...and I thought seeing an Obama and McCain sticker on the same car was strange.
But seriously - is there such a thing as a rational racist? A story on Philadelphia's citypaper.net talks about the Bradley Effect, which is a phenomenon named after Tom Bradley, a black candidate who lost an election for governor of California despite polls showing he was favored to win. The explanation? People tend to stray away from being publicly perceived as racist when asked to choose between a white and black candidate during polls. Despite their actual intentions, they say they're voting for the black candidate, skewing the survey results. Come time for election season, the least popular candidate wins, despite the overwhelming support of the other candidate in the polls. This is The Bradley Effect.
However, The story on citypaper.net Speaks of the Fishtown Effect, which is almost diametrically opposite of The Bradley Effect. The Fishtown Effect is named after Fishtown; an overtly racist town that wears it's racism on it's sleeve that seems untroubled about appearing racist, thus making them that much more unsusceptible to The Bradley Effect. The locals haven't been shy about saying how they feel about a black president and their vitriolic comments have nonchalantly circulated in the town's newspaper. What make this a special case though is that they're aware of the economic turmoil striking their city, and despite their racist attitudes, they're voting for Obama anyway. So is this what we're witnessing in this photo here? Who knows. Regardless, it's still cool to see that people are actually voting on something that affects them (economy) rather than something that doesn't (i.e., race.) Hey, it's a step.
The Fishtown Effect
Well, where was that picture taken? In PA?
ReplyDeleteHe could possibly be voting for Biden, since Joe the Senator is from Scranton. On the flip side of the coin, a gay friend of mine in Harrisburg, PA is voting for McCain....how odd, to say the least...I think it all comes down to education. Some people's rationale for voting a certain way seems to be on intuition more than facts...oh well.
The guy at 538 (probably the best polling site out there, IMO) says the Bradley effect doesn't exist any more, and makes a compelling argument. The following isn't that specific article, but shows how someone from Salon (a source I trust on certain things, but obviously the flubbed on this topic) made some mistakes in their analyzing of poll data.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/bradley-effect-or-elephant-effect.html
You have to also keep in mind social progress was witnessed in the 70's (black people were still wondering if they could date white people, vice versa ) whereas that's the norm now in most cities. The Bradley election was in the 80's. I think people can say who they're voting for now with less of that stigma.
Just my two cents.
Right - this post was more about the 'Fishtown effect' than it was the Bradley Effect - was just giving some history of the B.E. for reference. I'm not worried about the Bradley Effect come this Nov.--though some people have said that they want the democrats to get comfortable because Obama is so ahead in the polls that they will feel there's no need to get out and vote when the time comes. But it's my opinion that many people are going to want to be 'a part of history', so I'm not quite concerned about that either.
ReplyDeleteThe main point is that even though people are more outspoken about their racism, at least they're voting based on something that actually freakin' matters and will tangibly affect them as opposed to a wedge issue such as gay marriage or the amount of melanin in a candidate's skin.
Fishtown is a pretty scary place you know speaking from a Philly resident perspective. I try to avoid it as much as possible and I actually find it interesting that the residents are considering voting for Obama based on a story I heard from a friend recently.
ReplyDeleteMy friend is a cable guy and he was helping with an install, guy was very nice until an Obama supporter showed up and he started yelling no one here is voting for that N. Of course that's just one person but that seems normal to me for the folks there.