Prometheus 6

Darryl Cox , an African-American policy consultant who lives in Seattle [P6: and, coincidentally, a participant here], says, “If black folks do not believe Sen. Obama has a credible chance of winning the nomination, then it would make little sense to vote for him on the basis of race pride alone.” ...

Cox says people in the black and progressive communities will not stop addressing social justice and racial issues simply because he is president. “On the other hand, it is not realistic to expect that these issues will always be at the top of his agenda,” he says.

“He is running to be elected as president of the United States, not as president of black America, which I believe many, many moderate whites of good will and more than a few blacks need to keep in mind,” Cox says.

History in the Making?
Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton race for the White House and break ground in the process.

The U.S. Constitution is held up as a model document for the principles it enshrines – freedom, equality and justice. But for more than two centuries since its adoption in 1787, those august principles have been more promise than reality. It’s only four decades since the Voting Rights Act removed all curbs on the right to vote for blacks  and the Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws – which banned interracial marriage – were illegal.

The lack of progress on race and gender issues is well-reflected in the highest of political institutions. Over the course of American history, less than 2 percent of U.S. senators have been women, and only five blacks have ever been elected to the Senate.

Never in the course of our history has a woman or a person of color broken through the most impenetrable of glass ceilings – the White House.

Yet 2008 promises to be a year where the concept of “We, the People” might, for the first time, actually mean all of us. With the very real possibility of a woman (Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.) or a mixed-race African-American (Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.) ascending to the country’s highest office, issues of race and gender are front and center this political season.

Ethnicity and gender making a mark

As pundits and analysts furiously debate how Clinton’s gender or Obama’s ethnicity will play out with voters, this campaign season has thrown conventional wisdom a number of curve balls. Many women – particularly college-educated women – are more likely to support Obama, while many working-class blacks are drawn to Clinton. These divided loyalties and intersecting agendas make for an unprecedented election year, where suddenly the nuances of race, class and gender are the subjects of Sunday morning TV news shows and pollster questions.

One question many have asked is why so many African-American women remain Clinton devotees. Black women will play a critical role in whether Clinton or Obama will win the Democratic nomination for president, experts say. Nearly 70 percent identify Clinton as their first choice – according to a CNN poll of black voters taken in October – leading some pundits to theorize that black women long for the Bill Clinton years, while others agree with the former first lady on issues that support working women and families.

While Clinton was hugely popular among black women – 68 percent to Obama’s 25 percent – for black men, the poll shows Obama with a slight lead with a 46 percent to 42 percent margin.

CNN political analyst Bill Schneider wrote of the poll, the difference between black women and men “underscores the fact that the nation’s vote is divided not only by race, but also by gender.

“Black women don’t just vote their black identity,” Schneider says. “They also vote their identity as women.”

Author and political activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote on the Web site of New America Media, “Nearly three times more black women say they’ll back Hillary over Obama, and that’s especially true among lower income, working-class black women. She is a mother, and most importantly, is regarded by many black women as a strong advocate for child care and women’s interests.” This is a significant point because South Carolina is the most diverse of the early voting states, with black voters make up more than half of Democratic voters.