Opinion: The Unreported Racism Of The 2012 Election: 0% Of African-Americans Support Romney
The results of an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll came out recently and got very little play in the media. The poll’s results were race-related and quite startling. While the media has jumped on anything involving race quite readily during the Obama presidency – and even before – apparently this survey didn’t produce the type of front page race-talk the media likes to report on.
According to the NBC and Wall Street Journal’s poll conducted in August of 2012, 0% - that’s “zero percent”, not a typo – of African-Americans support the GOP presidential candidate-to-be Mitt Romney in the presidential election of 2012.
The media keeps suggesting that the racism regarding candidates has to do with whites not wanting to vote for a black man, even though Barack Obama won a presidential election with a great amount of white support – obviously – or he wouldn’t have won an election in the country where the vast majority of people are white.
What the media isn’t talking about is any survey such as the NBC-Wall Street results which say that there are basically no black supporters for the Caucasian candidate, Mitt Romney, in 2012. From August 16 through August 20, one-thousand people were surveyed and not even 1% of America’s blacks in that survey’s resulting data could say they support Mitt Romney.
Granted, African-Americans usually support the Democrats. But even the unpopular Republican candidate of 2008, Sen. John McCain, managed to come up with 4% support from America’s blacks. George W. Bush did even somewhat better than that.
It is reported that President Barack Obama currently has 94% of black Americans’ voters’ support. Obviously, a high percentage of white voters are supporting Obama too, or the currently-close presidential race wouldn’t be close at all. In other words, the reverse of this poll – which would say that 94% of white American voters support the white candidate, Mitt Romney - can’t possibly be true. After all, all the polls claim that Obama and Romney are running a close race at this time – though some say Obama is a couple of points up while one or two say Romney is a couple of points up.
So, if there is any racism in the 2012 election, it is clear where it’s coming from. What isn’t clear is why the media is afraid to capitalize on the story when they have been so willing to claim white racism at most every opportunity throughout the Obama term as president.
Another interesting point is questioning why the support for Obama among African-Americans is so strong. Black persons’ economics have reportedly worsened during the Obama administration over the past four years. The extremely poor unemployment rate among African-Americans has worsened during Obama’s term, as it is now estimated to be up to approximately 15%. The Obama economy has caused people’s need for federal assistance, such as food stamps, to increase to 50% of all Americans - with a great deal, but not a majority, of those in need being black persons. The housing situation in America which has had an extremely negative impact on minorities in this country is reportedly worse than it was in the mid-1930s during the Great Depression. Crime and murders in the big cities are still atrocious, quite often in the minority areas of those cities, such as in Obama’s own hometown of Chicago.
With all this factual data – not propaganda – created during President Obama’s term, it is incomprehensible to think that 94% of African-Americans are still supporting Obama and 0% is supporting Romney – unless one thinks like a racist and only vote for one’s own race.
About Scott Paulson
Scott Paulson writes political commentary for Examiner.com and teaches English at a community college in the Chicago area. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
