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Are Obama?s Critics Racist?

Professor Jim Silver, author of the deservedly acclaimed Mississippi: The Closed Society (1964), used to say that by voting overwhelmingly for Barry Goldwater in 1964 Mississippi was the only state in American history that had ever remained a one party state while changing parties.

I?ve been reminded of that statement lately because we?ve been told for so long that Obama?s conservative critics are motivated partly or wholly by racism but now his most vociferous just-say-no critics come from his own party?s left wing. So, are these left-wing, F-bomb hurling critics also racists?

Colbert King, a Washington Post deputy editor and OpEd writer whom we?ve encountered many times (six links given in this seventh one) who writes frequently (usually? incessantly?) about race, apparently thinks so. ?Sabotage the nation's first black president,? he wrote yesterday, ?and the Democratic Party might as well bid farewell to its most loyal base of supporters: African Americans.?

Does King really believe blacks voted and will vote for Obama because he?s black, no matter what he does or doesn?t do? Sounds like it to me, but you decide:

n 2008, the turnout for young black eligible voters was higher than that of young eligible voters of any other racial or ethnic group, according to the Pew Research Center. Consider them gone in future congressional and presidential elections if the left dooms Obama in 2012.

The 2 million more blacks who voted in 2008 than in 2004 because of Barack Obama? Say bye-bye to them, too. As for African American women, the group with the highest voter turnout rate in the 2008 presidential election? Don't even ask.

If King believes Obama?s black supporters support him because he?s black, is it racist or something to suggest that he believes Obama?s critics oppose him because he?s black?

Perplexed, King asks,

And why should [blacks] stay with a Democratic Party that turns tail on a president who's trying to lead a fractious country through one of roughest patches in its history?

Maybe because they, foolishly, continue to agree with the Democrats more than with Republicans? Or perhaps they, too, are afraid of being called racist if they join those trying to ?[s]abotage the nation's first black president.?

Full post as published by Discriminations on December 11, 2010 (boomark / email).