Minorities
And The American Electorate
By
Mary Shaw
07 January,
2008
Countercurrents.org
This
is an historic election year in the U.S. For the first time ever, the
pool of Democratic presidential candidates includes a woman, an African
American, and a Latino. And, better yet, the first and third spots in
the Iowa caucuses went to the African American and the woman, respectively.
Recent polls
suggest that Obama and Clinton continue to run neck-and-neck towards
Tuesday's New Hampshire primaries. And, as the campaign moves forward,
it will be interesting to see how Obama and Clinton will fare in the
various demographic regions of this great nation, particularly in the
conservative south.
I couldn't
imagine this happening 20, 30, or 40 years ago. Until now, white men
have run this nation.
I vaguely
remember Shirley Chisholm running for president in 1972, and Geraldine
Ferraro running as the vice-presidential candidate with Walter Mondale
in '84. But those campaigns were unsuccessful novelties. On the other
hand, Obama's current success, and Clinton's, don't feel like novelties.
This could
be a major step forward for social progress in the U.S. - or not.
It is a good
sign that Obama won the majority of votes in the very white state of
Iowa. Some are touting this victory as proof that the United States
is no longer as racist as it was in previous years.
But is this
really the case? Has America finally become a color-blind nation?
Some reports
have attributed Obama's success to the youth vote. Unfortunately, though,
we've still got a lot of old racists around.
I have friends
in the U.S. south, and I read the newspapers, and I know that racism
is still alive and well in much of the U.S., particularly south of the
Mason-Dixon Line.
I recently
saw a corporation's advertisement rejected because it depicted a white
hand and a brown hand shaking in partnership. The picture had to be
dropped from the ad campaign because it would likely offend the company's
southern customers.
And, of course,
we've got the Jena Six as probably the most visible case of race-based
violence in the American south today, preceded by the Jasper, Texas,
case of 1998 in which a black man was tied to a truck and then dragged
for two miles to his death - because he was black.
Given these
blatant examples of modern-day racism, we cannot assume that Obama will
win every state. And those same states that hold blacks as second-class
citizens also seem to have a problem with the concept of women in power.
(A recent comment from a Georgia-based acquaintance regarding women
in business or politics: "We don't let our women work.")
Hopefully
these red-state mindsets are shrinking. And hopefully the rest of the
nation will make up for those archaic attitudes.
But it's
not going to be a free ride. If Obama or Clinton wins the Democratic
presidential nomination, he or she will have to face the right-wing
smear machine as well as die-hard prejudices.
Hopefully
the public at large - inside and outside of Dixie - will see through
it all.
Mary
Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus
on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia
Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty
International, and her views appear regularly in a variety of newspapers,
magazines, and websites. Note that the ideas expressed here are the
author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty
International or any other organization with which she may be associated.
E-mail: [email protected]
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