...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
