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Feministe Feedback: Responding to, “Why, because he’s black?”

Jill

Feministe Feeback

Last night, while at a bar in the city my friend [G], his cousin-in-law [P] and I started talking politics. Naturally, we almost instantly gravitated to the primaries, and being from Columbus, I recently voted. G asked who I voted for, and I said “Obama, but I feel sort of bad about it.” Immediately after saying this the bartender, who knows P fairly well but not G or I chimes in with “Why, because he’s black?” I stutter back, a little thrown, “Uh, no because I was going to vote for Hillary.”

A few weeks ago, virtually the exact same exchange happened. On the Tuesday after voting in Columbus, I was at a bar with really close friends and I was expressing my ambivalence for each candidate right before the election, my irrational gut feeling to vote for Hillary since December, and my last minute reversal and decision to vote for Obama. I said something nearly identical, “I feel sorta bad about voting for Barack.” and my close friend who knows me quite well said “Why, because he’s black?”

So there are two completely isolated incidents with almost the exact same exchange. My question is; is this just a joke, or did they expect a legitimate answer?

This is one that I have no answer for, other than “Some people are odd and say awkward things that I have no idea how to interpret.” Perhaps those of you with more experience in this area can be of assistance.

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17 thoughts on Feministe Feedback: Responding to, “Why, because he’s black?”

  1. It’s hard to say without having been there, but maybe you shouldn’t say that you feel bad about it as your lead-in. That’s what you did the first time, and the second time you appear to have really discussed the issue first. It’s also possible your friends and friend-in-law are merely expressing that they believe the two canidates are nearly identical in policies that matter, and that the only difference is that one is not a woman like yourself (I think you are a woman, forgive me if I am wrong). Perhaps a little less likely, but possible. The final possibility is that you hang out with racists.

  2. I work in an all Barack supporting office – I am the lone Hillary supporter – and it was a joke around the office that some of our black employees voted for him because he was, well, black. I kind of stayed away from that conversation, as it was highly dangerous territory to walk on.

    However, you’re not crazy. I hear this from people quite frequently: some are joking, some are serious. I think it depends on the person who asks who. Odds are, that bartender was probably attempting to make a joke (in poor taste). I don’t know anything about the two people referenced in this example, but I would hope they meant it as a joke – in my experience, however, people ask such questions in a joking manner, even though they truly mean to ask the question. I get asked (all the time) if I voted for Hillary just because she was a woman. I think both questions are extremely inappropriate, but in my situation, it was clear that they were serious: they legitimately thought I voted for Hillary because she was a woman and not because she caters to my specific priority concerns. I love that people think so highly of my political integrity!

  3. Because women have always betrayed their gender for white men (who are better than us) and should feel bad about doing it when it’s a black man (because we’re supposed to be at least equal to them.)

  4. I think it’s because identity politics have played such a major role in mainstream media coverage that pretty much anything you say about either Clinton or Obama are going to result in “why, because he/she is black/a woman?”

  5. Having been in exactly the same situation (I’m a Cleveland resident), my response was “I have no idea what that even means, but the answer to why I feel bad is that I legitimately liked Clinton, seriously considered voting for her, and at the end of the day wound up voting for Obama.”

    Now, in my case I think the person asked because they were essentially wondering if I caved in to the “novelty” of having a person of color as president and was subsumed by white liberal guilt, but it’s harder to know without having been there.

    You can always go with the old standby of a cool look and a “What sort of a question is that?”

  6. Well, you have to admit that the lead-in (with the “I feel bad about it” clause) is a little like an Abbott and Costello routine, or at least some sort of psychological test the writer seems to be administering to his/her friends and acquaintances.

  7. Choosing between two well qualified candidates is difficult, in a presidential nomination or even a regular job. It’s much easier to say no when an applicant is not qualified but it’s much harder when choosing between multiple highly qualified applicants that are likable.

    Hiring one person for the job and telling the other they didn’t get the job is conflicting. Having empathy for the one that does not get the job is a good quality to have in my opinion. Thinking about consequences is a good skill.

    I’d go for putting the questioner in the position of clarifying what they are asking since they were ambiguous. “Your question is confusing. Are you asking why I feel bad, voted the way I did, how I make my decisions or where I stand on racial issues?” You either get to the guts of the question or the subject gets dropped because they didn’t really want to know anyways.

  8. I wouldn’t blame people for having a bit of buyers remorse right now. It is really looking like the general election is going to be a rough ride, regardless of which Dem is the nominee.

  9. Though the motives of the persons asking in those two cases may not have been aboveboard, I do not necessarily think the questions are necessarily illegitimate in all instances.

    One of the most irritating things about this primary race is the disturbing numbers of people I’ve encountered who are voting for Hilliary mainly due to racist motivations (Can’t have a non-white in the White House), Obama due to sexist motivations (Can’t have a woman in the White House), or McCain because they cannot stand having either a non-white or a woman as President.

    IMO, those are some of the most idiotic reasons to reject a candidate….

  10. I voted fro Obama in the primary. A feminist friend challenged me very forcefully saying I had betrayed my gender. My argument back was I wanted to vote for the candidate that I felt would be best. I spent a lot of time weighing the issues, the person, the way the candidates ran their campaign, and I found they were pretty close to eachother in style, issues, policy, and the like. Obama, however, represents a new and different face in the White House. Clinton, on the other hand, may be more like Bill, and although I liked Bill, I still found him very very much a conservative democrat. After the speech this week by Obama, I am even more confident in his positions. I feel he can speak truthfully and directly to the electorate. Hillary is more secretive, which I don’t want in my next president.

  11. half my friends expected me to vote HRC, the other half expected me to vote Obama.

    because i am a feminist, and because i have a black boyfriend. seriously, this is what i was told.

    it seems to me, also in cbus, that these people aren’t so much questioning either your motive or your action, but their own perceptions…

  12. I know this sounds horrible but I wonder how many ambivalent people voted Obama instead of Clinton because there is a lot of insinuation that anyone who votes against Obama is racist. It’s total bunk but I have a feeling it’s a bit of a liberal guilt trip that’s fueling this; had Clinton been running against a white, Christian male, there may have been some ambivalent liberals who had a similar fear that to vote for the guy was sexist (though I don’t think it would have been as strong a reaction as the racial one may be). The more we hear people on both ends of the color spectrum saying that someone who isn’t X can’t represent X people, the more those of us who detest this BS feel a need to prove what asshats the race-based voting is. Unfortunately, that leads a lot of people to second guess their votes and allow that to play into the ambivalence that is already there.

  13. Ol Cranky,

    I don’t think that’s horrible. Natural curiosity to me. People can do weird things. My sister tells her husband who is a diehard republican that she always votes republican just like him so he won’t bitch. She tells me she voted democratic all the years they were married and dating. LOL! To be honest I don’t know how she voted. It does make me wonder about all the spouses that say they vote the same but do they really?

  14. I think in this election you’re doomed either way. I just spent an hour talking to my mom about the election, and one of the things we discussed was the fact that it’s unfortunate that somebody has to lose the Democratic nomination. Blacks and women and supporters of blacks and women have really invested themselves into Obama and Clinton, and at this point it seems inevitable that regardless of who wins, a lot of people are going to end up feeling crushed. (My mom, for what it’s worth, supports Obama but does feel sort of guilty about it, because she dislikes Clinton but is having a hard time figuring out why.)

    More prosaically, the best way to answer that question is to blow it off and change the subject, because it’s dangerously close to the “have you stopped beating your wife yet?” school of unanswerable trick questions, and if it’s a joke, it doesn’t really need an answer, does it?

  15. A couple of my white friends have had problems with this in other conversations outside of the elections as well. One friend had a guy hitting on her at a bar and asked her for her phone number. She said no, and he said, Why, because I’m black? Another friend was talking in a group about a new guy at work. When someone asked for a description so they could know who she was talking about she said “he’s kinda funny looking”. A guy at the table said “why, do you think he looks funny, because he’s brown like me?” My only response in these situations would be “no, fuck you”, but that doesn’t seem like an effective answer. Any suggestions?

  16. Well–since we’ve been called to open a dialogue on race, I will be truthful in what I feel. As an African American, if a white person said, “I voted for Obama, but now I’m having second thoughts,” I would immediately think s/he had second thoughts because Obama is black. I know that’s irrational, and wrong to think that, but I would.

    Perhaps–and I don’t know the race of the persons who asked you–you shouldn’t take it as an offense, but as honest curiosity.

    I’m glad you made this post because it has taught me not to automatically assume that whites who support HRC are doing so because they don’t want to see a black man in the White House. Again–that’s wrongheaded thinking, but it’s what I thought, and I’m being honest because I hope our nation has begun a dialogue about race.

  17. My immediate knee-jerk reaction to the story was that the questioners seemed to really be asking, “Why, just because he’s black?” Obviously I can’t speak for the person who related the story Jill quotes above, but my copious white liberal guilt has been long established, so the assumption of some of my friends (mostly the conservative ones, but even a few fellow libs) is that my main motivation for supporting Obama is because he’s black.

    Which isn’t the case, of course, but even as an Obama supporter, I wouldn’t want someone to support him solely because of his skin color, and there’s a part of me that hopes someone would feel bad for not approaching the presidential race with any more depth or consideration than that. I only hope that the people getting in line behind McCain just because they can’t stomach the thought of a woman or an African-American in the White House are getting the same sort of scrutiny.

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