I agree with you Lilly. I wish someone would come out with an objective study of how the media has treated Clinton compared to how it has treated Obama, laying it out for everyone to see. I have no doubt it would be astonishing, even to those of us who are already aware of a bias. It also occurs to me that maybe an “experiment” like the one Lesley Stahl and her producer carried out could be objectively observed with secret cameras. I dare to suspect that the waitress, the target of the experiment, suspected of racism for making her living at Denny’s, got the first sneer and responded in kind. White people are often told (for instance in this post and in many responses) that they are unaware of the “subtle racism” that Blacks experience. I am actually acutely aware of racism, and always open my mouth to object if I see or hear it. But I wonder, are Black people in general aware of how many Blacks give whites dirty looks for walking on the street as whites; or slice and dice with their eyes just “knowing” that the white they are looking at was responsible for constructing slavery and its aftermath; or police any and all normal social interaction holding a ready accusation of “racism” at anytime - as a strategy for personal power, to control others, to avoid the downside of normal human interaction, and/or to avoid dealing with their own self-esteem issues by constantly projecting their internalized racism onto individual whites…? In my experience, it is a minority of Blacks who do this, but common enough that hardly a day goes by without being subjected to it. (And I am not counting here explicit anti-white racism, just the subtle aspects, which may be defensive in origin, but is racist in effect nonetheless.) The claim put forth now that “Obama can’t win” is a mass wielding of the issue of race to control others. The manipulators threaten to label any opposition against him “racism,” thereby undermining effective opposition. They have certainly been successful in influencing the media’s coverage of the campaign using this approach. Working class people are openly accused of being racist for supporting Hillary. Likewise for white women. Black people in support of Hillary are called “race traitors.” What a shameful way to try to win the campaign. By the way, Lesley, and ladies of wowowow.com, I think you are doing a lot of things well with this Web site, but how about taking action against racism not by carrying out unofficial experiments on waitresses in Denny’s, but by taking a race-sensitive look at this Web site. The lack of racial and ethnic diversity, obvious in the photos of bloggers, is inexcusable. By the way, what I just wrote is an example of speaking out against racism in a way that is not manipulation, just sincere observation with the obvious suggestion of the solution.

Only Real Jazz Chick, I think you are making a lot of false comparisons. For instance, you wrote: “Finally, the nail, and glue that sealed the coffin was the Reverend Wright story. When that blew up, as a woman of color, I was offended, but I was particularly upset with my white Catholic friends and family members (yes, I am married to a white guy) when they couldn’t remember all of the trouble our own church had been in with the pedophile scandal. We all could have walked away from our church as well. The overwhelming majority of us did not.” You say “our church” but I trust you are talking about the Catholic establishment, Catholic churches throughout the country, worldwide. Pedophilia was not supported by the congregations. Priests did not openly advocate it. The crimes were behind the scenes, covered up by people in power. Wright’s incendiary hate was not a crime, but if one listens to it week after week as religious observance, and teaches one’s own children that this is how one worships the lord, that is participation in the problem. At the very least, it is a tolerance for it. He could easily have found a different church to attend. (I am not Catholic, btw, and I am appalled by the pervasive pedophilia in the church.) You write: “The real reason for the Ohio and Pennsylvania ‘blue collar-working class’ votes are all about race.” It seems like you are doing here what you are denouncing your white female friends for doing. Their statements sound simplistic and pretty much outrageous, but this argument seems to so as well, in a similar vein. I think there is a grain of truth in the statements made by them and by you in the post, but flawed by assumptions, and prejudices, and false comparisons.

Andrew, I too want to see more women run, and more Black men run, more diversity overall among the contenders. (And I want to see qualified white men up there too.) I wish people’s “identity” concerns were focused on getting more in the running, rather than picking between two top contenders based on approval of their race or gender. But I am also suspicious of those who vote based on “imagination” and those who have caught it. That’s a huge red flag for me. Drugs and cults and fads catch our imagination. In choosing who will be the leader of the most powerful country in the world, we need to look at who has experience to be proud of, who walks their talk, who has practical plans with clarity on carry them out. Hillary is an imperfect candidate, but she will be the best for a progressive, and grounded, future. Obama, like Bush W, like Reagan, is a drug, and drugs wear off.

Bella Mia wrote: “I’ve often wondered when I’ve had unprofessional service from a service worker of my race - white - if a black person would have chalked the bad service up to racism. I find bad, poor, disinterested service is endemic, and it happens about 70% of the time to me. How is anyone able to differentiate between racism and generically bad service? I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible to tell the difference.” I have experienced a lot of anti-white racism from (a minority of) Blacks, most of them women. Sometimes it is obvious that it is racism (and sexism - in most cases white men would not have gotten the same treatment). Othertimes I am not sure, so I watch how the same person treats a stranger who is Black. Usually when I suspect it was racism, I see by the difference in their behavior toward Blacks that it was. It is disgusting, but if you react to it, and defend yourself, you will look like a racist, because the public discourse is totally focused on how Blacks are victimized by racism, never about how so many feel free to dish it out (a la Trinity Church). Sometimes I imagine listing all the anti-racism that’s been directed against me, only changing the race, as if it happened to a Black person. In that context, people would be outraged and astonished, at least I hope they would. But society seems to agree as a whole that whites are legitimate targets, are suppose to just take it as an atonement for the actions that they (or their immigrant ancestors) did not participate in or support. I agree with the points made by many posting here that Obama, a man who had to lie about what he did as a Senator because he had nothing real to point to, is where he is in the campaign because he is Black, and a great speaker. Whites want to atone for the imposed feeling of guilt, and being an Obama supporter makes them feel redeemed. Of course this is simplistic take on it, but I do believe it is part of the dynamic. Most Black voters understandably want a Black candidate to win, and this sways them in favor of Obama. Furthermore, Obama gets a free pass because of the guilt based pandering of the white controlled media. There is way too much at stake in every way for such muddled perceptions and responses to a muddled dialogue on race.