Whites, Blacks, and Voting Preferences
By: Rebecca Nicodemus
I was looking through the Wall Street Journal the other day when I saw the headline “Black Voters Fret Over Obama.” I wondered, when I saw the title, what black voters were ‘fretting over’, so I read on. One part of the article quoted a radio host talking about Obama losing, “My audience is upset. Some people said they would be so angry it would be reminiscent of the [1960s] riots – that is how despondent they would be.”1 Another part quoted a Democratic governor, saying that blacks need to remember that “many Democrats have lost the Presidential race in recent decades and they were white.” Apparently, black voters are concerned that if Obama loses this election it will be partly due to the racism of white voters.
Excuse my naiveté, but I have a really hard time believing that this would be the case. First of all, let us look and see exactly who is being racist. Then humor me while I digress a bit and explain why I think conservatives get the majority vote of another group of people with whom I am much more familiar.
The above article says that, according to the latest Wall Street Journal poll, 88% of blacks support Obama. If we could point out that 88% of whites support McCain, we might be able to say that racism is a factor. However, this is not the case. Instead, McCain and Obama are evenly tied across the general population of voters.2 Statistically, if we are going to decide between two candidates and we have tens of millions of people voting, popular opinion should be roughly 50/50. Based on the data, it is blacks who are heavily biased.
But we should not jump to conclusions. Historically, the large majority of blacks have supported the Democratic candidate. So chances are that blacks are not supporting the Democrat because he is black, but because he is a Democrat. The only good way to see if blacks vote based on race would be to have a black person run for office as a conservative and see how many blacks vote for him. My guess is that most blacks would still vote Democrat. So the real question is: why do almost all blacks vote Democrat?
One of the major problems in this country is the miserable state of the government-run urban education system. Over half of all children entering 9th grade in urban public schools never graduate. Of those kids who do go to school often enough to show up in test results, only a small minority can read at a level considered “proficient” for their grade level. Did I mention that a large majority of the poor kids at the mercy of the government system in urban schools are black?
Isn’t it rather ironic that the Democrats have the vast majority of the vote of a statistically poor and poorly-educated demographic, and then doubly ironic that those very people are so shoddily educated because of the very government they so ardently support?
These facts tell a sad story. Many blacks have subjected themselves to the mercy of a government that promises them all kinds of ‘free’ benefits from health care to education and food (all paid for with money coerced from you and me, incidentally).
Many blacks are on the “receiving” end of this bargain largely because of deficient education, which leads to lower average incomes. The deficient education is largely the fault of the U.S. Government. If you want statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics reports that 70% of all black fourth graders are eligible for free and reduced lunch in public schools as opposed to 24% of all white fourth graders.
There seems to be a pattern emerging. Who is exploiting whom here? A political party gets the votes of a people in a group largely through promises to meet the very needs that the government itself has encouraged or created!
Now if liberals want to berate Republicans for getting the majority vote of a particular group like working class evangelical Christians, can we pinpoint a similar pattern in which these Christians receive something from the government in exchange for their vote? I think not.
Perhaps, you say, Christians support the traditionally conservative party as part of a vast conspiracy to stuff religion and creationism down everyone’s throat. But, even if that were true (and, for the most part, it is not), it is unlikely to happen anytime soon and would be a pretty bad reason to vote conservative.
The more likely reason is just that we want freedom, and real conservative values let us have it. It is as simple as that.
Conservatives want freedom to choose the means and end recipients of our charity, and the freedom to keep what we earn. This provides the freedom to improve our homes and families before our resources go to improve someone else’s, and the freedom to choose the schools our children go to. Conservatives promise little in the way of handouts or ‘redistribution of wealth’, yet they are often supported by those who work the hardest for the least reward.
Many of these conservatives start out ‘under-privileged,’ yet work their tails off, often without paid vacations and cushioned chairs in air-conditioned offices, to have enough money to put an addition on their old house or to give their kids a couple hundred dollars to help them out from time to time.
Take it from me: working-class kids often would not think of expecting their parents to pay their way through college. They do not ask their parents for money to help with their first car to get them to their first job. Vacations for them might mean a family camping trip; not airfare to a beach complete with many hotels and dining establishments. They do not mind, however. Contrary to what some may believe, these people really live the American dream. Every cent they have, they worked for themselves and they are proud of it.
These people generally do not want any government benefits. If they do take advantage of any benefits, they are just getting back a little bit of what they have been forced to pay into the public system for years.
The working class knows how important it is to be allowed the freedom to keep that extra couple hundred dollars each year, or not worry about being taxed out of their house. They know the importance of keeping their hard-earned thousands, and would prefer to avoid sending their kids to a school with poor teaching and overly progressive ideology. They work the hardest for the least, and they want the freedom to benefit from it.
So, there it is – my observations on a couple groups who respectively support each dominant political ideology. If you have ever wondered why the working class votes for freedom while poor blacks vote for social welfare, I hope my observations make you think.
(Endnotes)
1. The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 12, 2008
2. CBS News Poll, Sept. 4, 2008
