People who live in states with few blacks seem more open to the idea of a president who is not white. Perhaps race is more of an abstract, an ideal. The raw, sometimes tribal clashes of ethnic groups, where a long-ago slight can harden into a political attitude, seems less pronounced.
Thus, Obama is ahead in Oregon, which has a black population of 1.9 percent, but is having trouble in Michigan, where 14.3 percent of the population is black and the white suburban diaspora has complicated views about race informed by black-majority Detroit. (emphasis added)
That part in bold makes me wince, actually. He seems to be employing euphemisms that - whether deliberately or accidentally - seem to justify the racism inherent in the race chasm. For instance, he seems to be substituting the innocuous word "complicated" for the word "racist." Worse, he appears to be using the term "informed by" as a euphemism for the term "understandable considering." After all, "informed" implies that the racism they have developed from living near black-majority Detroit is merely a product of being objectively educated (a synonym for "informed") - and therefore, those racist views are supposedly understandable because they are the supposedly logical result of objective education, rather than prejudice.
I'm not saying Egan is a racist, as this was probably inadvertent (and again, I am a fan of Egan's work). But when I read this passage, the phrasing really jumped out at me as yet another example of how racism can be so subtly woven into our language and our media.
Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.
Another primary day, another reemergence of the Race Chasm. With a population that's 7.5 percent black, Kentucky fits right into the Race Chasm, and not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton is favored to win. In Oregon, the population is just 1.9 percent black - outside the Race Chasm - and Barack Obama is favored to win.
As I've always said, it's hard to say race is singularly responsible for any given election result. But clearly, the Race Chasm dynamic is at play.
To review what the Race Chasm is: In states with very large African American population, racial politics is a major force, but the African American population is able to offset the segment of the white vote that is racially motivated against a black candidate. In states with very few African Americans, racial politics just isn't a part of the debate. But in states with a moderately sized African American population, racial politics exists, but the black community isn't large enough to offset the segment of the white vote that is racially motivated. The Race Chasm - ie. those states in the middle like Kentucky - are more than 6 percent but less than 17 percent black. They have been the states that have given Clinton most of her wins.
"Oregon is a state where race has not been an animating factor of political campaigns in the past. It has not been an issue since the 1860s, and it is not going to matter to people in the current election," said Joseph Lowndes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon and author of "From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism.
Stein is right - the Oregon results, if they go Obama's way, may explode the idea that Obama cannot win white working-class voters. But if both Oregon and Kentucky go the way they are expected to go, the results will only further confirm the Race Chasm.
UPDATE: For those wondering about West Virginia and how that fit into the theory, read this earlier post.
Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.
The issue of race makes a lot of folks uncomfortable - and that's especially true right now when the nation is closer than ever to electing the first black President of the United States. As my new newspaper column this week shows, many Serious People who dominate our political debate have reacted to this historic election and their own queasiness about race by exposing their prejudices.
"We keep talking as if it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that Obama gets 92 percent of the black vote, because since he only got 35 percent of the white vote, he's in trouble," Clyburn said. "Well, Hillary Clinton only got 8 percent of the black vote. . . . It's almost saying black people don't matter. The only thing that matters is how white people respond. And that's what bothered me. I think I matter."
Clyburn is, unfortunately, spot on - and there's two reasons why the phenomenon he describes is such a problem.
Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.
A few weeks ago, I published an article in In These Times showing how Hillary Clinton has been winning states almost exclusively in the Race Chasm - states whose populations are more than 6 percent but less than 17 percent black. The results of the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania - a state whose demographics fall squarely in the Race Chasm - continue the trend.
STATE BLOGS
