Anonymity lets anti-black beliefs emerge

Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

- Hopefully, a new poll suggesting Democrat Barack Obama might lose a full 6 percentage points in the vote for president because he’s black didn’t spoil his day in Wisconsin.

Obama was campaigning in Green Bay on Monday. Most polls show the race for president as a dead heat, but a 6-point deduction just because of skin color would be devastating to the Illinois senator’s chances.

In 2008, it would also be a damn shame.

The AP-Yahoo News poll — released over the weekend — was designed to uncover whether racial attitudes among voters could influence the election by asking pointed questions about race and politics. The online poll of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 through Sept. 5 by researchers at Stanford University.

The most explosive headline came when the poll found that one-third of white Democrats expressed negative attitudes toward black people, with many calling blacks “lazy, violent” and responsible for their own troubles.

As someone who has been discussing this subject for months with other black folks concerned about the part race will play in November, I wasn’t surprised by the attitudes expressed in the poll.

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