This above graph was sobering for a Saturday morning when I first saw the story as I opened up my computer and saw the premier news story on Sen. Barack Obama  that was entitled “Racial views steer some white Dems away from Obama” from the AP/Yahoo News source.

Of course, white Republicans were a far gone conclusion, but it just dawned on me why we have the problems that we have in this country: Blacks are doomed from the start in the eyes of many white folks–even the good white liberals!  Seriously, if Obama is coming under fire, a Jeremiah Wright doesn’t even stand a chance to be remotely understood if only about 25% of white liberals think that blacks are intelligent at school.  That means 75% think WE’RE NOT!! 

I’m quite sure that these numbers are skewed to some extent, but come on now, there’s some level of truth to this.  I mean, the fact that less than half of whites think highly of blacks means there’s a problem.  That’s why I fall out with some of the commenters–maybe–I’m not sure, was I damned before I wrote my opinions?  It seems as though black thought is still considered a novelty and some fringe thought in the field of academia.

Omg…

Only approximately 12% of white Republicans interviewed said that blacks were law-abiding.  WTF?!?!?!  And still there are more black males in college than are in the prison system.  WTF!?!?!  ARE THESE PEOPLE SERIOUS!  Yet again, white ignorance and innocence provides white people with the privilege of seeing black folk through this light.  Of course, if I’m a white suburbanite or a white person living in a rural area, when the few times I see blacks on television they’re getting arrested or something.  Just now, my friend down in Houston was telling me that they seemingly found the most county-bumpkin ass black folk to interview.

Not to mention the Leprachaun found in Mobile.

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Well, why would white folk think blacks are intelligent if this news clip has been circulated in repeat almost as much as Jeremiah Wright clips this spring, and even still gets mentioned on VH1.  Of course at best, 30% of white liberals thought we were good at everyday things–so I think we’re all free to interpret the opposite of such a poll.

That’s why it was easy for the columnist of the Dallas Morning News in my previous post to make the statement that he did that Josh Howard and his ilk of “ghetto culture” are “Segregationist” or dare say “separatist” from the “values and ideals of America”: that’s because whites historically have separated us!  Prior to blacks being blacks, back when were African slaves, to the inception of this country, through slavery, through Jim Crow and until now, whites have made us seperate.  We’ve NEVER been fully accepted in this country, for all this talk about the unity of the races, it was unity only seen on the terms of dominant culture–which we as blacks are not.  We are in fact the dominant subordinate culture–the group that not only has our own culture that has existed from Day 1 under the radar of a white ruling class, but also the dominant subordinate culture that in order to survive has had to learn about the ruling culture and be able to move between the two fluidly lest being called “too white” by one, and “too black” by the other.

Y’all just don’t know how much this is upsetting me.

I think blacks have more than done their fair share of reconcilliation and this is the effing thanks we get–only 24% of whites view blacks as friendly.  We’re the only people in frickin’ world history who were an enslaved people and didn’t rise up en masse and whoop whitey’s ass (good ol’ Nat Turner didn’t even make it out the county in his cleansing crusade back in 1831).  Blacks gave you the best apologists our race could offer in the form of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King (who y’all didn’t like and only let history tell a different story)

And we still didn’t whoop ass and take names!

The AP-Yahoo News poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger.

Other techniques used in the poll included recording people’s responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen, asking participants to rate how well certain adjectives apply to blacks, measuring whether people believe blacks’ troubles are their own fault, and simply asking people how much they like or dislike blacks.

“We still don’t like black people,” said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word “violent” strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with “boastful,” 29 percent “complaining,” 13 percent “lazy” and 11 percent “irresponsible.” When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that “if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites.”

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn’t.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks “intelligent” or “smart,” more than one third latched on the adjective “complaining” and 24 percent said blacks were “violent.”

Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they “try harder.”

The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.

Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people’s votes — including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s backers.

Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton’s white backers plan to vote for McCain.

Oh my God…

I’m done, this is just out of order on so many ways it’s not even funny.  I wonder just what white Independents, Democrats, well…Republicans are damn near a lost cause…did they interview to have such a skewed view of us.  I mean, not one of those numbers reached the 50% mark in either direction be it a postivie word or a negative word, which pretty much says that whites are in universal agreement in their less than glowing view of those of the African American race.

If blacks took the same survey and didn’t give a glowing review of white America, then there would be outrage from white folk much like it was after Jeremiah Wright and even after Rev. Jesse Jackson and his castration comment and we heard all this CRAP about post-racial this and that.

That’s a load a bull.

**goes searching for a shovel**

Are you just as outraged as I am or, have you been living under the equally sedative understanding that we had at least come a bit farther in this country than this?  I don’t whether to be outraged or sad or should I move up my search for overseas programs and move out the country next year.  I’d LOVE to hear your comments on this one.  Do you think this polling is indicative of blacks own behaviours (I’m sure that’s the easy answer because it would absolve whites of any wrong doing and being nothing more than benevolent masters) or is this polling a result of whites and their own unconfronted prejudices that manifest in the weirdest ways resulting in blacks going the hell off on them at work or something and then whites don’t even know what happened (just ask my host mother from this summer when she said “Hip hop is from the prison culture” I had to tell militant and angry Negro to go on vacation momentarily).

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL