Posted on 01/30/2007 11:08:14 AM PST by presidio9
In 1994, two sociologists went to Red Hook, Brooklyn, to solve a mystery. Red Hook abutted the East River, and along the waterfront sat shipping companies and warehouses all in need of low-skilled labor. Next door sat a housing project teeming with exactly that. But the locals primarily African Americans didn't get hired. Instead, the jobs went to workers from outside the neighborhood, often Caribbean immigrants. Employers, wrote The New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell in summarizing the sociologists' findings, "had developed an elaborate mechanism for distinguishing between those who they felt were 'good' blacks and those they felt were 'bad' blacks." Were the employers racist? Yes and no. They clearly held anti-black stereotypes. And they discriminated against those who conformed to them, even by association. But they discriminated in favor of blacks who defied those stereotypes. A man named Bruce Llewellyn described the phenomenon this way: "White people love to believe they're fair."
As it happens, Llewellyn wasn't talking about Red Hook. He was talking about his cousin, Colin Powell whose prospective presidential bid enjoyed mass white support roughly a decade ago. Like the employers in Red Hook, whites discriminated in Powell's
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Because he makes Bryant Gumble look like Malcolm X?
No, that's why white people like Wayne Brady, sorry.
Ah another Obama isn't black article.
Speak for yourself nimrod.
guilt.
What is about the Albino population that finds Obama so intriuging?
I'm white, and I don't like Obama...
Because this particular group of white people only consider race in everything.. and not a person's qualifications...
Guilty white libs are scared by black guys like Jesse, but cocoa colored mixed race still lets them pull for the "minority". Kinda like the hollywood crowd swooning over Halle Berry's oscar.
Hillary doesn't like Obama and she's white...
"Why White People Like Barack Obama"
Because he doesn't wear a ball cap backwards and refer to women as 'ho's'?
I have a theory that black sitcoms on TV do well because white liberals are so guilt ridden that they're attracted to any image of black people that doesn't scare them. It's what happens when all of your perceptions are centered on stereotypes.
"guilt"
BINGO !
I'll second and third that.
LOL! Well said. Let me add that the white media knows next to nothing about 'real' blacks in this country. They go to Sharpton and Jackson and call them leaders when they lead only a very small percentage of nonproducers.
Your regular working black person, whether a conservative like myself or a dim, do not consider Obama to be one of them. He may have some pull with Illinois blacks, but I do not think it will transfer nationwide.
you're just jealous you can't dance like him.
Obama's biggest fans are white people who go to Spike Lee movies.
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