Three reasons why I believe white people under 45.....

...are more likely to be open to voting for a Black President. I think people born in the early-to-mid 60s were the first to be exposed to the relative desegregation of society while they were children. Here are some examples of images that stand out to me from the early 70s.


Sesame Street in 1969: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRH5-q7iFS0&feature=related


Muhammed Ali's comeback: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5o-yxwBJuk
(We were oblivious to what happened in the 1960s when Ali was thrown in prison for not fighting in Vietnam)

Electric Company: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qH-DOXo3bA
(Cool, hip, and not much controversial about blacks and whites interacting.)

When I was growing up in the '50s, the only blacks were comical servants, like Rochester on "Jack Benny" and "Amos and Andy".

From 1973

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE

It seemed we were on the right track in those days. What happened? Must admit drugs were pretty bad then. But people were more open minded about everything. It seems we are now bitter and angry.

The RW want to remind people that he is black, like it is something to be wary of? Saw his speech today on CNN, live stream, and he was open with his ideas and explained issues without using sound bites. Too bad even parts of that speech doesn't seem to be on tv, only McCain with dumb, ignorant mouth. Lately my tv is on mute more than ever.

Ronald Reagan and the growth of the power of the christian right.

can someone tell me great albums by this musician...i know he's famous but thats about it

He started singing in the mid- or early 60s I guess when they called him "Little Stevie Wonder." I never bought his albums really, just listened to his hits on the radio. Surely someone around here can steer you to some good albums - maybe a Greatest Hits?

Good album and Stevie Ray Vaughn does a classic cover of the song.

Innervisions is also a great album. "Living in the City" was my alltime favorite.

Basically look for early 70 albums for what is his best work (in my opinion) some of the early stuff in the 60's is o.k., in the late 70's/early 80's he did a shit song with Paul McCartney which creates a great line for Jack Black in High Fidelity (A John Cusack Movie that is really good)

Got the album when my son was a baby, 1976. If he was fussy, would turn it up and it would calm him right down. 'Sir Duke' was a favorite, but the whole album (two records) was great.

Until eventually you get to the people born in 1990 who are voting in this election and the general response about voting for a black man is, "Errrr... why would I not vote for a black man?"

Racism's not just intolerable -- it's DOA.

One of the great things about being on our side of the political fence is that we are inexorably winning the culture war. Each generation seems to be, on the whole, a little more tolerant than the previous one. There are, of course, exceptions, but these get fewer and fewer as time goes on.

RIP

Racism has waned in our society so much that the majority are not racist. HOWEVER, lets not dellude ourselves into thinking it is dying and will never return...all we need to do is see the apparent racial bias many people (and the media) have towards Muslims...it's about fears...fears can be put aside but never forgotten! But this racial fear based on color is/was very silly and must go once and for...

"Understanding" is the key and the answer ... but heaven forbid people go out and research on their own when you have breaking news 10-sec out-of-context soundbytes (for ratings) and unsubstantiated emails telling one how to think ... so as to intensify those fears (hence: the rebirth of racism). So it's not dead, just put aside in the closet with the rest of the toys and junk waiting to be played with again.

But for the most part thank you generational progress!

Each generation has been more accepting of other cultures and people.

The hate filled, racist bigots will all eventually vanish from the earth. At some point those who still spread the hate will have to change just to survive.

I know a nasty little racist who's just 11. But they will be a smaller and smaller minority, growing ever more resentful at the things they're not "allowed" to say by the "politically correct police".

Look to his parents, how much more racist are they then he? I know that there still some racism in my parents although they tried. It was because they were taught racism. So I have worked very hard to make sure that there is nothing passed to my kids.
Judging from my kids friends, I have done a good job.

I know his parents and they aren't racists, but he lives in a small South Carolina hick town and the kids he goes bowling with have passed on their attitudes (which they probably got from their parents) to him.

but is this really an area of contention? While there is plenty of intolerance among younger Americans, and plenty of tolerance among older Americans, generally speaking I would say it is accepted that age and intolerance are directly correlated. The fight against racial intolerance has widely been a fight to reduce the levels of racism in each successive generation more so than to try to "convert" members of older generations.

On a similar subject, this same principle is exactly why we must fight for every vote in every state. While there are certainly states where the Democrats have almost no chance of winning this cycle, if we make no attempt at the state we condemn that state to stay unwinnable longer. There are many states where the Democrats lose overall but win, sometimes by large percentages, among younger voters. If we can continue to fight for their votes and the votes of new generations, with time they will become the dominate electoral force in their states.

...memory lane. I'm thankful I was born then. My mind is freer today because of Sesame Street, Muhammad Ali, and the Electric Company.

Has the torch been passed? I am getting hopeful here..

Posted by SoCalDem in General Discussion
Tue Feb 12th 2008, 04:33 PM

That said, I am a white 58 year old woman, so maybe I am missing something.

I saw it with my own kids, but I attributed it to the color-blind upbringing we gave them..

My youngest son's first real girlfriend was a young girl with a Black Mother and a Japanese Dad.. In May he is marrying a girl whose Father was born in Mexico and who picked cotton as a young man in the San Joaquin Valley. His future mother in law did not learn English until she was a teenager.


All I see in the "parsing" of politics, is the "groups" and who they support, or who they do not support.

Some people (there's that phrase again ..) say that white men will not vote for a black man or that Hispanic people will not vote for a black person or that "older women" will only vote for this one or that one.

If what we are seeing is what I think we are seeing, just maybe people have moved beyond that narrowminded groupthink.

There will always be a hardcore bigoted bunch of yahoos scattered here and there who will not see what is happening, but for the most part, I think we may be getting somewhere.

What made it happen?

I hate to think this might be it, but it just MAY be sports..

Think about it..

Kids idolize sports people..no matter what color they are..no matter what language they speak, no matter where they were born..

Young kids play on sports teams with kids of every ethnic group.

Technically, school integration started the ball rolling, but until kids accepted each other as true equals (often as teammates who counted on each other to win games), there was still resistance.

When kids play together and make friends, they hang out together, their parents sit on the sidelines and cheer for each other's kids..

They shop together, they travel together, meet each other's families...and once the "otherness" barriers come down, they date and marry each other.

A natural consequence of this is the fact that MANY white people of my age group have mixed-race grandchildren. It takes a cold hearted person to continue to hate and fear, when they transfer those feelings to THEIR grand children and sons & daughters-in-law.

When people only think ONE way for a long time, it's hard to see a gradual change, but I find it deliciously ironic, that those little kids who had to have the military to help them even get inside of a "white school" were just the bud, of a flower that seems to be in full bloom...

I'm happy to be around to see it..no matter how much "fertilizer" it took to grow that thing

In grade school, the buzz was around when the next fight was. The black and white kids knew he was cool, and the black kids took special pride in him, I think. The white kids gave him his props. He was the greatest!

And I definitely never gave a crap about anybody's "race" on the show.

It's not just the kids shows, but it's pro sports and popular music as well. When you see someone like Ken Griffey or Barry Bonds (steroids aside, in his case) hitting home runs, you don't think it's anything out of the ordinary, except for a damn good hitter. But there was a time a few decades ago where those guys would have had to play in an entirely separate league. How many racist parents in the 50's wouldn't let their kids bring Little Richard's records in the house, but would buy them Pat Boone's white bread bastardizations of the same songs?

There was a joke going around a few years ago about how it was kinda weird that the best golfer was a black guy (Tiger Woods) and the best rapper was a white guy (Eminem). But the larger truth behind the joke is that both were accepted in their chosen professions, when that wouldn't have been possible at an earlier time.

Each generation is progressively more "colorblind" than the previous one. And that's a good thing.

I had a dream last week that I wrote an eleborate thesis on how Obama's candidacy is an example of the post-Sesame Street generation (even though he was born before the start of the show, but just it terms of his success among that demographic). I don't know where the hell that came from, but I was pissed off that I worked so hard on it in my dream, only to have it be..a dream. Haha.

I've been thinking the same thing. I love that old show.

It wasn't that long ago Spike Lee making a major motion picture in Hollywood was a big deal, Bill Cosby having an average suburban sitcom was a big deal... heck it wasn't that long ego an Italian American marrying an Irish American wasn't a big deal. Check out the parts of the country that built up after WWI til 1950s and see "white" neighborhoods with 3-4 churches. One for the Germans, Irish, Polish, Italian. I'm amazed how different culture is today than what it was in the 1970s I grew up in. People are simply more exposed to different cultures than ever before.

..was the fruit of their labor.

Even though that wasn't until the '80s. The Huxtables were
a typical American (upper?) middle class family -- and, guess
what -- they were BLACK!

Obviously there were things that came along later in the 70s and 80s. These three things, though, I think set it off.

Older white people who participated in or at least paid attention to civil rights, black power, women's right, gay rights -- the whole range of movement politics -- went through conscious raising about race, broadened their social acquaintances, had intimate biracial relationships, served with blacks in the military, worked side by side at jobs, got to know neighbors of other races, had kids who married inter-racially, etc., so got past a lot of the conditioning, AND watched all those television shows. Now this all happened in adulthood so it's not built-in automatic: Huh? Why the hell not? But we shouldn't underestimate it. While there are a lot of racists in that generation, true, who were never going to vote for Barack, there are also a lot of older white people who got over it in their youth. I think Barack's shortfall with the 60+ demographic actually has less to do with race than with the fact that his opponent is of their own age group. This following on the devotion many older women had developed to Hillary and bitterness over her loss. But Barack is already pulling in the gaps. People who had been closed off to him in the primaries are opening up. I guess I think the impact of race can be overstated. Not that there aren't those who won't vote for him for that reason, or won't vote for him as casually, but it's not the 1950s, either.

Obama in my primary. I won't be under 45 any longer in November. Can I still vote for him?

...did you watch Sesame Street as a kid?


Nothing I posted was meant to be exclusive. I'm just saying that people of a certain age were socialized by TV to be more open to other races. You can learn to be more open in a number of ways, however, for kids who didn't have the opportunity to grow up around black people much, shows like this that came around in the late 60s early 70s were pivotal to the development of healthy attitudes toward others.

I loved Sesame Street growing up, still love it.
I was lucky, my parents taught us that racism was the problem in this country, not other races.
I did not know any blacks personally until I started Jr. High.
My first day of 7th grade I had two 8th grade boys start teasing me and this very tall, to me, black, 9th grader came to my rescue. So my first experience was very positive.

:hi:

The truth is,, TV may have done more good than harm in this respect.

Some of my earliest memories: the civil rights marches and seeing my mom weep when she heard MLK speak at the Washington Monument.

The Dick Van Dyke Show's "Wrong Baby" episode. It was a split-second take, but it addressed race head-on with no apology, no harm, and made a point--we can deal with race without being racist. I still watch that episode and laugh; I won't say more for those who've never seen it.

I Spy: Bill Cosby was an INTEGRAL part of the team, not just comic relief, and sophisticatedly funny. I've seen reruns through my paren'ts eyes and they told me that all of these were quite groundbreaking at the time; absolutely unheard of.

...at what ayeshahaqqiqa posted (post #1). The 1950s were sooooo backwards.

There was also a show with Diane Carrol? about a nurse, can't remember the name.

--

It's hard to grasp how radical the change was unless you saw it and remember it, or really study it maybe.

Diahann Carroll discusses her show here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83w4BYvOACs

The first TV program with two credible black presidents. Dennis Haysbert, especially.

not a Black man. I am not voting for a Black man. What would the "spin" be on DU if McCain was the Black Candidate and Obama was the White one? Everything about both candidates exactly the same as it is now. Issues, age, party just a transposition of colors. Would McCain as a Black candidate for the Republicans be lauded as historic an event as Obama as the Black Candidate is now?

Maybe I am nieve, maybe it is because I am in my second interacial marriage and have a second pair of bi-racial kids, but I do not see race that big an issue or the main deciding factor on who anyone votes for. I see someone voting for McCain soley because Obama is Black naseatingly disgusting. But, seeing someone vote for Obama solely because he is Black and not because of character or issues disgusts me just as much. It is not and should not be about race!

The historical significance of a Black candidate winning the Presidency would be little to celebrate if that candidate was a right winger, don't you think? Don't think it could not have happened. Condi Rice would have been a formidable candidate if she had been convinced to run as she is more popular among the Republicans than McCain.

For those of you that may wonder, my first wife was Puerto Rican. My present wife is Black. Not that it mattered to me. I did not really look past female as a qualifier.

...that a certain television climate during formative years made it easier for a generation or more to reach the point where this (race) isn't much of an issue.

is more color blind that the generation that preceded it. My kids hang out with such a diverse group in school. It looks almost like a target group. Like someone put together a certain mix on purpose. Also, even as I grew up a black/white interacial marriage drew looks, they are so common now as to be passe. No big deal.

I do agree with what you said though. Exposure did make acceptance easier. In the end, the so called "race pimps" on the Black side and the KKK Supremists on the White side are turning into the dinosaurs right after the meteor stuck. Their dreams of continual racial strife will never come to fruition.

Pixies?
(Democrats is who)

My point is: your post lacks historical perspective.

...might have been socialists for all I know.

Guess I wasn't trying for "historical perspective," just making an observation.

:)

Change comes slowly and then in sudden bursts. And it does seem true that the younger generation are less fraught with certain racist stereotypes. Lucky for them. But that change did not happen by some accident. It was fought for and worked for and thought for.

post #16.

Of course, they had to be forced to by psychokinetic aliens. But it was the first interracial kiss on TV.

..going where no man had gone before.

Too old for Seasame Street, had all older bros and sisters that would smack me silly if I wanted to watch it, missed the big wheel craze by a year too! Anyway you make a valid point. It is obviously not an issue for people under a certain age.

TV can have a huge influence at the same time I find it extremely sad that Stevie Wonder jammed for almost seven minutes on Seasame Street, shows how hip the producers were, now they would cut it down to a three and a half minute song on disney.

You probably had some space toys, though, huh? They were pretty cool. Fun time for that!@

Even those of us who happen to be female and never once thought of voting for the female in the primaries. Not to bring back GD:Primary, but to show that many support and defend the nominee and support whoever the VP pick will be.

:hi: