Nov 06 2008
Whites Also Supported Obama
For some reason, Tonya Jameson of the Charlotte Observer is utterly stupified that white people could overcome all of that pent up racism that we clearly all harbor from conception and actually vote for a black man to be President.
However, a significant number of white voters looked beyond all of that and voted for the man whom they felt was most qualified for the job. In fact, so many of them voted for Obama that he won by the largest margin of any Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson beat Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Time will tell if Mr. Obama is qualified for the job. For now, he receives the benefit of the doubt until we can see what he’ll do and whether or not it is best for freedom and liberty.
We can all agree that bigotry is far from over. The rhetoric of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and, at times, Sen. John McCain reminds us of that. And who can forget the infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright?
I think she made an attempt to be unbiased here, but not a good one. Nobody can point to a single word spoken by Governor Palin or Senator McCain that was the least bit racist in nature. The Obamabots say they did it, but they can’t tell you what it was they said.
And while she is correct that bigotry is far from over, the U.S. is the most tolerantly diverse country in the world. Issues of racism and discrimination in this country are miniscule compared to the rest of the world including the Europeans who claim to be so enlightened. I don’t know why it is that the media is so stunned that white people voted for Barack Obama. There is no basis of reality to be consumed with surprise over this. This isn’t Mississippi in 1958. If you only got your information on racial relations in this country from the mainstream media you’d think the Klan was still going strong in every town across America.
Throughout the day Wednesday, nearly every black friend greeted me with “congratulations.” My phone buzzed with forwarded text message jokes about how white people were going to be angry that Barack Obama won.
So who has the race problem?
In some ways Wednesday was odd. We had a story in today’s paper about how whites in North Carolina supported Obama, and how he fared in predominately white districts here. Yet, it seemed as if only a handful of white voters shared their excitement after the election.
So what were we expected to do, run around like a bunch of nuts and start dancing in the streets? Obviously, given the country’s history with black Americans it’s only natural that they would be overly ecstatic with one getting elected President, but just because there weren’t a ton of white people banging pots and pants and blowing into gold foil horns like it’s New Year’s Day doesn’t mean they weren’t excited about their candidate winning. The assertion from Jameson is absurd and it’s this kind of careless rhetoric that keeps racial fissures open.
