Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sklansky
It was neither a joke nor racist. I was pointing out that a Floridian, or anyone else for that matter who voted for Obama, could not automatically be assumed to be someone who would not be reluctant to vote for most black people because of those three unusual aspects he had. How is my meaning not obvious?
You're right that we probably have to think of racial prejudice (or resentments, or however phrased) as only one input into a more complicated process that most people go through when choosing how to vote. The Obama "we're voting for the ------" anecdote is
famous. But you highlighted a set of attributes that I doubt are that relevant: the nationality of his father, that he was raised by a white mother, and that he went to Harvard Law.
As far as nationality, I've never seen any data that would suggest that Americans' racial prejudices are modified by nationality. If you meant that they would view him more positively because his father was Kenyan I think you're wrong: consider the birther movement. Consider Trump's comments about "****hole countries". I think those are more representative of how people with racial resentments view Africa. As far as being mixed race, in American history there's no indication this has ever caused people to be less prejudiced, cf. the "one-drop rule". There's some evidence that people are more prejudiced towards those of darker skin color, but that isn't directly related to being mixed race in a straightforward way. As far as going to Harvard Law, I doubt most Americans care about it specifically, although I think it's probably relevant that Obama presented himself as a very mainstream American candidate with familiar institutional credentials for a politician. But I think it's far more important that he was just a very good politician, i.e. a great speaker, great with people, likeable, etc. He also discussed race in a very careful way so as not to provoke white Americans very much.
So I think I agree with your general point that voting for Obama specifically isn't evidence against the proposition that a voter might be generally less inclined to vote for a black person than a white person (and we know there were Obama-Trump voters), but I think you're focused on the wrong reasons why Obama might be a special case.