On Oct 4, 2007, at 8:13 AM, Michael Smith wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-10-04 at 07:55 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
>> the overwhelming majority - and I do mean overwhelming, 85-90% -
>> of the black population supports not only Dems, but is very strongly
>> behind Hillary Clinton. What does that mean?
>
> Very little, I'd say. But Doug, do you think it *does* mean
> something? If so, what?
As a white, relatively well-off leftist who's denounced the Dems as an obstacle to human progress on many occasions, I have to wonder whether that attitude depends on my own privilege. As I recall, back in 2000, Rakesh quoted his wife as having no patience for Nader supporters because black people look at a Republican and see a Klansman's bedsheet, so they couldn't take the "not a dime's worth of difference" attitude. I've kept that in mind ever since. While we can lament the awfulness of the Dems, the group of Americans who feel most vulnerable to the possible good or evil that state policy can do take the partisan difference pretty seriously. An organizer for the Working Families Party in NYC once told me they pretty much had to endorse Hillary for Senate, even though she's precisely the kind of Dem that independent/third-party organizers should be targeting, because their black constituents are so fond of her. And the WFP's constituents are the core of any nonsectarian left movement. Anyone doing political organizing, rather than mere opinionizing, would have to take that seriously, no?
And before anyone points out that there are a lot of nonvoters who sit out the D-R battle, I'll say that nonvoters are generally - of course there are exceptions, principled nonvoters, but those are exceptions - detached and ill-informed. They are not the core constituency of any nonsectarian left movement. That could change if the broader political environment changed, but for now, they're mostly unreachable.
I can't stand Hillary. Thinking about this makes me uncomfortable. But I feel like I have to, and can't just dismiss this by saying it means "very little" or it's an "idiotic lie."
Doug