>
> The corporate media and most Blacks with access to a mass public
> never seem to seriously examine the meaning of the most dramatic,
> history-shaking statistic in Barack Obama's march to the White House:
> he's picking up strong majorities of white men. That's unheard of in
> the annals of electoral activity in the United States. White men have
> always been the most reactionary, racially-bonded voting group, the
> deepest well of anti-Black hostility in the country. So, what makes
> them flock to Obama's banner? The answer is simple: Obama has based
> his entire strategy on sending messages to white males, assuring them
> he will take race and sex privilege off the table of American
> discourse. They got the message, and vote accordingly. The other side
> of this color blind coin is Black Americans, who don't seem to hear
> the conversation that's going on all around them.
>
> "His strategy from the very beginning has been to flip the historical
> script by appealing directly to the most backward demographic in
> electoral politics."
>
> Tuesday's Democratic primaries saw Barack Obama racking up over 60
> percent of the white male vote in Wisconsin, riding an unprecedented
> historical demographic anomaly that will likely send him to the White
> House - barring a third consecutive general election theft by the
> Republicans. It appears Hillary Clinton's goose is cooked.
>
> Once whites demonstrated their willingness to vote for a "certain
> type" of Black man, in Iowa back in January, it was a foregone
> conclusion that African Americans would line up in overwhelming
> numbers behind the Illinois Senator. Before then, all that had held
> back the tides of Black mass commitment to Obama's candidacy were
> lingering doubts that whites would support any "type" of Black
> person's elevation to the nation's highest office. When that dam
> broke, the African American celebration began. After 400 years in
> slave hell and Jim Crow purgatory, we've finally got a chance! Or so
> the crowd believes.
>
> Obama wasn't taking any chances. His strategy from the very beginning
> has been to flip the historical script by appealing directly to the
> most backward demographic in electoral politics: white males. This
> "white male strategy" - smelling eerily of a previous Republican
> "southern strategy" - required constant assurances to white men that
> Obama's run would signal the end of race as a point of political
> contention in the United States. No longer would whites, especially
> males, be compelled to answer for their privileged status. A 40-plus
> year annoyance was nearly over, since Blacks had "already come 90
> percent of the way" to equality. Obama told them so.
>
> Reagan-loving whites - especially the white men who have always led
> the "backlash" against real and perceived African American gains -
> found themselves wooed by a Black man who understood their sense of
> revulsion at "the excesses of the Sixties and Seventies." Wow! That's
> the kind of change we've been waiting for, exclaimed increasing
> numbers of white males. A new day beckoned, free at last of
> psychological harassment from the likes of Reverends Jesse and Al.
>
> "No longer would whites, especially males, be compelled to answer for
> their privileged status." Etc., etc., etc.
This is extra stupid. Obama didn't win "up over 60 percent of the white male vote in Wisconsin," or "strong majorities of white men... the most reactionary, racially-bonded voting group..." He picked up 60 percent of white male _Democratic primary voters_. You can be sure that virtually none of the "most reactionary racially-bonded" male mouth-breathers in Wisconsin voted for Obama, because they're all already registered Republicans.
Besides which, what about the all-important misogynist vote? You may have noticed how millions of white American males, after a decade and a half of Pavlovian training via talk radio, roll their eyes back in their sockets and foam at the mouth whenever anyone mentions "that bitch" Hillary.
Yours WDK - WKiernan at ij.net