Black and white

Josh Marshall cuts through to the underlying meaning of the frequent talk about:

… Democrats and their "dependence" on the African-American vote. It's only the African-American vote, the argument goes, that keeps the Democratic Party from becoming a permanent minority party.

After citing an example of this punditry from CNN's Bill Schneider, Marshall writes:

Nestled down deep in this argument is some sort of perhaps unconscious notion that the Dems are just hopelessly sucking wind among real voters and thus have to resort to padding their totals with blacks.

It may be unconscious, but it ain't subtle. Here's part of that Schneider "analysis":

What would have happened if no blacks had voted in 2000? Six states would have shifted from Al Gore to George W. Bush: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Oregon. Bush would have won by 187 electoral votes, instead of five. A Florida recount? Not necessary.

Right now, there are 50 Democrats in the Senate. How many would be there without African-American voters? … Without the African-American vote, the number of Democrats in the Senate would be reduced from 50 to 37.

This is a conversation between Schneider and Woodruff on behalf of people who look like Schneider and Woodruff. The us-and-them subtext is only barely "sub." Marshall's description is dead on — they're not comparing black voters with white voters, they're comparing black voters with "real" (legitimate, truly American) voters. Separate and unequal.

You will never, ever hear Woodruff and Schneider discussing the hypothetical makeup of the Senate "without the white vote." You will never hear this from Schneider:

"What would have happened if no whites had voted in 2000? … A Florida recount? Not necessary."

Underlying all of this is a hugely suggestive, but largely unexplored, fact: Black voters overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party.

Why this might be so is such a potentially explosive question that it is usually evaded with sleight of hand — "black voters have traditionally voted for Democrats." That "traditionally" merely puts off the question without answering it ("turtles all the way down").

The two most obvious possible answers to this question are considered impolite and impolitic — one answer is blatantly racist, the other implies that a major political party is implicitly racist. So don't expect Judy Woodruff or Bill Schneider to have the courage to ask such a question any time soon.