Dr. Omar Ali on Al Jazeera Thursday: Race in America

Catch Dr. Omar Ali, professor in the History Department and the African and African American Studies Program at Towson University in Maryland, on a half-hour segment of Al-Jazeera International's "Inside Story" to discuss race in America--surrounding the Henry Louis Gates/Sgt. James Crowley incident. Tune in Thursday, August 30, at 1:30pm Eastern Time. Click here for Al-Jazeera link.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

ELECTION FALLOUT

• Race didn't decide the election (LA Times) "Economic issues trumped race." That doesn't mean white voters in Ohio harbored no racial prejudice; it means they put their feelings aside, or subordinated them, in deciding to vote for Obama over McCain. That's a psychological process that is common in many of the decisions we make. We do or decide something in spite of feelings to the contrary.
• State GOP got outworked, outspent (Detroit News) Saul Anuzis is a good state chairman who understands the need to woo independent voters. But he is always fending off challenges from the party's ideologues. He can't be effective if his own team is trying to stick a shiv in him.
• Stronghold shows cracks (Lancaster Online) "The difference in totals could therefore be attributed to the Democrats coming out while the Republicans stayed home. It also shows that Obama received twice as many of the independent voters than did McCain."
• An Obama Tilt in Campaign Coverage (Washington Post) The Post's polling was on the mark, and in some cases ahead of the curve, in focusing on independent voters, racial attitudes, low-wage voters, the shift of African Americans' support from Clinton to Obama and the rising importance of economic issues.
• Oregon Exits (Blue Oregon) But his most important demographic wins--and probably the reason he won the election--came among moderate and independent voters. Merkley won self-identified independents 48%-43%; among self-identified independents
• Obama's victory in Florida represents many firsts (Tallahassee Democrat) Obama won counties in the famed I-4 corridor, which cuts from Tampa through Daytona Beach, and includes a slice of independent voters who practically decided if Florida will be a red or blue state. In Orange County, for example, Obama beat McCain by 85,000 votes.

HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT

• Role of race in the race (The Item - South Carolina) Lenora Fulani ran as an Independent in 1988 and again in 1992. She was the first black woman to appear on the presidential ballot in all 50 states.
• With Obama's win, our nation has overcome (The Courier Journal - KY)

LAST WORD
1960s Radicals Predict Rebirth of Social Activism (NY Times) Mr. Fenton, 56, had dropped out of the Bronx High School of Science in 1968 to pursue photojournalism. “There were demonstrations every week,” Mr. Fenton said. “I don’t know if that will ever happen again. I hope it doesn’t have to.”

Talk/Talk: Obama, Clinton and the "Deep Down"

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Below are excerpts from this week's Talk Talk, Obama, Clinton and the "Deep Down". Every Sunday CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist and philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogue on Sunday, March 23, 2008 after watching "The Chris Matthews Show" and "This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Salit: But there are numbers of people who say, on the one hand, it was great, it was a wonderful speech, it was an historic speech, etc. and so forth, but did it put these things to rest?

Newman: If the speech did "put it to rest" then he would have been wrong in what he said in his speech. I don't think he was wrong. I think he was quite right. He was opening things up and that's why the speech is, generally speaking, well regarded. He didn't try to put it to rest. That would have been both ineloquent and stupid.

Read Talk Talk in its entirety here.

Barack: A More Perfect Union

Here's a link to the transcript of Barack Obama's speech today from Philadelphia.... You can also click here or at the top of The Hankster to watch the video...

Conversations on Race, Politics and the Blogosphere

Chicago 1968-2007

Here's an important discussion of race and politics from earlier this year: Blackosphere & Whitosphere: Silence is Never Golden on MyDD by Francis L. Holland (now on The Hankster sidebar) who says:

If in 2008 Black people and Latinos fail to vote in sufficient numbers for the Democratic presidential candidate to win Florida and Ohio, then whites will hypothesize endlessly about the "cultural" reasons for Blacks failure to vote. Whites may not ever consider that they simply exercised their majority power within the Party to nominate a candidate whom Blacks and Latinos really did not like very much. Although Black people always vote reliably and overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, our turnout and, therefore, the election results often depend upon the degree of Blacks enthusiasm for the candidate chosen by the Party. If the Party chooses a candidate whom we do not like, Black activists within the Party find it all the more difficult to mobilize Black voters. So, when you hear Black voters say that a proposed candidate is "just another white [man]", this ought, logically, to give you pause.....

Also discussed at The Field Negro (now on The Hankster sidebar) who says:

Mr. Holland seems to be screaming for more black inclusion in the Whitosphere, and more black links to sites like Daily Kos and My DD etc. This is where my man and I tend to part company. I personally could give a f**k whether My DD or Daily Kos, or any of the other so called white progressive blogs link me or even include me in their discussion. Honestly, their issues aren't my issues. I know they have very strong political beliefs and are tied to the democratic party and it's leaders, but not me, and this is going to surprise some people. But I would just as soon vote for a republican over a democrat if I thought he had my people's best interest at heart....

Is there a "de facto blogger apartheid practiced at prominent "progressive" whitosphere blogs"?

What's happening at YearlyKos? Francis L. Holland will be there (last year he spotted at least 6 black people there...). The National Review calls it the "vast left-wing establishment". On Saturday, Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel and Bill Richardson are set to appear at a forum. They will take questions from two journalists and the audience on foreign policy, domestic policy and philosophy... and they didn't attend the DLC Nashville gathering....