Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Gene Demby in The Root: Romney's Diversity Handicap

i believe it is much worse than " understanding black voters." i live in michigan, a state with a number of "black" cities, like detroit, flint, benton harbor. these cities have white suburbs that either ring them (detroit) or are adjacent to them (st. johns, next to benton harbor). the republicans have repeatedly constructed legislation that favors the wealthier suburbs. there are 750,000 residents in detroit, 2.5 million in the suburbs. in the city, whose residential tax base has been demolished by the white flight of the past 50 years, there is almost no functioning, useful public transport. the state has done nothing to ameliorate this; the schools in detroit are generally poor or catastrophic, with a few exceptions. still, exceptional as cass tech and maybe one or two more, most are terrible, with small numbers graduating and moving on to good universities. i have heard repeatedly from my students who come from detroit that the best high schools in detroit are worse than the worst high schools in the suburbs.

 the health care is abysmal. wherever the state should intervene to improve life in the city, or for black people around the state, there has been ENORMOUS resistance from conservative republicans, mostly white, rural, and secondarily, less so, suburban.

this is the real america, as i see it. to be sure, bigotry is enormously evident in our state, one of the few to vote down affirmative action in the country. we have a local example in my home town, good ole east lansing, where the local school board voted to reduce the elementary schools in the city. of the 6, one was majority minority, an extremely diverse school, whose record surpassed the other 5. the other 5 were located in the northern, wealthier part of town--and were majority white. despite enormous cries of anguish and community outpouring, those representing the wealthy northern tier voted to keep their schools open and eliminate the one truly diverse school.
there is no gap in understanding, in education--there is brutal self-interest and prejudice that has marked the patterns of state interventions in my state as long as i have lived here, 46 years.
not all whites are bigoted; there is a split. but its locale, its geographical centers, are where i placed them: the minute you leave the urban center and drive into the countryside, obama signs were replaced by romney signs, and people with dark skin disappeared. the suburbs are more divided; the university centers are liberal. the republican base lies in a core of the population that sees black inner city people as a threat, and views money spent on them as thrown away. the country is divided; there is a fight over resources. not only does the republican party understand it--everyone understands it.
ken

On 11/18/12 11:12 AM, Ikhide wrote:

His problem isn't that he lost the black vote -- it's that his party doesn't understand black voters.

 http://www.theroot.com/views/romneys-diversity-handicap?wpisrc=sl_iphone

 

- Ikhide

 

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--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  distinguished professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu