Undecideds

by Melba Tolliver

October 21, 2008

When New Mexico governor Bill Richardson made a campaign stop for Senator Barack Obama here in northeast Pennsylvania last month, I spoke up and voiced my concern about registered voters who tell me they are still undecided. To read about this visit click here

In his amiable, folksy way, the popular Richardson sought to dispel my anxiety. Maybe because I’m obviously black, Richardson, who was speaking at the Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations, addressed my question in terms of race, though I never used that word. He conceded that a certain percentage of white voters will not pull the lever for Obama on November 4th. Richardson went on to say that strong support for Obama among young voters and independents—of various racial and ethnic groups, though Richardson did not describe them as such—will offset the anti-black voters. Being the optimist that I am, I hope Richardson is correct. None of us will know until the votes are counted and analyzed.

But I want to make a couple of points here. First, I never mentioned race when making my comments to Richardson. He assumed that was my point in noting that many voters that I encounter when knocking on doors say they remain undecided. Like Richardson, the newspaper reporter who wrote about comments also heard a word I never used and assumed that that’s what I was talking about.

It’s the kind of assuming that goes on a lot around black people. If you’re black and supporting Obama it’s assumed you’re racially motivated. Even Colin Powell—a black, but a non-race man— who endorsed Obama on Sunday is subject to such assumptions. Never mind that 95% of black folks gave their votes to John Kerry last time around. Never mind that black voters have helped elect Democrats in elections big and small since before FDR. Never mind that blacks who will vote for Obama may be smart enough to vote for the candidate who’s got the best grip on the failing economy, the failed Iraq/Afghanistan policy, the failed health insurance system—the failures in America that run across the board. That candidate is certainly not John McCain. And black voters like the majority of all other voters haven’t been fired up by any of the third party candidates.

Obama for all his “blackness” is after all a mixed race man. Half black, half white. Son of a black African father and a white American mother. Raised mostly by his white grandparents, and himself. So what does that say about him? Nothing much unless we resort to the tired stereotypes about black people and white people. What does tell us something useful about Obama and the kind of man he is, the kind of president he might be are these things: His campaign which , according to some observers, is the most disciplined political campaign in American history. His brilliant and audacious use of the Internet for fund raising, social networking, volunteer organizing—again, prompting some to observe that if Obama is elected, he and his operatives will have changed presidential politics forever.