Does Obama's Win Show U.S. Is Colorblind?

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT/AP: Does Obama's Win Show U.S. Is Colorblind?
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 5, 2008

....Obama's convincing win in Thursday's caucuses in Iowa -- a state with just a smattering of minority voters -- demonstrated the Illinois senator's support crosses racial lines and bolstered the notion that America is receptive to electing its first black president. Whether Obama's appeal stretches beyond the farm fields of Iowa will become clear over the next month as the freshman senator faces a series of tests on different political terrain -- beginning with Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire, another overwhelmingly white state....

***

Polls have indicated the vast majority of Americans say they would support a black candidate seeking the White House. A Gallup survey conducted in early 2007 found only 6 percent of men and 5 percent of women said they would not vote for a black presidential candidate -- a seismic political shift from 50 years ago when more than half those surveyed felt that way....

Obama's roots and resume -- as well as his campaign -- are unlike other black candidates who've run for president. The son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, Obama was just a child during the dawn of the civil rights movement, grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia and has not made race the centerpiece of his candidacy. ''Obama is running in a way that a lot of white voters feel very sympathetic,'' said Merle Black, an Emory University political scientist. ''He doesn't make them feel guilty. He's not running a Jesse Jackson campaign or an Al Sharpton campaign. He's positioned himself to be a candidate who happens to be black, rather than a black candidate.''...

***

Obama received Secret Service protection last spring -- the earliest ever for any presidential candidate. He acknowledged at the time that some of the threats against him were racially motivated.

Some voters, though, say Obama's race may not even be that much of a factor in his campaign. ''I think that America wants a lot of change. I don't necessarily know if it matters that he's black or not -- just that they want something different,'' said John Beckner, while waiting for a table with his daughters outside Matt's Big Breakfast, a diner in the shadow of downtown Phoenix....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-A-Black-President.html?pagewanted=all

[davidinalameda]

1. no

this country will never been color blind

on all sides-you're going to have racists as long as you have people, and not just white racists but black, Asian, hispanic, etc

[Yael]

2. No, it shows IOWA is colorblind

Why are they imposing this on the entire country?

One good side to an Obama victory (and yes, full disclosure, he is my #2) and that is that the NeoNazi vote will split off from the (R) and vote for Ron Paul out of protest. Them is some scary people.

[styersc]

3. No- it shows Democrats in Iowa can be colorblind.

.

[CarbonDate]

4. Of course not.

I'm not really clear on how we can be expected to be truly "color blind", anyway. Issues of race have shaped our entire history, and to expect that to go away is naive. What can happen, however, is for a process of reconciliation, forgiveness, and acceptance that says, "just because we're different doesn't mean we can't be brothers and sisters" rather than trying to pretend, "I don't see a difference between you and me".

That, I think, is the heart of Obama's appeal.

[Didereaux]

5. NO

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Not even remotely

[Ytzak]

7. The US is not yet colorblind.

The people who voted in the Republican Caucus wouldn't touch him.
The people who voted for Edwards and Hillary, weren't inclined to vote for him. I can't speak to the clarity of their vision.

Obama managed 38% of the Democratic voters who attended the Caucus. Iowa's population of 2.9 million includes about 1.8 million active registered voters of which around 600,000 are Democrats. About 239000 showed up to the caucus, but 20% of those were independents. Obama took 39% of those voters.

I think it really bodes well that he was able to get that kind of support form Democrats and Independents. But it doesn't show the nation is colorblind.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. no it shows that a small part of iowa may not be racist

[BenDavid]

9. Pray it were true but not so. Just shows that most people will

be guided by how well someone can deliver a speech. If one will listen close you will pick up a change in his delivery. I sense the cadence or rhythm in his speech pattern of Martin Luther King.It was not there before so I suspect it to be orchestrated.

And to answer the obama folks about calling us hrc supporters racists cause we have said that it was obama and his wife that has played the race card. Here is an example:As Clinton Makes Gender-Based Appeal, Obama Makes Race an Issue:http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/11/02/obama_in_sc.html --Perry Bacon


The candidate, who doesn't often make explicitly racial appeals, said, "imagine a president who was raised like I was by a single mom who had to work and go to school and raise her kids and accept food stamps for a while. Imagine a President who could go into Holly Courts Apartments here in Manning or Scott's Branch High School in Summerton and give the young men and women there someone to look up to." and talk about playing the fear card, "In a video message, Michelle Obama made a glancing reference to fears among African-Americans that Obama would be shot if he were the candidate" (same article) Now that is truly sick to imply something as this.