Deep Racism Revealed in Poll
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"The new survey strongly suggests that Obama's white
support is actually quite soft - undependable."
A recent Associated Press/Yahoo survey of racial attitudes
found disturbingly high levels of anti-Black prejudice among whites of both
major political parties, and among white independents. One-third of white
Democrats displayed negative feelings towards African Americans, as did 40
percent of all white Americans. Needless to say, this is bad news for Barack
Obama, who remains roughly even with John McCain in most opinion polls. The new
survey, carried out in collaboration with Stanford University and utilizing
advanced word association and mathematical modeling techniques, strongly suggests
that Obama's white support is actually quite soft - undependable - considering
the underlying racial attitudes prevailing in white society. Observers of Black
politics have long known that white polling data is unreliable in elections
pitting white candidates against Blacks. Consistently, over the space of
decades, significant portions of the white electorate have been shown to
overstate their willingness to vote for an African American. That is, they lie.
If that pattern holds true this presidential election cycle - and there is no
reason to think it won't - Obama would have to amass a substantial lead in the
polls to be confident of victory in November.
The AP/Yahoo survey concluded that, if whites were not
prejudiced, Obama would hold a six point lead, today. Of course, projecting
white behavior in the absence of prejudice is the ultimate fantasy - given the
foundational role racism has played in American life. However, it appears to me
that even this most recent effort to scientifically gauge the reality of racism
seriously underestimates the impact of its own data.
"Over the space of decades, significant portions of the
white electorate have been shown to overstate their willingness to vote for an
African American."
If three out of ten white Democrats have negative feelings
about Blacks, an Obama victory would require that these voters ignore the pull
of their prejudices. But in real life, such voters simply find some other
reason to vote against the Black candidate, and are therefore never forced to
confront their racism. And those reasons are potentially infinite.
The pollsters also come to the strange conclusion that
Republicans are not necessarily voting against Barack Obama for reasons of
race, since most of them refuse to vote for a Democrat of any ethnicity. But
this is simpleton logic. Republicans have garnered majorities of white votes in
every election since 1964 because so many whites consider it the White Man's
Party. Among most of these voters, the Democrats get negatives because they are
thought to be too close to Blacks.
Between 20 and 30 percent of whites of all parties associate
Blacks with the words "violent" (20 percent), "boastful" (21 percent) and
"complaining" (29 percent). This is certainly nothing new to Barack Obama, since
he's hired the best in-house pollsters that Goldman Sachs money can buy. Which
may explain why he denounces Blacks who complain and paints young Black men
with the broad brush of irresponsibility, the better to convince whites that he
understands - or even shares - their
racial attitudes.
Perhaps the cruelest irony is that, if Obama wins - or even
if he loses - many whites will say their mere consideration of his candidacy
shows racism is not a big issue, anymore. Black folks have always known better
- and now some white pollsters do, too.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted
at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Click the flash player below to hear this Black Agenda Radio commentary.
{mp3}20080924gf_race_poll{/mp3}
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