Will racism affect how Americans vote? – 25 days ’til election
Obama is rising in the polls, but could we still be surprised by the effects of racism on November 4th?
Several bloggers quoted at Voices Without Votes (http://voiceswithoutvotes.org/2008/10/10/racism-on-the-republican-trail/) think so, pointing to heated McCain-Palin rallies this week as evidence. “This should be remembered as the day when McCain and Palin became just two sad, racist, xenophobic, idiotic criminals” writes a Bosnian-American blogger regarding a Palin rally this week where audience cries of “terrorist” and “kill him!” were made in reference to Obama.
Lorraine de Foucher at LeMonde (http://www.lemonde.fr/elections-americaines/article/2008/10/10/barack-obama-pourrait-etre-victime-d-un-racisme-sans-racistes_1105347_829254.html) suggests a more subtle point in her article, “Latent racism could cost Barack Obama dearly.” She notes a Stanford University study conducted last month in which 40% of white Americans were willing to define black people using a negative adjective like violent, lazy, or irresponsible. And the article proposes the potential role of the ”Bradley Effect,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect) the theory that white voters will not admit to pollsters their unwillingness to vote for black candidates.
Chalmers Johnson has a fascinating piece in Outlook India (http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081007&fname=usa&sid=1&pn=1), in which he notes the “Karl Rove-trained Republican Party has been hard at work disenfranchising black voters” through new laws requiring ID cards at the polls, making voter registration difficult for those who have been in prison, and through imprisonment itself. He concludes that ”while the crisis caused by the performance failures of the incumbent party seems to guarantee a realigning election favoring the Democrats, it is simply impossible to determine the degree to which race and regionalism may sway voters.”
Many of our Seesmic participants (Seesmic link) also sense that racism and xenophobia will affect the election results. What do you think? Let us know your thoughts at Dear American Voter.
