Time to note diversity of black vote

A fter the Indiana and North Carolina presidential primaries last week I posted an item on our online forum "Exploring Race," asking readers to analyze what Barack Obama 's close second-place finish in Indiana, ...

[arthurpuffin]

Except...no white group votes 90% for anybody.

[melodylane]

Thank you puffin...I was hoping someone would say that.

Whites vote across the color line...but weighted.
Woman vote across the color gender line.
and so on...

But blacks vote and sit on juries with color the determining factor, yet whites are racists.

[Non prejudiced person]

Well your arguments do not ring true. While rich and poor whites vote honestly for who they think will do the job best, almost ALL blacks vote for Obama. They might have been republicans and democrats before, but now they are just blacks. Doesn't matter what his policies are, he is black and of course, he will have their best interests' at heart. Trying to explain it off as it was an intellectual choice based on who is the best to do the job, does not ring true when you see the percentages in lopsided margins. Does this cause resentments ? Will this develop in to a new racial divide ? Will the same trends continue in November ? It is sad to think that Americans black and white vote based on the color of a mans skin.

[gaypastor]

Thank you Dawn for a wonderful article. Its about time someone helps my white sisters and brothers to understand there are African American communities, not one sole community!

As someone who has been supporting Clinton up to now I find the same division among my sisters. Some are for Obama, others for Hillary.

To date I'm fed up with it all. I'd like to see a woman as president but it doesn't seem like the nation (or press) cares about feminism anymore. Why I think you are tired of the "race card" I feel like the "gender card" is simply seen as irrelevant and feeling invisible hurts too! I'd also like to see a black man as president but simply fear that the racial slurs that are thrown at me everytime I say something anti-Obama will continue in his term thus creating more and more racial division among us all.

Finally, I'm tired of being with a party that expresses anxiety every other day over the logical possibility of the race going to the end...if even they planned it as a possiblity. Why have all these states if we can't see it through without all of this worry? Why give superdelegates the power to overrride the popular vote if you're afraid they might do it? Who makes these rules and procedures?

At this point I'm seriously thinking about going Green Party and voting for Cynthia McKinney...the African-American female candidate. I support her in her take on almost every issue, she's black and she's a she. I can fight the old style Washington politics that says I have to be part of the two-party system. I can have it all! Check her out at http://www.runcynthiarun.org/ if you have the time.

[MCD]

"What if a way to explain the high percentages of Black support for Obama is that Blacks don't have the filter of prejudice to stop them from seeing greatness."
Are you kidding me?
If the White vote was divided 90% for Clinton/10% for Obama, would ANYONE frame the reason as such? Noooooo; it would be because they are racist.
Is this supposed filter of prejudice that Blacks don't have the same reason they overwhelmingly think OJ was innocent?
Face it; prejudice is rampant in the Black community. Turner Trice is too prejudiced to see it.

[RoboTech]

Hey Dawn
"The thinking continues to be that the "black vote" has gone to Obama solely (or essentially) because of his race. Frankly, that's insulting. "
How can it be insulting when it's true.
Tell the four black ladies in line with me at Walmart yesterday that they need to quit doing the thing that "insults" you.
All four of them said that they were voting for Obama BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK! One said she didn't care if he would make a good President, he was BLACK! Another didn't even know Obama lived in Chicago!
Hearing that INSULTED ME!
I'll get over it, and you need to get over being in denial that it's not happening. You are fooling no one but yourself.
Good Lord, where do they get these columnists?

[Michael Tock]

Blacks are voting for Obama because he is black, not because of his very left wing ideology. But if Obama were very right wing, blacks would not vote for him, because most blacks equate right wing ideology as thinking white. Either way blacks are the most racist group of people anyone will every meet and know.

[emery]

"What if a way to explain the high percentages of black support for Obama is that blacks don't have the filter of prejudice to stop them from seeing greatness?"

This may be the single most astonishing claim I've ever read.

[Jamal]

A telling question is about the 8 percent of blacks who actually break out of the mainstream and vote for someone other than Obama or, in the general election, even for a Republican, horror of all horrors. And another question is why the disdain in the black community for Americans of African descent who succeed, such as Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas? Are blacks who achieve greatness to do so at the risk of vitriol among other blacks only because they are conservatives and Republicans? Now the major question: Do blacks really believe in diversity after all? I suspect we already know the answer to that question.

[south side]

Like in highschool, you did not get into a fight with ONE black person, They ALL mobbed up on you. Much like doctors and police there is a code of silence. Even if theyre wrong theyll stick up for eachother. Making up 30 percent of the population this will not fly in november. It just exposes how racist blacks really are!

[Harrisson]

Non prejudiced person wrote:

Well your arguments do not ring true. While rich and poor whites vote honestly for who they think will do the job best....

WRONG! You have no proof that "poor whites vote honestly for who they think will do the job best..."

Pollsters have interviewed white voters - especially in Pennsylvania - and detected racial prejudice as the basis for their vote.

So you were just talkin' out your a$$.

Non prejudiced person wrote:

...almost ALL blacks vote for Obama. They might have been republicans and democrats before, but now they are just blacks. Doesn't matter what his policies are, he is black and of course, he will have their best interests' at heart. Trying to explain it off as it was an intellectual choice based on who is the best to do the job, does not ring true when you see the percentages in lopsided margins. Does this cause resentments ? Will this develop in to a new racial divide ?

Will the same trends continue in November ? It is sad to think that Americans black and white vote based on the color of a mans skin.

Wake up, Non Prejudiced Person. You are just TRIFLING! We actually have humanitarian and economic concerns in our community that we worry about.

We may be poor, but we are NOT like the poor white people living in broken-down trailers who vote Republican because of some pack of nonsense about "Them libs are gonna take yer guns away!" or "We need to end the horror of abortion!!" or any of that mess.

We can't be played for fools by the Republican Party the way poor and blue-collar white folks are. We're just NOT that dim in the voting booth. LOL!

And as far as Clinton vs. Obama, Clinton's clearly the less capable of the two. Just like McCain, she voted to allow President Bush to lead our nation into the massive train wreck that is Iraq. She made a $3 trillion boo-boo despite repeated pleas and protests and warnings not to go there.

Meanwhile the Iraq War was opposed by most blacks right from the start, and 85% now believe invading Iraq was the WRONG thing to do. We're not gonna REWARD Hillary's dumb a$$ for that crap. You can if you want, but we won't.

Them's the facts and that's YOUR problem and Mrs. Clinton's, not ours.

[enuf]

Harrisson wrote:

<quoted text>
Christ! You are full of it, Michael Tock. Either you pulled all of your conclusions straight out of your a$$, or you listened to some moron TV broadcaster like Sean Hannity and got your opinions from him.
Either way, your conclusions are among the most retarded and asinine one could find.
*****
You're right that if Obama were very right wing, most of us wouldn't vote for him, but a far more honest reason is that right-wingers voted for, and were gung-ho about, the idiotic Iraq War that's draining our Treasury and killing the nation's kids for no good reason except $$$.
Murder for profit represents right wing values. It boosts value for Halliburton shareholders - and maybe even your stock portfolio. But it doesn't help most of us.
Obama is the ONLY one of the 3 candidates who had the guts and intelligence to protest against the pending war and recognize the Bush administration's Pack of Lies for what they were.
So, what we really are voting for is the smartest of the THREE candidates whose values reflect ours. But you CAN'T accept that because you were raised in a culture that insists that blacks are too stupid to know what's good for them.
We're smart enough to know that Bush, McCain, Clinton and the Iraq War are ALL bad news. And that, my friend, has nothing to do with racism.

Murder for profit!Halliburton?George Bush blah blah blah.And he listens to Hannity???? What are you guys gonna do when George bush is gone? I know. Whatever NPR tells you yo do.

[Harrisson]

south side wrote:

Like in highschool, you did not get into a fight with ONE black person, They ALL mobbed up on you. Much like doctors and police there is a code of silence.

Even if theyre wrong theyll stick up for eachother. Making up 30 percent of the population this will not fly in november. It just exposes how racist blacks really are!

Whining about childhood a$$-whippings is not becoming, SS. Let's grow up, shall we?

Recognize that we have different priorities than you do. For example, we won't be leading the charge to bomb some Arab nation back to the Stone Age just because they *might* be developing WMDs.

Or because there's a fortune to be made in defense contracts to feed, supply and transport Army soldiers and equipment.

We're not into Murder-For-Profit like your gal, Hillary or your boy, McCain (whoever it is). We don't find it cool or sexy, the way you guys do.

Deal with it.

[Carol]

Categorizing people in this election has been very offensive. Obama wins "the black vote" and "the latte vote", while Hillary wins "the uneducated white vote" and "waitress vote" has really generalized a lot of people in one brush stroke. Republicans also do this, claiming "the educated black business vote" and "Bible believers vote" in their corner.

Demographics have always been a part of politics. Yet, I know some suburban white Christian Republican men who are in Obama's corner. I can truly say that for many, this is an election about who the person is and not their race, gender, or age.

[enuf]

I dont want to blow anybody. HAH. Nice debate.Very articulate.Way too much coffee for you this morning.Well talk later. Have a nice day.

[meq111]

c'mon, there's no shame in it. minorities vote for minorities because they see (rightly or wrongly) somebody who can empathize. what's controversial about that?

[Depot Jim]

Dawn Turner Trice needs to explain what her definition of diversity is? Blacks are voting at a 90% plus rate for Obama. That is not what I would call a diverse vote. No other group votes like that. Unfortunately this campaign has come down to race. There are Whites who will not vote for Obama because he is Black (half Black) and there are Blacks (90% plus) that are voting for him because he is Black. I wish we could get back to major issues but the Clinton and Obama campaigns and their supporters have unfortunately made race an issue. And Dawn Turner Trices's column has not helped matters either.

[camaro]

enuf, Harrission is just showing his racist attitude, as well as his complete ignorance. He's all tore up because he knows that Hillary's the best one to be president and return the nation to the greatness that we enjoyed when Bill was our great president. He knows that Hillary will also be a great president for all, and not just the blacks and muslims, which Obama would only be for. Obama is a very, very, ignorant, person and st out to destroy the nation,because of that ignorance, with Harrisson has shown that he agrees with. GOD BLESS AMERICA, AND GOD BLESS HILLARY, OUR NEXT GREAT PRESIDENT.

[Bill P]

arthurpuffin wrote:

Except...no white group votes 90% for anybody.

EXACTLY! Many "White" voters are crossing the "Color line", but virtually NO blacks are. But WE are the prejudiced ones!

It's an absolute joke and I , for one, WILL NOT be guilted into anything. We do not OWE "Them" the Presidency! It is time that people, like Dawn, Clarence and that ultra racist Mary Mitchell be held responsible for their race baiting tactics!

[Bill P]

Harrisson wrote:

<quoted text>
Christ! You are full of it, Michael Tock. Either you pulled all of your conclusions straight out of your a$$, or you listened to some moron TV broadcaster like Sean Hannity and got your opinions from him.
Either way, your conclusions are among the most retarded and asinine one could find.
*****
You're right that if Obama were very right wing, most of us wouldn't vote for him, but a far more honest reason is that right-wingers voted for, and were gung-ho about, the idiotic Iraq War that's draining our Treasury and killing the nation's kids for no good reason except $$$.
Murder for profit represents right wing values. It boosts value for Halliburton shareholders - and maybe even your stock portfolio. But it doesn't help most of us.
Obama is the ONLY one of the 3 candidates who had the guts and intelligence to protest against the pending war and recognize the Bush administration's Pack of Lies for what they were.
So, what we really are voting for is the smartest of the THREE candidates whose values reflect ours. But you CAN'T accept that because you were raised in a culture that insists that blacks are too stupid to know what's good for them.
We're smart enough to know that Bush, McCain, Clinton and the Iraq War are ALL bad news. And that, my friend, has nothing to do with racism.

We get it! You're black, pissed off and BUSH SUCKS! None are valid reason to cast a vote for the LEAST qualified person to EVER run for th office. Of course YOU could not be a racist!