The myth of the black vote
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
One of my favorite scenes in Woody Allen's 1977 masterpiece "Annie Hall" features an exchange that feels oddly familiar in the final weeks of the 2008 presidential race.
In the scene, Alvy Singer (Allen) meets his future first wife Allison (Carol Kane), a graduate student working on a thesis about "political commitment in 20th-century literature." He can't resist the urge to pigeonhole her.
Alvy: You, you're like New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist summer camps and the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, y'know, strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself.
Allison: No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.
Alvy: Right, I'm a bigot, I know, but for the Left.
African Americans -- and I include a certain black columnist in that cohort -- could be excused for identifying with Allison in this exchange.
But instead of being confronted by a self-described "bigot for the Left," we're left dealing with their always race-neutral, scrupulously fair counterparts on the Right.
When former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama over fellow Republican Sen. John McCain, MSNBC's Pat Buchanan quickly detected the hoary head of racial solidarity at work:
"All right, we gotta ask a question," he said putting his racial transcendence cap on. "Look, would Colin Powell be endorsing Obama if he were a white liberal Democrat?"
On Sunday, talk radio shouter Rush Limbaugh fired off a sarcastic rejoinder to Politico.com in response to the implicit racism of one black man endorsing another:
"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race -- OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."
Again, the assumption clanging around in Rush's head is that black folks, no matter how politically astute or honorable they may be as individuals, are incapable of voting for a white candidate when a black one is available. Their proof is the polls showing that an overwhelming number of blacks will vote for Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain.
Conservatives operating by this logic should revisit some recent races. Let's go back to the 2004 Democratic primaries. Remember the overwhelming support the Rev. Al Sharpton and Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun received from black voters? Catapulted to the front of the Democratic pack, they nearly upset frontrunner John Kerry. As I recall, they almost forced him to make racial reparations part of the Democratic platform.
And who can forget the millions of Negroes who hoisted Alan "Mad Dog" Keyes on their shoulders through two Republican presidential primaries? The former ambassador to United Nations fell a bit short of the nomination despite burgeoning support from black liberals who crossed over to vote Republican by the millions based on nothing more than skin color.
That's why Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney can look forward to picking up every black vote that Obama drops on Nov. 4.
When it comes to the power of melanin, African American voters love to chant Wesley Snipes' memorable line from "Passenger 57" -- "Always bet on black."
That's why the black vote for Barack Obama is intellectually meaningless as far as Limbaugh and Buchanan are concerned. It isn't a vote that results from an act of cognition. That's impossible for black voters who respond like Pavlov's dog to racial cues.
When white conservative talk show host Michael Smerconish endorses Mr. Obama, that's "principled." When conservative columnists like Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker hint they're leaning in that direction, too, no one accuses them of racism.
When Christopher Buckley breaks with National Review -- the conservative journal that his father founded -- to endorse the Democratic ticket, well, he must have his reasons.
But when Colin Powell endorses Mr. Obama, it's pure racial tribalism.
It might be black folks' fate to endure being reduced to cultural stereotypes by "bigots for the Right" to paraphrase Woody Allen, so that a McCain loss is easier to take in November.
In the meantime, conservatives should consider the possibility that it is the Republican brand that black folks are rejecting in unprecedented numbers -- not John McCain's race. Just a thought.
Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631. More articles by this author
First published on October 21, 2008 at 12:00 am
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
One of my favorite scenes in Woody Allen's 1977 masterpiece "Annie Hall" features an exchange that feels oddly familiar in the final weeks of the 2008 presidential race.
In the scene, Alvy Singer (Allen) meets his future first wife Allison (Carol Kane), a graduate student working on a thesis about "political commitment in 20th-century literature." He can't resist the urge to pigeonhole her.
Alvy: You, you're like New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, the socialist summer camps and the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, right, and the really, y'know, strike-oriented kind of, red diaper, stop me before I make a complete imbecile of myself.
Allison: No, that was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.
Alvy: Right, I'm a bigot, I know, but for the Left.
African Americans -- and I include a certain black columnist in that cohort -- could be excused for identifying with Allison in this exchange.
But instead of being confronted by a self-described "bigot for the Left," we're left dealing with their always race-neutral, scrupulously fair counterparts on the Right.
When former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama over fellow Republican Sen. John McCain, MSNBC's Pat Buchanan quickly detected the hoary head of racial solidarity at work:
"All right, we gotta ask a question," he said putting his racial transcendence cap on. "Look, would Colin Powell be endorsing Obama if he were a white liberal Democrat?"
On Sunday, talk radio shouter Rush Limbaugh fired off a sarcastic rejoinder to Politico.com in response to the implicit racism of one black man endorsing another:
"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race -- OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."
Again, the assumption clanging around in Rush's head is that black folks, no matter how politically astute or honorable they may be as individuals, are incapable of voting for a white candidate when a black one is available. Their proof is the polls showing that an overwhelming number of blacks will vote for Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain.
Conservatives operating by this logic should revisit some recent races. Let's go back to the 2004 Democratic primaries. Remember the overwhelming support the Rev. Al Sharpton and Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun received from black voters? Catapulted to the front of the Democratic pack, they nearly upset frontrunner John Kerry. As I recall, they almost forced him to make racial reparations part of the Democratic platform.
And who can forget the millions of Negroes who hoisted Alan "Mad Dog" Keyes on their shoulders through two Republican presidential primaries? The former ambassador to United Nations fell a bit short of the nomination despite burgeoning support from black liberals who crossed over to vote Republican by the millions based on nothing more than skin color.
That's why Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney can look forward to picking up every black vote that Obama drops on Nov. 4.
When it comes to the power of melanin, African American voters love to chant Wesley Snipes' memorable line from "Passenger 57" -- "Always bet on black."
That's why the black vote for Barack Obama is intellectually meaningless as far as Limbaugh and Buchanan are concerned. It isn't a vote that results from an act of cognition. That's impossible for black voters who respond like Pavlov's dog to racial cues.
When white conservative talk show host Michael Smerconish endorses Mr. Obama, that's "principled." When conservative columnists like Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker hint they're leaning in that direction, too, no one accuses them of racism.
When Christopher Buckley breaks with National Review -- the conservative journal that his father founded -- to endorse the Democratic ticket, well, he must have his reasons.
But when Colin Powell endorses Mr. Obama, it's pure racial tribalism.
It might be black folks' fate to endure being reduced to cultural stereotypes by "bigots for the Right" to paraphrase Woody Allen, so that a McCain loss is easier to take in November.
In the meantime, conservatives should consider the possibility that it is the Republican brand that black folks are rejecting in unprecedented numbers -- not John McCain's race. Just a thought.
Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631. More articles by this author
First published on October 21, 2008 at 12:00 am
