Posted on 06/14/2009 4:32:36 PM PDT by LA Woman3
The realization recently hit: I voted for Barack Obama because of his skin color.
For a thoughtful, responsible voter, the admission was mildly jarring. Not that I regret having done it. I couldn’t be more proud.
I’ve never based my vote on superficial matters. I voted on the mandate, never the man (or woman).
Now I must admit that I mainly voted for Obama because he is black, like me.
This is not to say I didn’t like what he articulated for our sagging economy, our schools and for organizing the chaos of the Iraq war. But I have to admit that Obama’s race was important. He represents symbolic change in how our society perceives people like me.
The widespread image of black culture in America is discouraging. A Stanford University study last year found that 40 percent of white Americans polled held at least partly negative views about us.
Given a choice of positive and negative adjectives to describe blacks, 29 percent said “complaining” applied. Twenty percent said “violent.” Thirteen percent said “lazy.” Eleven percent said “irresponsible.”
And I certainly do not believe that most whites are racists. Rather, images of blacks in the mainstream media condition people of all colors to think, if not the worst, then certainly not the best about us.
Blacks don’t always help dispel these images. Examine our own culture and pop culture: Crayons in fist, we often draw, and then salute, a socially crippling caricature.
And so: Blacks make up roughly 11 percent of the population, but in the prison population they’re more than 44 percent.
Nationally, 93 percent of black men murdered annually will die at the hands of another black man. And more than 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock.
Obama’s presidency can change so much.
Growing up in Tyler, I was nerdy. Worse, I wasn’t coordinated enough to succeed in where most African-Americans in my community got recognized: sports.
My dream? Not to be a pro jock but to be president. It sounded outrageous as to draw laughs. “You’re crazy,” my stepfather retorted. “America is never going to elect a black man president.”
For whites, Obama’s historic achievement occasions for them a chance to see and experience a side of black culture that runs counter to stereotypes. For blacks, it gives us a chance to rewrite our collective narrative.
I’m not so naïve as to think this president is the elixir to cure America’s race problems. I’m acutely aware of those who still face the deep-cutting sword of systematic oppression.
So I temper my hopes. But those hopes are now realistic — and largely because of this historic election. It officially has placed America on a path to fulfill and protect the boldest assertion of our founding principles, “That all men are created equal.”
That is why I voted for Barack Obama. It may seem superficial, vain, even pathetic. But it is change that I believe in.
Chris Scott, a 2004 graduate of Baylor University and a former candidate for the Waco city council, is pursuing a Master’s of Divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary.
That's my worry too!
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, wanted to use abortion to eliminate what she called “inferior races”.
Regretfully, that is true. It is all part of a long running process to create division in our society with the divide and conquer strategy in mind. I know a number of whites who voted for Obama, not out of "White Guilt" so much but more to prove that we are beyond that racists stage. I could have told them that would be a wasted effort but they would probably have done it anyway just to prove it to themselves.
The Left is hypocritical with no thought of it nor regret for it. They seek power and creating chaos, confusion, guilt, and apathy are tactics they see as helpful to them. Hypocrisy and word confusion are all part of it.
As amoral as they are and as obvious as it is they seem to be winning, so far. We must shake the apathy from our heads and fight back with enough intensity to destroy them before they destroy us.
With a little luck, race based voting may have backfired in a good way with the election of Dave Bing as mayor of Detroit.
I don’t know if I would call him a conservative in my sense of the word but he is an old school black man who seems to promote the idea of self responsibility. The fact that he comes from the days before the promotion of the gangster crap (born in 43) can’t be a bad thing.
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