"Poor uneducated white people who are not voting for Obama are racist.".....

[ElsewheresDaughter]

No, they are actually not any more racist than the rich white liberal who is voting for Obama.

I think poor people, who are often uneducated, are more in touch with the way racism influence the lower economic class. When you are a poor, you are more protective of yourself and your family, which usually shares the same ethnic background you have, and poor people, regardless of their race, often cling onto people of their own race to get by in their jobs, does the media ever talk about the race relation between Hispanic and black people among the poor communities or asian people and black people? I think some white educated liberals who call poor uneducated people racist are actually the most clueless of all, because while they can talk about historical oppression and slavery against black people through their university studies , they haven’t actually lived though the racial tension and racism that occur among non white groups in poor communities.

This is the elitism people talk about rich liberals have and I think that’s why Obama is not getting the “working class “ vote.

I suspect Obama does really well in states like Oregon , Iowa, and the west is because there isn’t that many black people there, and those white people are either really well off, or they just never had to deal with black people and compete for jobs for them because there are not that many black people to ever experience that racial tension on a real life basis. So they might feel more sympathy about black people from an idealist or even elitist view, while in states where huge amount of African Americans concentrate in urban districts , there are more face to face racist tension among different racial groups, and people vote more along racial line, regardless if they are black, white, or in the case of Hispanic or others, they are even more threatened by a black man because the poorer you are, the more insecure you feel about other racial group who is trying to fight for your job – and usually white people who are well off, are not even involved in this kind of fight and so they have no clue what the hell racism is on that working class economic level.



And I feel a lot of people don’t get that, especially many people who post in GDP, a lot of them probably are well off white suburban folks who have not experienced racism on that economic survival level…

[anonymous171]

1. Please send this OP to the Hillary Campaign so they can adjust their talking points accordingly

[joeybee12]

2. _Please grow up...nt/

[anonymous171]

10. What? Hillary is always talking about how "hard working" white Americans are not supporting Obama

[Ronnie]

27. 'Always' is a pretty big piece of time.

[Auntie Bush]

31. Seems that all the pundits and pollsters repeat that too!

Hillary was quoting them. It isn't something she made up. She was just quoting the facts. Just think about all the other times the Clintons or their surrogates were blamed/ridiculed and called racist for just stating simple facts.

[anonymous171]

46. "hard working" is not a demographic group.

[gabby garcia]

36. please accept reality....nt/

[DerekJ]

3. Which conference call talking point is that one?!

[K Gardner]

5. I've just consulted the Pocket Guide.. and this one is OFF MESSAGE !!! Refresher Course Needed !

[democracy1st]

65. So a DLCer has come to them in the form of Hillary and she represents the poor !

:wtf:

[joeybee12]

4. Yup...they're very poor and very desperate...

...Obama needs to reach out, but he and his supporters seem to think people should come to him naturally. Newsflash...you earn someone's vote, you don't take it for granted.

[Eric Condon]

43. Because Hillary has never, ever taken any votes for granted.

You know, like the ones on and after Super Tuesday, when it was supposed to be "over."

[Raineyb]

45. Tell that to Senator Clinton

It's exactly why she didn't get my vote.

Regards

[panader0]

6. Let me guess: you are poor, white and uneducated

[subsuelo]

7. I love posts decrying elitism, then you see a Hillary picture in the sig

:crazy:

[tekisui]

13. Hillary is claiming now that the ones calling for her to drop

are doing so because they are elitist.

Yeah fucking right, she's a populist. nuts.

[last1standing]

8. Some are, some aren't.

There is a correlation between education and racism but that doesn't mean ALL uneducated people are racist or that NO educated people are.

As for the rest of your post, I'm afraid I disagree with your premise so moving forward is impossible.

[RazBerryBeret]

9. I am white working class,

from a white working class family. my father was a steel worker. I've worked since I was 16, I put myself through 4 years of college. I recently lost my job, but I'm now working for myself and getting by .. guess what? me, my 2 brothers and my older sister--all of us over 35 are voting Obama. I live in OHIO.

your post is offensive to me.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Shorter: It's ok to be racist if you're poor.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

57. Not quite: It's okay if you're poor and there are black people competing for "your" job. nt

[mmonk]

12. I think the media is making excuses for racism by giving it

a fictional persona.

[Qutzupalotl]

14. Points for working in the "elitist" charge.

:thumbsup:

But points deducted for style. Why is not being racist considered "elitist"?

[solinvictus]

15. Well...

we're all just a bunch of gun-toting bitter people who are clinging to our religion anyway. Why would the chablis-sipping fund raising set want our vote anyway? :eyes:

[Thrill]

16. Vote for whoever the hell you want. Blame yourself when your life is miserable under President McCai

Blame yourself when your life is miserable under President McCain

[Shakespeare]

17. What a profoundly ignorant and offensive post. n/t

[Johnny__Motown]

18. You admit that "racial tension" plays a role, but then say that is not racism

You wrote :

they just never had to deal with black people and compete for jobs for them because there are not that many black people to ever experience that racial tension on a real life basis.



I suggest to you that the people who have competed for jobs with black people and are voting against a black man because of it are "racist"


They are making their decision based on the individual's race.. how can that not be racist?

[BlooInBloo]

20. As long as white folks don't admit it's racist, it's not racist! Get it now? It's WONDERFUL!

White folks guarding the henhouse of racism is TEH BEST SYSTEM EVAH!!!!

[Johnny__Motown]

23. Umm..... I'm white..so I guess this white folk admits it's racist

not such a great system after all

[BlooInBloo]

26. :) It takes more than us two.

[Johnny__Motown]

28. Maybe...... ummm......an army of Clones? Oh wait... they did that in Star Wars and it didn't work

[BlooInBloo]

30. Just gotta go one-by-one, unfortunately.

[Johnny__Motown]

32. The worst thing is.. my City is over 80% Black, I compete for jobs.. etc...

and even I think that crap is racist...



I think the OP has some pretty serious issues.

[BlooInBloo]

33. Heh indeedy.

[EmilyAnne]

19. The saddest thing of all is that I really believe that you don't see anything wrong with your post.

Basically, you said, "you rich whites would be racist too if you had to deal with 'em like we have."

Pure ignorance.

[democracy1st]

64. Amazing isn't it attacking people for their personal achievements

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[OnionPatch]

22. I guess it depends on what the definition of racism is.

Clinging to people of your own ethnicity and distrusting the others, is somewhat racist in my book. Maybe it's a lesser degree of racism than outright hatred and avoidance, but it's a clear bias based on race. And I am fully aware that it exists among minorities other than poor whites. That doesn't make it ok.

By the way, I live in the west and am an Obama supporter but I'm not rich or all that educated. I grew up in Appalachia and was actually quite poor for much of my youth. I can trade "I was so poor..." stories with the best of them, but I never blamed our poverty on blacks. I felt we were in the same boat. Was that my latent elitism coming out? :shrug:

[DevonRex]

24. OMG. Disgusting post. Go somewhere else to spew filth. nt

[Liberal Veteran]

25. Some of them are. And they are my relatives.

It's not nice to say it, but I've had more than one conversation with some relatives and friends in Georgia who eventually (after you disabuse them of the rationalization like him being a Muslim or some other "socially acceptable" excuse) always seem to fall back on "I'm not sure America is ready for a black guy to be president".

[fishwax]

29. yeesh

:wtf:

:puke:

[madrchsod]

34. what a sad post.....

[Joe the Revelator]

35. Its funny that threads like this are left open, while threads like this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6033688&mesg_id=6033688

are locked.

[K Gardner]

39. Exactly.. and I'm certain *I* wasn't the only one who alerted on this crap.

[Occam Bandage]

37. So it's okay for poor people to be racist, because blacks are stealing their jobs.

And it's racist to think otherwise, because if you aren't racist you're obviously sheltered from black people and that's racist? After all, how could you be around black people and not hate blacks? Anyone who doesn't hate black people is racist. Anyone who does is just experiencing natural racial tensions.

What I'd like to know is where these white-job-stealin' minorities in WV are. I never saw one nonwhite person in all the times I've been there.

[K Gardner]

40. DINGDINGDING.. a concise summary of this pathetic OP, which is an embarassment to DU.

[Buck Rabbit]

50. Nice Job, but point of correction.

Your "Anyone who doesn't hate black people is racist" should be "Anyone who doesn't hate black people is elitist"

This is an important distinction because "Elitist" is a character flaw whereas "Racist" is the perfectly understandable condition to being oppressed by minorities.

I think you may of also missed: You can not understand things if you are educated. Only in ignorance can reach true understanding.

[Occam Bandage]

53. Ah, how very correct.

[Honeycombe8]

38. I'm from the deep south. Known racists all my life (some are in my family).....

Ask me anything! If I know anything, I know racism and bigotry! I've heard it all, seen it all. Seen it from the poor, as well as from the more affluent.

Ask me anything!

Oh, heck, I'll just go ahead and tell you a couple of things. About the job competition...that plays a part. A small part. It's mainly other things, though.

Bigotry knows no economic bounds, no educational bounds. But it is true that the less educated seem to be just generally more close minded about a number of things. Expanding or changing views on race is no exception.

Also...if racial harmony were present from the start, they would be fine w/it. But since racial discord has existed in those areas for generations, it's the CHANGING of it that presents a particular problem. As I said, the less educated are a bit less willing to be open minded to changing their views on a number of things. (I'm not denigrating the less educated; it's just an acknowledgement that the less educated a person is, the less exposed he is to different things, to different viewpoints, to different trains of thought. By "educated," I don't limit it to formal education. A person can be well-read and be considered educated.)

Finally, I think all races tend to feel more comfortable with others of their own race. Doesn't mean they don't like other races, and I wouldn't call that prejudice or bigotry. But humans tend to congregate with others like themselves in a variety of ways. Race is one of those groupings. There are other types of groupings, too, of course. It's when a person goes further than that, and holds some particular views about other races that makes it racism.

[CakeGrrl]

41. TRANSLATION: "I *still* don't understand why Hillary's losing - there must be an explanation..."

:crazy:

First of all, do you realize you actually contradict your subject line, which I assume was an attempt to slam Obama supporters with a sweeping generalization about the poor?

So, either:

1. You're black and you're voting for Obama because he's black too; or

2. You're white and elitist enough to condescend to blacks because you don't have to compete with them, so you don't have a problem working for Obama.

Otherwise, you're poor and protective of your family, and natch, whenever you're thrown in with other races things are always tense and you protect your own. Which agrees with your own mischaracterization of the attitude of Obama supporters.

:wtf:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

42. Most white people realize that they have a leg up on black people.

Whether they are wealthy, middle-class, poor, uneducated or well educated.

Better educated people tend to understand the racism and unfairness involved and decry it.

As do the black people who have experienced it for generations.

That's the rub.

Disclaimer: I'm the son of a poor worker from Arkansas who fled the state during the depression and never completed high school. My mother was an English immigrant of Irish parents who fled the poverty in Ireland.

We were hungry poor and sometimes homeless.

I had to compete for jobs with blacks/hispanics/ and poor whites. But, I always knew that I had the magic advantage of pale skin and blue eyes. As did everyone else in the competition.

To justify, or manipulate, the existing racism among the poor as, as Hillary did, is to participate in it.

[Exultant Democracy]

44. I'm an Obama supporter and read your whole post, while you make many good points

But I would posit that the reasons you give show that even with a similar baseline of racism that certain groups face exasperating factors that cause them to act and appear more racist. So if they are acting more racist and appearing more racist well you know if it quacks.

[mcctatas]

47. Wow....

totally insightful :eyes:

[graycem]

48. Maybe a more accurate description is that

it is the "perception" of having to compete with the black person for a job (inspired by good ole' Republicans). Remember the ads? I have racists in my own family and they will use this argument too, even though they were NEVER affected by affirmative action in the least, just one more reason to excuse their vile behavior. It isn't the black man's fault if my white brother-in-law doesn't get a job. It is his fault for not choosing a different occupation, going to college, or the job market's fault. The black man is NOT any better off than he is.

Let us not forget why affirmative action even came about... because rich white men were in control of the businesses in this country and if a white and a black, equally qualified applied for that job, well, the white man gets the job. That still happens even with affirmative action, as long as the quota is met. I'm really amused at this whole line of thinking, that somehow whites wouldn't be racist if affirmative action didn't take their jobs, yet they proved they couldn't not be racist on their own, so affirmative action had to be implemented in order to give the black working class a chance at a decent life.

It isn't about jobs, it's about cultural ignorance, and I mean ignorance as in "unknown" not stupid. I think people fear what they are ignorant of, just like many people equate radical muslim terrorists and the rest of muslims in the world. Many people are afraid of the mentally handicapped simply because they have stereotypes that are never disproved because they don't spend any time with them, or try to understand. Racism exists just like many other bad behaviors, because it occurs in a cycle. I'm glad my mother chose to break that cycle. I'm a better human being for it.

[Catherina]

49. "never had to deal with black people and compete for jobs for them"

:wtf:

On top of being incredibly offensive, your post doesn't even make sense.

[terrell9584]

52. he may have said it the wrong way but partially

it's true.

After the WBTS and Reconstruction essentially destroyed the Southern economy (while teaching small town Southerners how to run corrupt political rings, something that hadn't been done before the war) each successive generation was on the whole, poorer, than the preceding one. It was a cycle that continued unabated until WWII. Sharecropping peaked in the late 30s-early 40s.

The South also industrialized during this time, and you had unions springing up, with labor movements active in the region as early as the 1880s.

Birmingham was the most unionized city in the South. In the 1920s, it was noted that 75% of the members of a particular union hall also belonged to the local KKK chapter. Organized labor and the KKK actually worked in tandem politically in Alabama in the 20s. It was this alliance that elected Hugo Black to the U.S. Senate.

The reason that there was animoisity.....black workers, by virtue of their reduced political rights post 1900 (which was a blowback of the practices of the Carpetbaggers of division by race), would take whatever was offered to them paywise, and because they lived with Jim Crow, wouldn't speak up against abuse. In other words, in the labor history of the South, especially in the beginning of the 20th century, when management was looking to break a strike, they would hire blacks to act as scabs. Much of the racism that pervaded poor white Southern society was economic. The whites did view blacks as inferior to bolster their own self esteem, but, they also lived with the threat that the black man, who was not subject to the same human rights concerns as they were, could pose a threat to their livelihoods, and this often happened. In fact, the use of black strikebreakers to break strikes by white employees was the main unionbusting tactic used in the Southeast.

Just some historical perspective.

[Johnny__Motown]

54. It is still racist. the fact that you can rationalize the racism makes no difference

Voting against someone because of his race is racist...

[mrreowwr_kittty]

58. Sometimes they let it slip. nt

[Honeycombe8]

61. I understand what he means. He's just stating a fact that exists in some areas.

I disagree w/the poster's conclusions, but I know what he means, and I can state from personal experience that sympathizing with another's plight in the abstract is different from sympathizing with another's plight when confronted with the real person. You may find, after all, that you don't really like the real person, although the plight really does exist, and you still really do sympathize with it.

Really getting to know another group is different from "feeling the pain" of others at a distance.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

66. exactly my point....thank you

[RBInMaine]

51. Too many "working class whites" are buying the "elitist-muslim-black guy" crap. Pretty sad too.

Because anyone who votes for McCain is voting to fill body bags with more dead GI's. Plain and simple.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

55. Strawman.

White voters, poor and uneducated or any kind, who say they won't vote for Obama because he's black (or insert other code phrase like "Muslim") are racist.

[kwenu]

56. Hasn't this same thread been posted several times already. Give it a rest. Please.

Ignorance is ignorance you can't placate it.

[Jed Dilligan]

59. "When you are a poor"

Where did you study sociology?

Last I checked there is a higher proportion of mixed-race families among the poor and people of all classes are equally protective of themselves and their families.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

60. A classic case of "What's the Matter With Kansas"...

It's the ultimate irony:

She is the corporate, DLC candidate who will send poor kids off to war by voting FOR the IWR, AGAINST the Levin-Reed Amendment, and FOR Kyl-LIEberman, not to mention, FOR the bankruptcy bill. And yet, she's suddenly the champion of the poor, working-class people?

I don't buy it. This is about race, plain and simple. It's also about disinformation, a prime example of how talking points work if you repeat them enough times.

[democracy1st]

62. right on the money thank you very much

[boppers]

63. DAY TOOK ARR JOOOOOBBBS!!!!!!!!

*sigh*

[Mass]

67. If this perception still exist, we need to wonder how bad the leadership of our previous presidents

was, including Bill Clinton.

Black people threaten poor white people! Are we not all American! If you see nothing wrong there, you probably need to cross the aisle and go to the far right. Black people do not threaten white people anymore than their white neighbour. Their are all competing for the same jobs. By your reasoning, we could accept jungle law and strong capitalism.

If anything, these people NEED TO UNITE to fight and it is irresponsible for leaders to continue to push for a separation against racial lines.