One last post on the political front before I retire my post as resident political pundit:
The New York Times has once again labeled the South racist, crediting the shocking tendency of the South to vote Republican. This time, it’s obvious because, in various locations, the South voted as much as 10% more in favor of the Republican party than in ’04’s election. The title of the article is “For South, a Waning Hold on Politics,” but it should have been “The South, Now With More Racism!” because it was nothing more than a thinly-veiled attack against Southerners, with skewed statistics and an agenda the author didn’t even attempt to conceal. Once you read into the article, you’ll realize how thinly veiled it really was, too, if it was veiled at all:
Mr. Obama’s race appears to have been the critical deciding factor in pushing ever greater numbers of white Southerners away from the Democrats.
I don’t know who to be mad at with this, the NYTimes for stirring up something that’s less an issue here than it is even in New York–I’ve experienced the haughty New York bias against Southerners, and it’s uglier than any form of prejudice now in the South, my friends–or my fellow Southerners, who, if this article is true, have finally broken my spirit, because they are backwards. My tendency is to blame the author, because he chose a tiny hamlet in western Alabama as representatives of the entire South. Sure, there are pockets of racism alive and well, in Vernon as well as in other places all over the country. Possibly even (GASP!) New York City. Does Ocean County, New Jersey, who voted 58% in favor of McCain, represent your political values, Mr. Author? I doubt you’d like that very much at all if your political values were criticized because of a nearby town’s voting preferences, especially if those preferences happened to be the opposite of your own. So hey, New York, why don’t you work on your own prejudices and leave us alone? Or, better yet, why don’t you help educate some of these areas you’re indicting instead of tattling on them to the rest of the world?
For the article, the author didn’t visit quaint Montevallo or stately Huntsville, the home of this nation’s space program, for a sampling of reactions to Obama’s election. No, they visited Vernon, populatin 1,900 and change. A small, isolated town that I’m imminently familiar with, where the high school graduation rate is low. The people swell with Southern hospitality, but, isolated as they are, you might say they’re behind on the times. I’m not saying they’re backwards, they’re isolated, and there’s not much cultural diversity there, so they have fewer experiences in relating to minorities than many of us do. Maybe that sounds like I’m making excuses, and maybe I am. The point is that the majority of counties in Alabama increased their votes for Democrats this election compared to ‘04, but this author chose Vernon to represent the entire state–the entire South, even.
The article isn’t an outright lie, but in it the author does misrepresent a large geographic area by using skewed statistics. He reveals only the statistics that will paint the South in an ugly fashion, and conceals the others. This article could just as easily have been written about the numbers of people who did vote for Obama (myself included), and the massive amount of progress overall.
Map, election '08
The article even points out the fact that Virginia and North Carolina:
made history in breaking from their Confederate past and supporting Mr. Obama.
But did they use Virginia or NC as representative of the whole South? Did they focus on positives or progress? No. They chose Vernon, Alabama. They didn’t even choose nearby Shelby County, Alabama, in which I live, which voted (according to this map), 5% higher Democrat in this election than in ‘04, with a population that’s 87.8% white. Sure, McCain still won the county, but he would have won it no matter who was running on the Dem ticket. And that’s not the point of the article, which only wants us to focus on percentage points gained or lost as compared to the Democratic voters of 2004.
So why not pick Shelby County to represent the entire South? Well, because you can’t pick one spot to represent an entire geographic area. Not if you want to be fair and balanced, which this article obviously did not want to be. It wanted to present the South as a bunch of backward racists, so it found the spot where it could present the message it wanted to deliver.
Of the people I know of who voted for McCain, they did so because of Obama’s policies, and argued their points with competence. For instance, as one friend of mine pointed out, isn’t it possible that middle income families will feel the tax crunch when the taxes on the wealthy are raised? Sure, Obama’s plan calls for a hike in taxes only for people making over 250k, but the people who make that much are the owners of a lot of businesses we middle and lower-class folk work at. Isn’t it possible, seeing their taxes go up, that they might hire fewer people, offer fewer pay raises, and essentially constrict our earning potential?
In the end, this is just another jab by an ignorant bigot, who unfortunately has published this misleading misrepresentation in one of the most widely read periodicals in the world. One more slap to the face of every Southerner who has worked to overcome the past, to embrace the future and try to make right.
My name is Matt Mitchell. I am a white male. I live in Montevallo, Alabama, and I voted for Barrack Obama.
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8 Comments
That ignorant article angered me as well. It’s an example of lazy reporting. The author wanted to brand Alabama a bunch of white bigots so he found a bunch of white bigots to back him up. What interests me is that he managed to find two people with important-sounding titles who were quoted as saying it could only be race. Instead of holding their facts to the fire and exploring where their data supported that conclusion, the author went to find support for his theory of white southern racism.
I live in Huntsville — a town I’d hold up against VA and SC as equally well-educated and prosperous — and it *still* went to McCain. Why? Beats me, but it would make a much more interesting article to explore why non-hicks voted McCain. That would be good investigative reporting. Instead, the NYT let this reporter get away with lazy, shoddy reporting.
I am a white, college-educated, Christian (although not Evangelical) Southern female and I voted Obama. If racism is so rampant around here and affecting my voting, I’d love to know how that happened…
Kim, thanks for the response. It’s nice to know somebody else is confused as me about all this. Regardless, Obama’s in there, and my hope is that perceptions will change. And they may, if people like the short-sighted hate monger who wrote this article would let it rather than stoking the fires of hate. But they can’t; people like him make their living off of hate.
Further proof that there are three types of lies : Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics! I did not vote for Obama, but believe me it was not because of his race. I just happen to be a Republican. I have a brother-in-law who is African-American, a Sister-in-law who is Japanese and my sister was married to a Yankee (okay that one bothered me). I was born and raised in central Alabama and there is not a racist bone in my body. Just remember, at least we get to live in the South! They have to live up north, so pity them and excuse their jealousy.
Yes, I do pity them. It’s just the ignorance and self-righteousness I have a problem with. Makes me want to throttle someone. Namely, the author of this trunk-load of trash article.
Mr. Mitchell,
Thank you for standing up for the south. But I am dissappointed in the fact that you can’t see that the writter from the Times is merely pushing his liberal agenda by slanting the article and only using the quotes he thought worthy of accomplishing this feat. I would like to know what was said that didn’t make his article from some of the more educated citzens of Vernon. I am a graduate of Vernon now living in Trussville and currently I run the laser scanning dept. for KBR Enginnering. (The 3rd largest Eng. firm in the world) Sorry, but I don’t take kindly to your views on my home town. By the way, I have seen several citzens from Shelby county on Fox 6 after a tornado ripped through their trailer park community. I assume you relate yourself with them? Again thanks for speaking up for the south, but please in the future, use your head before blasting other southerners.
I actually am grouping myself in with those other Shelby County people, frankly. I’m not above a single one of them, nor am I above a single resident of Vernon, either. And I haven’t blasted anybody but the author of that article and the NY Times.
And besides that, your own argument only augments mine. For starters, Vernon IS isolated, I’ve been through there many times and it’s a nice little town. I don’t have any problems with Vernon. And you, a Vernon graduate, left town to get a good job. I’d have loved to hear from some–I won’t say “more educated” as you did, I’ll just say “more modern,” people from the town. But you know what? I’m not the one denigrating the South, so if you’re focussing on taking out your grief on me your looking at the wrong guy. I like the South–and that includes all the fine folks in Vernon, black or white. I didn’t say Vernon was full of racists, the NY Times did. If you want to get on somebody for giving your hometown grief, try looking up the author of that article.
Maybe you should go back and read the article again, because in it I point out that Vernon is NOT backwards and that they “swell with Southern hospitality.” I’m not knocking your hometown, Rhett, nor its people nor anything else about it. My one argument is that Vernon is isolated, and if you disagree with me on that we’ll just have to disagree.
Excellent New York Times story. Sorry that the truth hurts, fellow. I wish that story could be posted throughout the South so the John McCain-voting losers can truly examine the roots of their support, see if it had something to do with some notion of white superiority or not being able to vote for a black mand and come up with ways that they get past it. It’s 2008. Set your clocks forward!
Kelvin Sims
Atlanta resident
1990 U. of Alabama grad
Hm; I’ll admit that in some circumstances you’re right, Kelvin, but I’ll hardly give full credence to your statement. There are progressive people down here, and I believe the South would have voted a majority Republican if Obama had been running on their ticket instead of Dem. Maybe I’m blind and in this way a bit like Anne Frank. And if I am, then so be it.
But you are partially correct; there are a lot of people who need to turn the page.
Thanks for stopping by.