Ta-Nehisi Coates, on Yglesias' blog, writing about Obama's "race problem" and making an excellent point:
"I won't get into this too much, but I just want to say that rather than writing a memo to Obama on how to deal with "white voters" and the "race problem", Newsweek would have done better to send "white voters" a memo on how to deal with Obama and the "race problem." It was tragic to see so many interviews with folks in Kentucky and West Virginia saying point blank that they wouldn't vote for Obama because he was a colored. The conclusion always was, "Wow this is a huge problem for Obama," not "Wow. this is a huge problem for these people."Amen to that. And besides, it's not like this will prevent Obama from winning. Kentucky and West Virginia are two states out of 50, and probably weren't going to go Democratic this year regardless of the nominee's race. Obama's support comes from big city denizens, the highly educated, and African-Americans, and those two states have not so many of any of the above.I know that seems backward, but roll with me for a second: We can all agree that a presidential election is an extremely important event, arguably the most important mass event in the country. If you have voters who essentially disqualify candidates, on race alone, isn't that, like, kind of a problem for the voters?"
How elitist and exclusive of us to suggest that those gun-toting, religious xenophobes shouldn't be racist anymore.
Posted by: jabbett at May 29, 2008 04:38 PM