Tariq Nelson

Alfred Liggins in the piece below touches on some of the themes I wrote about a few months ago - blacks are not a monolith. Liggins mentions that black Americans are economically stratified, but it should also not be forgotten that blacks are also ethnically stratified (Liggins counts 11 different groups of blacks). Look for this to become ab increasingly important issue as time passes:

If you think African-Americans will come out in greater numbers than ever before to vote for Barack Obama, you’re probably right.

If you think you know how they’ll vote in the almost 500 House, Senate and gubernatorial races, you could be in for a surprise.

Although politicians and their advertising gurus often speak to Black America as a collective, homogeneous group, the black population is anything but a monolith. In the past decade, the more than 40 million strong black population in America has become increasingly diverse: economically, socially, technologically and even philosophically.

In the final push toward Election Day, as politicians and political hopefuls seek to penetrate this community, they may no longer understand to whom they are speaking. Are they addressing blacks or African-Americans? Is racial prejudice as important an issue today as affording a college education for their kids or taking care of an aging parent?

Radio One, the country’s largest broadcasting company primarily targeting African-Americans, recently commissioned a study to uncover Black America today. How do they identify themselves? What do they care about? How are they influenced? What is most important to them?

Interestingly, the study found that 42 percent of those polled actually prefer to be called black (these are more likely to be more affluent) compared with 44 percent who choose to be described as African-American.

And yes, it would be misguided to assume that dropping a Martin Luther King Jr. quote into a speech and focusing on America’s history of racial inequality is the sure way to sway black voters when one-third of blacks, particularly younger people, believe that there is actually too much focus on past oppression.

[...]

As Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson recently said, “black people don’t vote for candidates just because they are black. If Clarence Thomas ran for president, he would get five black votes.”

Given Black America’s extreme diversity today (the study identified 11 specific groups) it is easy to misunderstand who they are and how they can be reached. Yes, discrimination and racial issues are still incredibly important, particularly to middle-age and older blacks. But the younger populations are more concerned about starting their own businesses, paying for their education, taking care of their children and creating a better work/life balance.

[...]It has been almost a century and a half since blacks in America won the right to vote. It makes all the sense in the world that the black community has evolved and diversified over the years, but too often politicians make the mistake of assuming that blacks are still a monolithic group fixated on all of the same issues.

Though Barack Obama will be able to count on a massive percentage of the black vote on Election Day, the rest of the ticket will need to dig deeper than the canned speeches dealing with racial injustice of the past to satisfy today’s black voters.

Filed under: Race