That’s Racist

By Kleinheider Posted on May 13, 2008 at 7:11 am

Brendan Loy urges caution in analyzing the results of today’s Democratic Presidential primary likely to be a lopsided one for Hillary Clinton:

I’m not denying the real, genuine significance of racism as a major factor in Obama’s problems in Appalachia. But please, let’s not jump to the conclusion that, when Hillary wins tomorrow’s primary by a margin of 70% to 30%, it means that 70 percent of West Virginia Democrats are racists, just because we read a handful of cherrypicked quotes that seem to validate that preconceived notion. Hillary Clinton’s supporters prefer her to Obama for a whole bunch of reasons, some of them cultural, some of them political, some of them overtly racial, some of them subconsciously racial, and some of them falling into various other categories. While I disagree with their choice (and I strongly disagree with Hillary’s conscious effort to take advantage of the prejudices that do exist), it’s an insult to those voters to paint them all with a broad brush and assume the only reason they’ve voting for Hillary is because they hate black people, or people with the middle name “Hussein,” or whatever.

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