Exit polling from Mississippi shows that skin color mattered in the Democrat primary.
From the Associated Press:
Whites largely shunned Barack Obama in Mississippi's Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday as the Deep South showed once again its reluctance to embrace him across racial lines.
While 92 percent of blacks lined up behind the Illinois senator, 70 percent of whites supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to an exit poll of voters conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.
Only next door in Alabama and in Arkansas, where she was first lady when husband Bill Clinton was governor, has she had a wider margin among whites, while his black support has been stronger only in his home state. That made Mississippi's voting one of the year's most racially divided contests.
That division was all Obama needed because voters were split about evenly between the two races.
While Obama has typically received lopsided numbers of black votes and Clinton, a New York senator, generally has won among whites, Tuesday's racial polarization was stark.
Nearly four in 10 blacks said race was important in choosing their candidate. Of that group, nine in 10 supported Obama.
Among whites, a quarter said they considered race when deciding their vote. Eight in 10 of them voted for Clinton.
An AMAZING 92 percent of blacks voted for Obama, yet only 36 percent of blacks said race was important to their votes.
A solid 70 percent of whites voted for Hillary, yet just 25 percent of whites said that race was important to their votes.
It seems to me that the voters in the Mississippi primary didn't respond honestly in exit polls, or they aren't being honest with themselves.
It appears that race played a huge factor in the election. Race appears to have been much more significant than voters would admit.
So are the Dems racist?
I don't know. It's highly unlikely, but the appearance of voting along racial lines could just be a coincidence.
What's not a coincidence is the way the Associated Press presents the voting patterns.
Look at this headline:
I think it's odd that the headline isn't something more general about the racial divide in the Mississippi primary. Why take the angle that "Obama gets scant white support in MS"?
The headline could just have easily have read "Hillary gets scant black support in MS."
Actually, that would have been more accurate, since only 8 percent of blacks voted for Hillary.
The headline seems like race-baiting to me.
Oooh, not many whites in Mississippi voted for Obama. Racism!
The truth is even fewer blacks in Mississippi voted for Hillary. Obama got close to the entire black vote. More whites voted for Obama than blacks voted for Hillary, yet the AP headline focuses on whites failing to support Obama.
The lib media are definitely in Obama's corner.
2 comments:
Something I wrote this evening --
Greetings All ~
I wanted to at least write something before this night was over, with a more detailed analogy in the near future. But I just wanted to acknowledge that TODAY, MARCH 11, 2008 -- regardless of whether or not Barack Obama wins the Presidency, regardless of whether you support him or not, and regardless of whether or not you believe and/or participate in the voting process -- TODAY the state of Mississippi voted OVERWHELMINGLY for a Black man as its choice for US President, and I think that is an act monumental enough to be recognized.
You all do remember Mississippi, don't you? That was the state in which less than a century ago Black men were being lynched on a regular basis at the white man's whim. That was the state in which just 45 short years ago Blacks were not even allowed to register to vote. It was the state that closed the doors of its schools so that white children would not have to attend school with Blacks even though it was federally mandated. It was the state where white people rioted when James Meredith, a Black law student, attempted to enroll in the University of Mississippi. It was the state that killed Medgar Evers and James Chaney for being active in the campaign to register Black Mississippians to vote.
Mississippi was the state where in 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, was kidnapped from his great-uncle's house in the middle of the night by two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who brutally murdered him after he’d playfully flirted with a white woman, not knowing he would pay for the act with his life. As most of us know, the men took the youngster to a shed, beat him, shot him, then tied a heavy fan around his neck and dropped him into the Tallahatchie River. Of course, the men were tried and acquitted for the murder by a jury of their peers (12 white racist males), and Look Magazine later paid them $4,000 to tell their story -- which they did, knowing they were safe from further prosecution due to double jeopardy protection. This “straw that broke the camel’s back” event is said to be that which prompted the Civil Rights Movement among Southern Blacks.
I recently wrote in a paper for a class which examines the Civil Rights Movement:
> Segment 5 of the “Eyes on the Prize” series was the one in which William J. Simmons and Judge Tom C. Brady, both members of the Citizens’ Council, expressed their opinions regarding efforts encouraging the “Negro” vote. Though not verbatim, Brady stated that he did not want “niggrahs” to be “in control of the vote that controls me”. He said that he felt the South and the entire country would be better off if they (the "Negroes") were removed from the rolls. <
It is because of these facts and more that I view Obama’s win in Mississippi tonight a monumental achievement -- both for Black people and this country -- and one I think should be acknowledged. I would just LOVE to see the looks on the faces of those Mississippi racists of the 1960s right now, or of Ross Barnett, the state’s segregationist Governor at the time. I bet they’re all turning over in their graves over tonight’s achievements!
And though my Husband did point out that Obama won both Georgia and Alabama, both big Klan states, well before Mississippi, I still think this is the date to be recognized, if only for winning the third of the three most historically-racist states in the union. I would like to see us claim it, name it, and put it on OUR calendars as something we commemorate yearly -- not so much as recognition for Obama’s win, though I personally view that as a victory as well; but as the fruit of everything that Evers and Chaney died for, that Bob Moses and Fannie Lou Hamer fought for, that Mamie Till and Myrlie Evers lost for, and even what King, Lewis, and Ture marched for. Anyway, these are my thoughts on the day’s events.
Peace & Love,
Tuere
Wow, Tuere makes some good points. I understand the idea that it is an accomplishment for a black man to win in a historically racist state. However, the basis of her writing ignores everything about Obama except for his race. Do you agree with his politics and positions and plans for our country? Who cares! He's black! If mainly blacks are voting for him then there are still huge racial implications for both blacks and whites. The blacks voting for him are racist in choosing him only because he's black, just as much as any white is racist who doesn't vote for him because he's black. I don't see the victory or understand the pride in blacks voting purely based on race.
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