The state of Virginia, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic
presidential candidate since 1964, is leaning toward Barack Obama. So
is North Carolina, which has only voted for a Democratic president
once: Jimmy Carter in 1976. The polls are cheering and news no one
expected, but Obama supporters—at least the ones I know—are
still chewing their tongues and sleeping poorly. Racism, they
mutter. Americans will never elect a black man for president.
Then, without fail, they mention the Bradley effect.
In 1982, a black Democrat named Tom Bradley lost the governorship of
California to a white Republican even though, just days before the
election, polls gave Bradley a double-digit lead. During the 1980s, a
negative gap between poll numbers and election results continued to
afflict black candidates running in Chicago, New York, and Virginia. If
Obama loses this election, he’ll lose it to the Bradley effect. (If he
loses honestly, that is. If he loses dishonestly, he’ll lose to the
Diebold effect.) Some good news: In August, a postdoctoral fellow at
Harvard released a statistical study showing that the Bradley effect
vanished around 1996, and last week, the University of Washington
released a statistical study showing a reverse Bradley effect
during the presidential primaries.
You can’t really survey for the Bradley effect, since it’s all about
people saying one thing to pollsters and doing another thing in the
voting booth. And racism is not monolithic. It has shades and nuances.
But lately I’ve been wondering whether Obama’s particular
heritage—being a descendant of voluntary African immigration
rather than a descendant of American slavery—will help him with
the borderline bigots. Borderline bigots, the ones who are shy about
being perceived as bigots, are the engine of the Bradley effect.
It just so happens that there are a bunch of them among my
relatives, some of them openly racist (though they prefer the term
“prejudiced”), who live in Suffolk, Virginia, in a town just across
from the North Carolina border and right next to the Great Dismal
Swamp.
The Williamses—my mother’s family—are Southerners’
Southerners, the iconic kind. They live among the pine trees, on family
land, with falling-down tool sheds, caches of Civil War memorabilia,
and ponds you can catch turtles in. They came from England before the
American Revolution, owned slaves, were financially ruined during the
Civil War and Reconstruction, built themselves back up, and were ruined
again by the Great Depression. Everyone goes to church and a few have
been to college. They know the family legends up and down: how our
ancestor Captain Thad was shot through the forehead in the summer of
1864 at the Battle of Petersburg; how my granddad was so poor his
family used to eat rotten meat, setting it up on a hot tin roof to
drive the maggots out before cooking it; how, in those days,
great-granddad tanned granddad’s hide for forgetting to lock up the
mule, which drank all the lemonade the family had made for a wedding
(lemons were expensive then); and how the black neighborhood is called
“Williamstown” because, they say, many of its residents are descendants
of slaves that the family used to own.
Paradoxically, my mother thinks her generation is more segregated
than my grandparents’ generation. My granddad, for ex ample, worked
alongside black folks on the family farm and later hired a couple of
longtime black assistants when he was a bricklayer. But the upheavals
of the 1950s and 1960s created feelings of unease and distrust among
whites. White folks and black folks didn’t know how to be together
anymore, so they drifted apart.
My granddad lost a business to those fraught years. He invested a
lot of time and money turning a raw piece of land into a swimming pool
with a snack bar and picnic area. He and his family worked nights and
weekends felling trees, excavating, killing copperheads, laying brick.
When the pool opened in the summer of 1964, a century after Captain
Thad was shot through the forehead, it was whites-only by default.
Three years later, just when the pool was starting to turn a profit, a
black family showed up to swim. My mother remembers watching granddad
walk past the white bathers and talking quietly with the black family,
telling them they weren’t allowed in. It hurt him, my mother
says—he didn’t want to turn them away, but knew that if he
hadn’t, his white clientele would evaporate. The way granddad saw it,
he had three choices: integrate the pool, keep it segregated and risk a
lawsuit, or turn his back on years of family labor and close it. He
wasn’t willing to do the first, wasn’t able to afford the second, so
took the third—agonizing—choice.
My family’s bitterness about the 1960s is not an abstraction. So
when I called a few of them on the phone the other day to talk about
Obama, their tone was less anxious that I’d expected. Most of them are
conservatives—one uncle called this presidential contest “a race
between two Democrats”—but they don’t seem particularly concerned
that a black man is running for president.
I tested out my theory about Obama not being a descendant of
slavery. I asked one of my older female relatives whether she thought
of Obama in the same category as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other
black politicians she considers openly hostile to the interests of
white folks.
“Well I reckon there’s a difference,” she said. “Those [descendants
of slavery] still want to blame you and I for what happened to ’em. In
reality, it was their own people who sold them into slavery for money.
Their people did it to ’em. But if somebody came of their own accord,
it might not bother him so much.”
Obama has been very careful to not seem like a bitter black man, and
my Southern relatives are extremely sensitive to any hints of black
anger or resentment (one relative says the NAACP wants to turn black
people “into gods on earth”). If they don’t see bitterness in Obama,
the strategy is working. No matter what happens in November, Obama has
smashed the mold for black political leaders. (Which is probably why
Tavis Smiley—who saw himself as the heir apparent of the
Jackson/Sharpton/reparations school of black politics—reflexively
opposed Obama. He was jealous.)
Racism in the South is also changing, receding from the public
sphere while staying in the private sphere. Meaning: You can keep your
prejudice and still vote for a nonwhite politician. “If Colin Powell
were running, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat,” one of my aunts said.
Then, later in the conversation, “I don’t want any of my kids marrying
outside their race.”
What if one of your kids wanted to marry Colin Powell?
“No. I know it sounds un-Christian, but I have certain expectations.
Black people just aren’t attractive to me. I wouldn’t want a little
black grandbaby.”
So you think Colin Powell is intelligent, honest, and capable?
“Oh yes.”
Good enough to be the most powerful man in the most powerful country
on earth—but not good enough to marry your daughter?
“I just don’t think the races should mix.”
It might not sound like it, but that’s progress. Twenty-six years
ago—back when Tom Bradley lost the California gubernatorial
race—people like my aunt wouldn’t have copped to voting for a
black man for anything.
Since then, Virginia has elected the nation’s first black governor:
Douglas Wilder in 1990. And the city of Suffolk, home of
“Williamstown,” elected its first black mayor, Curtis Milteer. In 2002,
Milteer jumped into national headlines by declaring April to be
Confederate History Month. His successors, all white, have refused to
declare a Confederate History Month. (“Buncha wusses,” another aunt
said. “Scared of their own heritage and history.”)
The racism abides, but is in its autumn—slowly changing colors
and fading away. That aunt who’d want Colin Powell for a president but
not an in-law? She raised a few eyebrows in her day by marrying an
Italian Catholic from Massachusetts. While we talked on the telephone,
she told me her daughter is raising a few eyebrows by dating a nice
Jewish boy. 
lol, cute story:)
Wow, thanks Brendan! Would like to know the feedback from the family. Do they read the paper?
In terms of Bradley Effect, I heard that it didn’t exist. As in, it wasn’t the fact that voters changed their vote it was the fact that there was a huge outpouring of absentee voters that had not been polled. Bradley’s election had no Bradley effect.
Sorry you appear to be suffering from White Guilt, over what happened in the South more than 150 years ago.
Thanks for outing your family.
Did you ask their permission, Mr. Kiley? I’d like to hear of their perspective, before I pass judgement on your article, one way or another. You seem skewed toward not liking them so much.
Please don’t forget we all are prejudiced, even here in (I’m liberal, I’m perfect!) Seattle, where French people, Republicans, religious people get openly mocked and made fun of! Oh, not to mention Californians.
We are pots calling the kettles.
And, if you are exposing others’ two-facedness, you might want to start here with your own kind, where the folks are “nice of ice”, meaning nice to one’s face, then gossipy behind the back.
I think the South has come alooooong way since the days of slavery, thank you. And, it deserves credit for some enlightenment, rather than scorn. The fact that any Southern state is even thinking of leaning towards voting for anyone of colour, is a big deal. And, firmly entrenched habits and practices take time to rid oneself of, too.
When is any White person going to have the (true!) courage to address the black community’s problems, racism, BLATANT homophobia, etc. in an article, here? I will bet it won’t happen, because anyone who criticises anyone not White, gets it, or rather “eats it”, here in Seattle where racial minourities are treated with kid gloves, in the media! OMG, can’t risk irking them, can we? It’s silly all this one-sidedness.
Speaking of voting for any Black fellow, when I hear of Obama being more specific about how he will SOLVE problems and what problems he feels are top priourity, then I might consider leaning towards voting for the man, my self. He’s not Hillary Clinton, that’s for sure, despite her “skeletons”.
NOTE, that I am not voting for McClain, either at this point.
The Realist- Have you watched the debates? Obama has repeatedly talked about his top priorities, economic plan, energy plan, etc.
Maybe you haven’t heard specifics because you aren’t paying attention.
Wow. I would have kept reading for another five pages.
Wish there were space for another article like this.
Being biracial, your aunt’s comment is terrible. It is one of those moments that I had wished I had known before reading that it would be denigrating. Do you believe it is ok. to reproduce such racist statements?
Freedom of speech means ANY speech, Honey. Third-person repetition of said speech is as protected as book-burners and the 4th Reich. I prefer a market place of ideas where, when all positions are stated, the democracy will clearly point out that which is abhorrent. In other words, hush, and let dumb people look dumb. It’s their right.
I know, in one typecast theory you are right, ALS, and I appreciate your ethics. I am just not so sure I trust democracy as a, as well as in practice. Does a democracy protect me, or for that matter you if I start chewing away on your essentials, just because we politically convene democratically?
Just who is the “racist”; A person who wouldn’t vote for a candidate, even though their background and qualifications are impeccable, just because of skin color, or, a person who only votes for a candidate, even though their background and qualifications are muddled, at best, just because of skin color?
As someone from the Northwest who lived in North Carolina for 15 years it strikes me that there’s nothing worse than pandering to trendy nitwits reading the Stranger by commenting on racism in the South.
Seattle is where working class poor are kept from living in the city by the middle-class using zoning ordinances, keeping construction of apartments down and driving rents up so you can live in your hip-city. Big deal, if it forces the working poor to live in places like Burien.
The same Seattle where just a few miles outside the city limits and all the way to the Idaho border Mexicans are treated with barely concealed contempt.
Hypocrisy. Seattleite hip-trendoids, you’re soaking in it.
People keep worrying about the Bradley effect forgetting that the 1980s were a different period from now. Every era has its tales of woe and gladness, it’s heroes and its villains. Barack Obama will be winning handsomely because, while there are still racists around etc, people are moving on. They are more aware, they are more educated and they want someone they can relate to and Barack suits it all.
We don’t still go back in time to refer to the horse and cart, so why people keep going way back to fret themselves about the past is beyond me. Of course bad things have happened, and will always happen, but we have to take them in our stride and move on. Faith, if we have it, can move mountains!
I understand what you are saying but I feel like your analysis is crippled from facts you do not understand and trends in America maybe you do not know or overlooked.
First, Powell and Obama are light skin and moderate. They are very acceptable by White Americans because they are physically part of them.
2nd, Racism is not in the private sector because issues of Black imprisonment and punishment in school is statistically severer for African American men. These are all statistics you can look up.
American private racism is apparent for well prepped African American light skin politicians who cater their image to the masses. Al Sharpton and Jesse JAckson only care about appearing to be “Black Political leaders”
I lived in the Great Dismal Swamp that you mention for 4 years, and in Virginia for a total of 7 years. It’s also one of the most beautiful parts of the country in autumn. Being from New York originally, having spend 7 years in the South, a few years in Washington DC, and now here in Seattle – it’s apparent forms of racism still exist with equal veracity in every part of this country.
Although they may be more open about their prejudices (but really racism if they are one of the 8% of people in the world classified as white that benefit from a system that gives Whites preferential treatment). In fact, it’s almost EASIER to deal with racism in the south – because there are more openly bigoted people that are apparently to blame for the problem of racism… but they don’t have as much control over your life. Here however, you have people justify racism with racially targeted policies (like Mayor Nickel’s youth violence prevention initiative and the new jail) and back talk – that are in many ways more sinister and dangerous for people of color.
Check out some facts on Washington State:
Even though blacks make up only three percent of the population, 51 percent of all people sent to state prisons for drug offenses are black in Washington State. The state has the third highest rate of incarceration of blacks for drug offenses. According to the op-ed, African-American males in King County were sentenced to prison for drugs at a rate almost 25 times higher than white males.
Even more interesting – 70% of drugs are used in NORTH Seattle – but 70% of arrests are made in SOUTH Seattle.
I do appreciate the commentary on racism, but I’d appreciate a more honest account of racism here – instead of articles that seem to say “look how backward the south is!”.
Seattle is a VERY passively racist area. People speak of freedoms and all, but behind closed doors they say something else entirely. I am less fearful of the racist who speaks his mind, than the racist who hides is feelings.
I’m sorry, but I feel that I’m getting a very different view from this than apparently everybody else.
I see this as a message of hope, in that people are becoming more welcoming and less prejudiced (he also uses the word racist). He never says that people in the south are more racist, and is simply saying that the racism there is more straightforward. In fact, he uses Virginia as a positive example in that they elected the “Nations first black Governor.”
He focuses on his family as an easily judged example of decreasing racism in the U.S.. If we were to attempt to gauge racism in Washington, it would be much harder because it is, as you said, underhanded.
I also found it very interesting that he brings up the negative effects of the 1950’s and 60’s, as a different point of view, in that instead of allowing natural healing, it re-opened the wound.
Again, I say, this article is not a judgment of the south as racists, but is a message of hope that the U.S. is moving forward towards equality.
Colin, yes.
Mr. Warmth – Seems it’s your contempt that’s boiling over here…unconcealed. And it just might be directed towards the targets you seem to be projecting on everyone else. Just how mixed were the ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ neighborhoods you observed in NC those 15 years? Enough with the calls of hypocrisy. You make these all based on assumptions of what other people are thinking! Forget assigning race. Yes, poor people are forced to live in certain housing because of zoning. Years of legislation throughout EVERY city in the US has not sufficiently solved the problem in the context of capitalism. Self-righteous over simplification. Seattle haters, you’re knee deep in it.
..D’Ya know why he can’t ride a bicycle?? Because he’s a SCOTT, heh heh heh heh…
Nice sociological piece, I saw McCain&Obama actually as the variables, not really the underlying subject. Well done, Bravo…
If you don’t ‘trust’ democracy, do make sure to move someplace else. And if you’re so worried about being denigrated and can’t handle reading things for yourself like a grownup, stop reading/change channels/move someplace where they DON’T have freedom of speech.
Only those who are hopelessly afflicted with political correctness interpret the “Bradley Effect” as automatically “racist”. In fact, someone who does not favor a black candidate for perfectly legitimate reasons, but who is terrified of appearing racist, might well tell a pollster that she was voting for him. After all, you do not owe pollsters a thing.
The Bradley effect will not cause any loss of voters. It is the Obama effect that will result in a loss if any sense comes back to those who have fallen under the spell!