...is from a piece by John Harwood in the New York Times, "Behind the Roar of Political Debates, Whispers of Race Persist": In the 11 states of the Confederacy, Mr. Romney outpolled Mr. Obama by nine percentage points. Elsewhere, Mr. Obama won by 10 points.
Doug J at Balloon Juice commnts on the same NYT article: http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/10/30/id-like-to-know-completely-what-others-so-discreetly-talk-about/
At the national level, American politics is primarily about race. Full stop.
Political operatives have known this for years, but establishment media usually avoids mentioning it publicly, because it’s more fun to pretend things aren’t so sordid.
And a comment from "Sparrow" really hits home: It is true for a huge percentage of Suburbia.
I grew up in a totally white, middle-class suburb of a medium-sized Heartland city. I never heard my parents use any derogatory language towards any groups (minorities, gays, athiests, women, you name it). In fact they never cursed and rarely talked about politics at all. They were also quite good about pushing us to volunteer and help the poor and homeless. Growing up in that white bubble, I basically never encountered other races, or even any ideas about them, outside of the hispanics I worked with at my restaurant job (and I like them a lot). So it wasn’t until I was a much older adult, and I asked “why are my parents still voting republican?” and I realized it’s because in their hearts they are in fact racist. They just didn’t talk about it.
1 comment:
Doug J at Balloon Juice commnts on the same NYT article:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/10/30/id-like-to-know-completely-what-others-so-discreetly-talk-about/
At the national level, American politics is primarily about race. Full stop.
Political operatives have known this for years, but establishment media usually avoids mentioning it publicly, because it’s more fun to pretend things aren’t so sordid.
And a comment from "Sparrow" really hits home: It is true for a huge percentage of Suburbia.
I grew up in a totally white, middle-class suburb of a medium-sized Heartland city. I never heard my parents use any derogatory language towards any groups (minorities, gays, athiests, women, you name it). In fact they never cursed and rarely talked about politics at all. They were also quite good about pushing us to volunteer and help the poor and homeless. Growing up in that white bubble, I basically never encountered other races, or even any ideas about them, outside of the hispanics I worked with at my restaurant job (and I like them a lot). So it wasn’t until I was a much older adult, and I asked “why are my parents still voting republican?” and I realized it’s because in their hearts they are in fact racist. They just didn’t talk about it.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/10/30/id-like-to-know-completely-what-others-so-discreetly-talk-about/#comment-4691449
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