General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Unbearable Whiteness of the American Left [View all]DebJ
(7,699 posts)"I'm black so I can get these folks to answer the door."
The city I have gone door-to-door in numerous times, seeing many hundreds of people, is predominantly a minority city. About 1/3 of the school students are white; the rest are African American and Hispanic. They ALL open their doors to me, and I'm white.
I registered literally hundreds of people pre-Obama, and voter turnout was less than 15% during the mid-terms, and not much better when Kerry ran.
But then, most of the people I registered could not name one single solitary political party. They literally were so completely disconnected, they had no idea of anything about voting or politics. They didn't have any idea who controls what or how. So even though my first response was shock and disappointment at the invisible turnout, really, it made sense, because they all had no information whatsoever and no concept of the power available to them through democracy. Their lives were composed of just trying to go through one day to the next, period. A huge percentage of our city residents are permanently unemployed. There are no jobs here. So time wasn't a factor. Neither is getting to the polls, as we have polls every few blocks it seems.
The Obama election changed a good deal of that. People felt represented, felt connected, and our turn out was amazing (sorry I forget the numbers now). I can only hope that this is the beginning of a long-term impact, where the people I spoke to begin to participate more, to be aware, to feel empowered, to try to be a part of the process. There are some good signs:
http://www.ydr.com/ci_13707603