Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Is racism a factor in the healthcare debate?


The question of racism is being suggested as a significant factor regarding the opposition to President Obama's health care reform agenda and other issues. Lets look at the facts:


129,391,000 votes total for President
in 2008

16,820,830 blacks voted in election


16,147,200 blacks voted for Obama (13% of voters, 96% for Obama)


Popular vote for Obama 69,457,000 or 52%


thus


53,310,000 votes for Obama from non-black voters


Furthermore, 4% of blacks voted for a white candidate while 41% of non-blacks voted for a black candidate. It could be concluded that blacks were far more concerned about the color of who they voted for than non-blacks. Yet, the racism charge is most often thrown, for understandable albeit wrong reasons, at non-blacks.


No one would argue that deplorable racism does not exist in every corner of the globe among every ethnic group. The question is: at what level?


Based on statistics that indicate real behaviors that deal with deeply held cognitive beliefs, racism was not the cause that elected Barack Obama to be President of the United States.

If so, how can it now be racism that is the cause for opposition to health care reform and other issues?


Lastly, when charges of racism are used in careless ways, does it not diminish the
needed outrage when real episodes of racism do occur?

2008 Presidential election data


Popular vote: 69,457,000 Obama, 59,934,814 McCain
Electoral vote: 365-173

Obama increasd vote percentages across the board

Obama 52% of the popular vote

Obama 95 more Electoral votes than he needed to win

Obama scored with 96% of black voters/13% of electorate

Obama won two-thirds of Hispanics

Obama won more than two-thirds of voters aged 18 to 29.

Obama Roman Catholic vote, 53%

Obama won among independents

Obama divided the suburban vote.

Obama improved by 17 points with families earning over $200,000 a year

Data source: Wall Street Journal

2 comments:

  1. "There are still places I can't campaign,
    because of the color of my skin"
    -Obama in Nike Commercial

    ReplyDelete
  2. again, you have hit a home run...wow! Exqusite.

    ReplyDelete