90 Percent Of Whites Comfortable With Black President
By admin on Jun 22, 2008 in America, Political News, U.S. Elections, Video
The Washington Post reports “an overwhelming public openness to the idea of electing an African American to the presidency.”
In a Post-ABC News poll last month, nearly nine in 10 whites said they would be comfortable with a black president. While fewer whites, about two-thirds, said they would be “entirely comfortable” with it, that was more than double the percentage of all adults who said they would be so at ease with someone entering office for the first time at age 72, which McCain (R-Ariz.) would do should he prevail in November.
But the good news may stop there. “As Sen. Barack Obama opens his campaign as the first African American on a major party presidential ticket, nearly half of all Americans say race relations in the country are in bad shape and three in 10 acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice,” according to the same poll.
Overall, 51 percent call the current state of race relations “excellent” or “good,” about the same as said so five years ago. That is a relative thaw from more negative ratings in the 1990s, but the gap between whites and blacks on the issue is now the widest it has been in polls dating to early 1992
More than six in 10 African Americans now rate race relations as “not so good” or “poor,” while 53 percent of whites hold more positive views. Opinions are also divided along racial lines, though less so, on whether blacks face discrimination. There is more similarity on feelings of personal racial prejudice: Thirty percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks admit such sentiments.
Moreover, the Post reports in a separate story that Obama’s historic primary victory “has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.”
Neo-Nazi, skinhead and segregationist groups have reported gains in numbers of visitors to their Web sites and in membership since the senator from Illinois secured the Democratic nomination June 3. His success has aroused a community of racists, experts said, concerned by the possibility of the country’s first black president.
“I haven’t seen this much anger in a long, long time,” said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. “Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president.”
Watch the American News Project’s recent piece exploring the phenomenon of “white nationalism”:
10 Comment(s)
By lettentx on Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
Im sick of hearing white and black. and whites being uncomfortable with black president. who cares if he’s gonna do better than the “white” candidate? And yeah polls are going to show that blacks think there’s more predjudices because they keep telling themselves that, when i have witnessed more blacks being racist then white to blacks. seriously we all just need to get the f… over ourselves and move on. sheeesh
By flimgcom on Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
comfortable? how about ecstatic? and its got nothing to do with skin color.
By Danny on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
you can say it has nothing to do with race if you want, but there are certain elements who feel that america belongs to them. eventhough the people that were here before america started and the people that built america for free were not white, these elements feel those people have no legitmate claim to america.
america is on the world stage to see if it can practice what it preaches, i.e. that men are judged on merit and not skin color. Obama has proven he is the most up to speed candidate if not the best one.
He could be a symbol of the fact that race doesnt matter, or he could be the clear example that race still DOES matter. its easy for white people to dismiss race as a non issue. it is a little harder for non white people to dismiss it.
By Paint him any color you want on Nov 1, 2008 | Reply
It’s not about the black or white, I’m comfortable with Obama as president.
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