Perceptions of Race, Politics

I don't suppose it will come as a surprise to anyone, but Adam Nagourney writes, in the New York Times, that a recent New York Times/CBS News poll finds that there are differences in the way that blacks and whites perceive racial relations in America.

And those differences are spilling over into the presidential race.

For example ...

"More than 80% of black voters said they had a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama," writes Nagourney. "About 30% of white voters said they had a favorable opinion of him."

Nagourney concedes that "[a]fter years of growing political polarization, much of the divide in American politics is partisan," but it also "underlined the racial discord that the poll found."

The respondents to the survey found some common ground but not much, Nagourney reports. "Black and white Americans agree that America is ready to elect a black president, but disagree on almost every other question about race in the poll."

One of the most interesting findings was this: "Whites were more likely than blacks to say that Mr. Obama says what he thinks people want to hear, rather than what he truly believes."

The flip side of that issue may be found in responses Nagourney received from white Democrats who tried to frame their differences with Obama in a non-racial light.

"This isn’t a black and white thing," a 69-year-old Pennsylvania Democrat said. "If a conservative African-American like former Congressman J. C. Watts was running, I’d have bumper stickers plastered all over my car supporting him."

Issues should decide the campaign, but it increasingly appears that only one issue — race — is going to be discussed in great detail.

Perhaps it was inevitable, with the first black presidential nominee.

But with all the problems our nation is facing in 2008, do we really want to spend the next three and a half months fighting the Civil War again — more than 140 years after it ended?

Is that the only way to finally exorcise our demons?