Comments on: More on Obama and race politics

By: Sunny

Sunny — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:13:14 +0000

Dear Mr Putnam – thanks for clearing that up. I’m going to read more into this.

By: Svaha

Svaha — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:11:14 +0000

Political Preference: The Obama Factor
The Democratic Presidential Primaries have sprung two lucky candidates — one woman, and one African-American male — against 200 years of ageing European extraction males being in the White House. The quality of media debate in the US, particularly in the Fox News and Lou Dobbs era, continues to be riveting.
In any democratic society, you would expect that unless there were historically reinforced inequalities, candidates, and indeed election winners would reflect social demographics. Not so in the USA…and citizens do not question it either. Where in another democratic country, people might naively push for rules to encourage women and historically oppressed segments of the population to participate and win, perhaps to the detriment of individual choice, in the US, democracy is massacred with statements about lucky black men, and a focus on the possibility of Islamic contamination in a middle name…psst, psst!
I have strong free market views and would probably make voting decisions for people on the right. Therefore, I am shocked by the implication that a Muslim or a Jew or a woman or a Hindu (are we even past Catholicism??) cannot aspire to and win high office in a democratic country.
It is interesting that the US seeks to export and even enforce free choice and democracy to the rest of the world. Except for the enforcing part, I actually support that sentiment.
But charity begins at home. The US must be a failed democracy if, having allowed women the right to vote in the 1920s, and citizens of African extraction the right to vote in the 1960s, cannot bring itself to allow people to run for office and be elected if they do not subscribe to the WASP norm. How different is this from the caste system in India or the suppression of Shia or Sunni sects. Israel has had a woman president; India has had a woman prime minister and an “untouchable” President, even the UK has had its Iron Lady PM.
When will the US catch up??

By: douglas clark

douglas clark — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:00:36 +0000

Ha, ha,

You are certainly unwilling to let anything other than your own evidence enter into a discussion. There must be a technical term for such a debating style.

By: Praguetory

Praguetory — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:24:42 +0000

DC. I read it – Sounds like you only listen to evidence that fits with your existing views.

By: douglas clark

douglas clark — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:38:14 +0000

Praguetory,

From the latter part of his analysis. Please read it all. I am not saying it is conclusive, I am just saying that it is pretty good evidence that folk like you are wrong. Which is no surprise, really.

How is Prague these days?

Hopefully, no Somalian is getting your goat.

By: Praguetory

Praguetory — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:10:37 +0000

It would be interesting to have Putnam doing a guest post as his conclusions don’t seem to follow from his findings.

Has social capital in my hometown of Birmingham reduced? I think so.

Is diversity a factor in this reduction? I don’t know, but it looks like it is.

Are the X,000 Somalians that have settled in Sparkbrook and other inner city areas currently making a positive contribution economically, socially or culturally? Not from what I hear from news reports, educational league tables, inner city teachers and policemen of my acquaintance.

When receiving massively culturally different groups into our inner cities, where are the grounds for optimism?

By: douglas clark

douglas clark — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:55:27 +0000

Here, I think, is Mr Putnams most obvious insight:

It is my hypothesis that a society will more easily reap the benefits of immigration, and overcome the challenges, if immigration policy focuses on the reconstruction of ethnic identities, reducing their social salience without eliminating their personal importance. In particular, it seems important to encourage permeable, syncretic, â€˜hyphenatedâ€™ identities; identities that enable previously separate ethnic groups to see themselves, in part, as members of a shared group with a shared identity.

Is that, without the erudition, what I have been trying to say?

For no. On another, adjacent thread, I have been ignored, ’cause Sikhs are only interested in debating with other Sikhs’.

Which is ridiculously insular.

By: douglas clark

douglas clark — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 06:57:23 +0000

Bloody Hell,

It used to be that a lie was half way around the world before truth had got it’s boots on. Now the ‘laughably false’ is being pursued at the speed of light.

Great stuff.

So, Sunny was right to take the research at face value and the academic was, what….?

Perhaps Mr Putnam would like to do a guest piece here? I’m pretty sure that it would be welcomed. Most of us are able to look objective reality in the eye without flinching too much. And you never know, Mr Putnam, it might prove interesting.

By: Robert Putnam

Robert Putnam — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 06:20:32 +0000

“Robert Putnamâ€™s thesis was based on a small sample of people in Chicago.” That is laughably false. The research was based on an enormous (30k) nationwide US sample. See the article itself at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x

By: Muhamd [peace be upon me]

Muhamd [peace be upon me] — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:27:07 +0000

Obama symbolises a nexus between a “Black” & “White” America.

And on a more serious note, he was born in the Year of the Ox.

By: Ravi Naik

Ravi Naik — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:44:59 +0000

race is a factor in Barack Obama’s success, but not the only factor. If I was a black American, I would absolutely vote for Barack Obama on account of his race, because that remains the main factor determining my life-chances; the impact of class is not yet the same.”

I have a problem with this characterisation. It is a fallacy to consider that being Black is a political asset in the US, considering that there is no historical precedence, and the bigotry that still exists in the US. And lets not forget that in the beginning of the race, Blacks were going overwhelming for Clinton. But Obama seems to have overcome all that with his hard work, intelligence, message, and charisma… and some luck, by having Clinton’s piss off Blacks.