Dear Editor,
And his assertion that race is the primary factor in the support Obama is getting from African American voters perhaps is probably more of Bisram transferring his selectoral operants as the motivating factors behind the electoral choices of African Americans.
Think about this. Hillary Clinton has been on the national political scene for more than a decade, and is well known among African Americans. Barack Obama was a relatively unknown Senator from the state of Illinois, until his superlative speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 won him national recognition. Going into the campaign relatively few African Americans knew much about the policy positions of Barack Obama as opposed to Hillary Clinton.
But as the Democratic debates mined and excavated the positions of the candidates, Obama’s support among African Americans grew as fast as it grew among white voters. African Americans overwhelmingly opposed the war in Iraq. The Democratic debates proliferated the fact that Barack Obama opposed the war while Hillary Clinton voted for the resolution that got it started. And what skewed analysis lends to two contradictory conclusions for the change in the favours of two different groups of people. I mean if Obama’s growing support among young white Democratic voters is a consequence of the positions he has, why is race substituted for a similar behaviour among African American Voters?
I do not know where Bisram got his 80% poll figures from, but I do recall that the media had a lot of egg on its face after the results in New Hampshire contradicted all their projections.
Those of us who socialise with the rank and file of African Americans have grown to understand that, like any other group, their thought processes and motivations are far different from the convenient stereotypes facetiously thrown out there by many so-called pundits. Hillary Clinton is perceived very favourably by middle-aged and older African Americans, who view her spouse’s tenure in the presidency as positive. And much like he does with young white liberals and independents who are fed up with the war, fed up with the economic down turn, fed up with the Washington Status quo, Barack Obama represents something of a peer relationship with the rank and file of generational ‘Y’ African Americans.
The Senator from Illinois does convey something of a rock star image among his supporters, but the attraction to him goes much deeper than the superficial conclusions of those who know not and know not that they know not.
Charlie Rangel, Democratic Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Represen-tative John Lewis, hero of the civil rights movement, Maya Angelou and Magic Johnson, are among many politicians, celebrities, cultural icons, and rank and file in the African American Community that are in the Clinton political camp. There was a recent controversy where a nationally renowned African American businessman who supports Hillary Clinton, made aversive allusions about Obama. The caution that African Americans have to be wary of playing the race card, advanced by Bisram as some kind of deep analysis, suggests that he is either mimicking those ever unwilling to attribute anything deeper than race to the political and social impulses of African Americans, or indulging in some version of the Freudian mechanism of projection.
About 50% of my African American friends, as I do, support Barack Obama, while the other half are sticking with Hillary. Yes, many of them, would love to see an African American becoming President. But it is not all about race. Alan Keyes is black and has run in every Republican Primary for as long back as I can remember.
Check out the support he gets from African American voters. Clarence Thomas is black and is a Supreme Court Justice. Check out his favourable ratings among African Americans. African American voters have a manifested history of getting behind those who support and hold positions corresponding with their concerns regardless of race. Bisram needs to bury some of those stereotypes that always seem to infuse itself into his analysis of politics, whether it is about the Caribbean, whether it is about Guyana, or whether it is about the US.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
