Age, Race and Values

Much has been made about Senator Barack Obama's need to win over the older white voters who have historically voted Democrat, lean Democrat or are independents.  A lot of those voters voted for Hillary Clinton.  Some of these voters are labeled Reagan Democrats.  For the young readers of this article, many of you may not be aware that the Democratic party has not always been in support of civil/human rights or equal opportunity for everyone.   Over the years, the Democratic Party has evolved in many ways in terms of race.  In fact, most of the members of Congress who are people of color are Democrats. 

 

Here are some things to consider: a person who is 61 years old was 18 years old when the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed; a person who is 65 years old was 25 years old when Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968; and, a person 70 years old was around 32 years of age before many of the public schools in the South were desegregated after the 1955 Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education (Topeka, KS).   What does this all mean?   Most of those older white Democrats and independents are a product of Jim Crow.  This seems to be a fact that Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and the three major networks ignore.  No one in the mainstream media has the strength to discuss the impact of race and age in terms of beliefs shared by older white voters.  Specifically, no one will confront a simple fact: the majority of these voters were raised to see a person of color (especially a black person) as inferior or "less than" in just about every aspect of American society. 

 

Most black leaders that older white voters now accept or at least acknowledge as someone of substance had to die first before they were accepted by them.  Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medger Evers, Marcus Garvey, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Dubois, and Paul Robeson were all either labeled a communist, traitor, Un-American, criminal or someone who should not be trusted while they were alive.  Only decades after their deaths are they celebrated as true American heroes/heroines by some in the white community.  In fact, John McCain and Dick Cheney voted against setting aside a holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr.   

 

When people are asked what shaped their values, most will say they learned their values at home or in church.   Well, most of these older white voters learned through their early, adolescent and teenage years (whether explicitly or implicitly) that black people were inferior and also should not be trusted.   Many of these older voters grew up in all white homes, towns, schools and churches.   Sure, many of them interact with blacks in the workplace because they have no choice.  Some of these same voters publicly say racist statements and hold very racist views.  However, the majority of these older whites do not want to be labeled racist and many really believe they are not racist.  So these "closet racists" will hide behind questions/statements like "Is he really American"; "Is he one of us"; "I don't think he's patriotic", or "I know he says he's a Christian but I'm just not sure."  Further, many of these older white voters have never seen a person of color in a leadership role so visible or personal to them as the POTUS and because of that, the labels of"arrogant" or “cocky” (which a lot of older African-Americans will tell you is code word for "uppity Negro”) surface in the news. 

 

Does this mean that all older voters are racist?  No, not all.  As a matter of fact, Senator Obama has many older white Americans officially working for his campaign as paid staffers or volunteers.  However, the fact that there were several whites that fought and lost their lives fighting against slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation does not mean that the majority of white people and institutions were not prejudice or racist during those periods in U.S. history.  Most Americans would like to believe that all of that changed with the civil rights movement, federal legislation and Supreme Court cases of the 1950's and 60's.  Those events in American history are great achievements, but policies and laws tell people what they can or cannot do.  No law ever changed the heart and mind of a person. Those events alone do not have the power to change the hearts and minds of people. This is the shared legacy that older white and black voters inherited and the values they learned throughout their formative years (along with subconscious racism) shape their current views.

 

Many political pundits are asking whether Senator Obama can convince some these older white voters to believe he shares their values. Senator Obama is a very skilled attorney, community organizer and politician.  I'm sure he will try to win over some of these voters and as a candidate for POTUS, he has an obligation to do so.  However, if he can erase 400 years of history that has been handed down from generation to generation and change the hearts and minds of those 60+ yr old white voters before November 4th, then he will have done what no U.S. president has been able to do in history…and they were white…