America illustrates race still matters

Nelson Graves
Published: April 30, 2008

Former president Clinton knows it. His wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., knows it. Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, knows it. And most blacks know it. In America, race still matters.
The Clintons realize race will matter come Election Day. That’s why both consider Obama unelectable. And why, even though she’s behind in popular votes, pledged votes and in states won, she keeps telling Democratic superdelegates Obama can’t win.
In February, when Michelle Obama made her “Proud of her Country” speech, I thought she was referencing the fact that her husband had won a primary in a state where there wasn’t a large number of black people. She was proud that he won where race hadn’t mattered. Until that contest, she felt as most other blacks did and still do that the majority of white America isn’t ready for a black president.
On ABC TV’s Good Morning America last week, George Stephanopoulos, the network’s lead political expert, finally acknowledged that race may be playing a role in the primaries. Though no one has admitted or said it, voters in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania — three states with large blocs of white, male blue-collar voters — have voted for Clinton because of race.
I wish my suspicions were wrong but I can’t forget what happened to current Richmond mayor and former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. In 1989, Wilder ran for governor and all polls indicated he was the favorite over Marshall Coleman by 10 to 15 percentage points. Wilder’s projected landslide victory turned out to be a win by about 3 percent.
What happened?
When many white voters entered the booths and closed the curtains, they chose Coleman. Wilder won the election because of Northern Virginia and the large black bloc of voters all over the state, particularly in urban areas.
As it turned out, the reluctance by whites to vote for Wilder was unfounded. I don’t know what they feared, for lack of a better word, but he was a very fiscally conservative governor.
Maybe that same fear exists in many white, especially blue-collar, voters today. Obama wants to bring change to Washington, meaning the way Congress operates. But as most voters know, he can only bring about a small amount of change.
There are many current lawmakers who don’t want to lose power. And if Obama finds a way to bring change to the way Congress operates, he would be the first president to do so.
Any changes he could actually bring about would be because of the new voters, young and old, who were formerly disengaged or uninterested in our political process.
Then, maybe, we could finally say it’s no longer all about race.
Nelson Graves writes a weekly column for The News Virginian and he’s Western Virginia director of the Virginia Minority Supplier Development Council. E-mail him at .