{"id":9507,"date":"2008-06-23T12:07:50","date_gmt":"2008-06-23T17:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2008\/06\/23\/who-wants-a-whites-only-white-house\/"},"modified":"2011-08-05T14:53:25","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T18:53:25","slug":"who-wants-a-whites-only-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2008\/06\/23\/who-wants-a-whites-only-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"who wants a whites-only White House?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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S<\/em><\/strong>ome of my more optimism-oriented friends seem at times to confuse their own good faith, open minds, and generosity of heart with the general condition of their fellow Americans. As a result, they thought I was being far too cynical after the Iowa presidential primaries. Like much of the media, they were thrilled to say that the Iowa results demonstrated that whites would vote for Barack Obama. My more-guarded reaction was something like:<\/p>\n

“Iowa had a great outcome, but it tells us little about how whites will vote in states that traditionally have had more racial strife — especially those that have large numbers of Black residents or are suffering from economic distress.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sad to say, many subsequent primaries did appear to indicate that many whites (and perhaps many Hispanics, too) will find it very hard to vote for a Black man — especially if they can find any issue that allows them to rationalize their vote.<\/p>\n

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F<\/strong>rankly, I have at times worried that my own pessimism on this topic might be skewed by my childhood revulsion and embarrassment over the bigotry that was voiced and acted upon (can you say “white flight”?) all around the blue-collar neighborhoods where I grew up. I’ve also worried that my gloomy view about lingering American racism might be amplified by an elitist need to feel morally superior to others. Nonetheless, I’m fairly sure both of those impulses are reasonably under control.<\/p>\n

Unless there have been words or actions demonstrating racism, I will give every human being the benefit of the doubt. I do, however, believe that some demographic groups include significantly more overt racists — those who act on it — than other groups do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/font> This is, of course, one of those topics upon which I would love to be proven wrong. However, two recent articles seem to suggest that there are indeed many Americans who might not vote for Barack Obama solely on the basis of his being African-American. See<\/p>\n