Are White voters racist? Apparently not say Whites.

Prior to the election of Barack Obama many in the media put forward the view that 'White racism' might lose Obama the election, with this view sometimes being based on the hotly debated 'Bradley effect'; A phenomenon whereby Black candidates running for election in the US see their poll leads turn into losses on the day of election, allegedly due to White racism.

However, Obama won. White racism didn't spoil the day and everyone was happy.

But was Obama's victory ever really that close to being spoilt by the evil White racist? Have White people had anything to say on the matter?

Well, a poll published in January 2008 found that 72% of White Americans thought America was ready for a Black president. The poll also found that for 22% of White voters race was a factor in their voting choice. So surely that means their racist? Well, perhaps, but the poll found that race was also a factor in voting choice for 24% of Black voters. So does that mean blacks are more racist than whites?

Lets look at little more. The following poll conducted by CBS and the New York Times in 2008 found that 5% of Whites would not vote for a Black president. So large and disturbing was this five percent that in an article titled; "If Obama Loses: Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him", Jacob Weisbery proclaimed; "Five percent surely understates the reality". He then went on to say that he based this view on the fact that "In the Pennsylvania primary, one in six white voters told exit pollsters race was a factor in his or her decision". As noted above this is probably true, but the same is also true for Blacks and so on these grounds surely his article could just have easily read: "If McCain Loses: Racism is the only reason Obama might beat him".


Another interesting finding in the CBS poll was that whilst only 5% of Whites said they would not vote for a Black president, 19% of Whites and 16% of Blacks said they believed most of the people they knew wouldn't vote for a Black president, implying that people think White racism is more widespread than it actually is.

Further to this, a 2007 Gallup poll also found that 5% of Americans would not vote for a black president. Racist? Maybe, but 11% said they wouldn't vote for a woman, 24% said they wouldn't vote for a Mormon, 43% said they wouldn't vote for a Homosexual, and a whopping 53% of Americans said they would not vote for an Atheist to be president. It would also appear from this that Americans will be very open to pollsters about who they discriminate against, they just aren't discriminating against blacks.

In fact Gallup have been asking people if they would vote for a Black president for over 50 years now and the results, listed below, would appear to show a consistent pattern: Americans have become more and more willing to vote for a Black president.

Year asked : Percentage who said they wouldn't vote for a Black president

1958 : 53
1961 : 41
1963 : 45
1967 : 41
1969 : 24
1971 : 23
1978 : 18
1984 : 16
1987 : 13
1997 : 4
2003 : 6
2007 : 5

The Gallup polls also show us that over the past fifty years voter discrimination against Jews, Blacks, Catholics and women has dropped significantly. However, for Atheists and homosexuals the no vote remains around the 50% mark.

The polls support the view that racism towards Blacks by Whites has diminished drastically over the last 50 years and whilst White voters have been racist in the past, it would appear that voter racism is no longer prevalent amongst White Americans. Saying that white people are racist on the grounds that 5% of them won't vote Black is unfair. The overwhelming majority of White people will vote for a Black president and this is one of the reasons why Obama won.

Although he's not really Black is he? he's mixed-race.