the monolith
WP: Blacks shift to Obama, poll finds - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com
reading things like this always rubs me the wrong way. it just automatically offers as "fact" that blacks vote as a block. you hear people on tv talking about "the black vote".
and then i talk to my lady who is a politics and government graduate from the university of maryland, who consequently knows a lot about this shit... and i find out that... well... they actually DO vote pretty monolithically.
and at first you may think, what the fuck? why? can't they think for themselves?
but then i realize, it's not like that. i mean, i'm applying a viewpoint of a white irish american kid from south buffalo (which actually kept me sheltered from any interaction with ANY other culture until i got to college). and that doesn't translate. i mean, there is a very strong sense of culture there. i won't call it "urban" because that intimates that to be black one must be urban, or to be urban one must be black. and i do hesitate to call it "black culture" because, like "the black vote" sort of lends itself to an uncomfortable sense of required conformity.
but it's something. and the people that vote similarly will have similar interests. and if you have a cultural block which experience many of the same things and has interests in many of the same things, then it really makes sense that they will vote similarly.
however, i do look forward to the day where, much like i said about hall berry's academy award, this won't even be an issue.
it will just be delightfully run-of-the-mill.
reading things like this always rubs me the wrong way. it just automatically offers as "fact" that blacks vote as a block. you hear people on tv talking about "the black vote".
and then i talk to my lady who is a politics and government graduate from the university of maryland, who consequently knows a lot about this shit... and i find out that... well... they actually DO vote pretty monolithically.
and at first you may think, what the fuck? why? can't they think for themselves?
but then i realize, it's not like that. i mean, i'm applying a viewpoint of a white irish american kid from south buffalo (which actually kept me sheltered from any interaction with ANY other culture until i got to college). and that doesn't translate. i mean, there is a very strong sense of culture there. i won't call it "urban" because that intimates that to be black one must be urban, or to be urban one must be black. and i do hesitate to call it "black culture" because, like "the black vote" sort of lends itself to an uncomfortable sense of required conformity.
but it's something. and the people that vote similarly will have similar interests. and if you have a cultural block which experience many of the same things and has interests in many of the same things, then it really makes sense that they will vote similarly.
however, i do look forward to the day where, much like i said about hall berry's academy award, this won't even be an issue.
it will just be delightfully run-of-the-mill.