Archive for November 29, 2008
newsflash: obama gets slightly higher white vote than kerry and gore, therefore racism runs rampant in this year’s election
This is not to imply that there is no racism. As a mixed race (Black + Asian) lesbian, it’s not as if racism is a foreign idea to me. I’m an army brat, so I’ve traveled all over this country and see a lot of crap. Even so, it really sears my ass when I see silly analyses like this one in which it is implied that, since ‘only’ 43% of whites voted for Obama, there’s something peculiar about the lack of white support for the candidate.
Ahem.
% whites who voted for Kerry: 41
% whites who voted for Gore: 42
% whites who voted for Obama: 43
It’s hard to compare the Clinton elections because of a strong 3rd party candidate, Ross Perot. In other words, if I included %white support for Clinton, the numbers are much lower b/c some whites voted for Perot who might have otherwise voted for Clinton. Here are the numbers with that caveat:
% whites who voted for Clinton, 1992: 39
% whites who voted for Clinton, 1996: 43
In other words, here’s a big old *yawn* for sad analyses like this one. For Democrats, people of color are the unsung heroes of elections for quite some time.
