he has a real chance at winning. Thats the excitment. On the most part.
@MataHarley: I agree with you that there is racism on both sides, but if there is talk of Obama losing and some saying it is a racial thing, don’t you think that it could be somewhat true when there are people spreading propaganda, about his being Arab, which is not true. Or his muslim ties to his family? In the political climate today, it would scare the crap out of someone to vote for an Arab muslim. Don’t you think that could be somewhat credible?
Wow…that seems to echo my sentiments here.
I think his non-whiteness, is part of the excitement and appeal. He has the innate charm and charisma; but part of the packaging is definitely based around his very mixed- and deeply American- background of heritage and ethnicity. He’s an American mutt. And that resonates with many of us. But I’m not sure he’d be where he is today, if it weren’t for this “black identity” of his. He’d just be another John Edwards.
I think it’s accurate to say that race is clearly factoring into this election, in one shape and another.