MIddle Class whites now have less in common with blacks. Go to the average suburan high school that has truly has a diverse student body. Most of the whites and Asians are trying to get their children into AP/IB classes and are going everything they can to build an academic resume for the college application processs. The black and Hispanic students will rarely if ever be found in the colege prep classes but the black student still expect to go to college because colleges have lower admissions standards for them.

In an anecdotal, i meet a black undergraduate who taught that Howard University would automatically admit her to Dental School because she was black.

There is no two sides when Senator Obama talks about race even though he grew up in biracial. When he discusses race, it is about what is good for blacks such as quotas, affirmative action, and setasides. He never talks about what is done if the name of race that is bad for blacks. He refueses to acknowledge that anything the government does would be harmful to blacks. That is why blue collar whites do not trust him. They know that Senator Obama will throw the blue collar whties under the bus if it benefits blacks, Hispanics, or upper class whites.

Seeing that you don't understand that 'balance' means TWO sides, not pandering to either, you're not even talking about the same topic.
Go on speaking only to yourself, if you enjoy it.

Senator Obama did not strike balance in his speech. The blue collar whites in West Virginia would identify much more with is grandmother who raised him than with his father who abandoned him or with Rev. Wright. The poor whites are afriad that the country has left them behind and no longer cares about them. When Obama talks about maintain racial set asides that his daughters would benefit from his loses the blue collar white vote. One of the most telling statistics in the U.S. is that a black male with an SAT score of 1000 is much more likely to go to college than a white male with an SAT score of 1000. There is nothing that Senator Obama had said or proposed that would change that.

I also think NEOCON depicts the mentality of poor whites pretty well.. Since all the candidates are now privileged and well educated, I think elitsm is merely a politically manufacured and totally inappropraite issue, however, I mean, all the candidates. are now well-educated and privileged elites!!!

The bruised egos that come with difficult lives contribute to bigotry and close-mindedness. In the extreme case of neo-Nazis, for example, recruits don't come from the successful or affluent.
Finding someone to be below you is a boost to one's own ego.

We haven't found the right balance in how to talk about these issues.
The constant harping on demographics iin political analyses can acerbate our problems. On the other end of the scale, complacency or avoidance is equally dangerous.

The thorny challenge is to acknowledge we have these problems, but to do it without rancor. Obama struck the right balance in his speech on race. How to strike that kind of balance in everday politics and everyday life is still eluding us.

At least Senator Clinton was willing to talk about immigration. At least the tax and spend policies of Senator Clinton would probably benefit more than the racial spoils system were Senator Obama has made his living.

Yes, the Republicans have done a lousy job of appeal to mddle class and blue collar whites and that is one of the reasons that the Republicans will soon be irrelevant. However, if Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, St Louis, or even Mass. is any indication, the Democratic Party will do nothing that benefits them.

The poor whites will never backpack in South America, never spend a semester studying abroad, never be an intern at NYC or a Fellow at the White House.

The poor whites seem themselves stuck in jobs that are now performed by blacks and minorities where they will be an outsider even if they did take them. The see no path for upward mobility. So, why should they support an Ivy league educated urban elitist who send his children to the best private schools and who has spent less than a year working in the private sector?

Hillary Clinton is a White Woman.

Think about that for a bit. The democratic party is asking us to do something that has never been done. Most of us thought was years and years away.

Vote for a Black or a Woman to be their Candidate for the White House.

One or the other would have been hard enough. Difficult and an extra ordinary event to overcome the basic prejudices self built into every democrat in this country. However that was not enough for this party. This year we have asked them to pick.

EITHER/'OR.

Perhaps in some bizarre way we will get both. A Black President with a White Woman VP. Perhaps Neither.

But one thing is sure. The democratic party sure knows how to force a hand. And those who claim the mantle of being a Democrat or more like an ANTI Republican are faced with a hard choice and the emotions of it run deep.

Either a Black or a Woman. With bias and racism rife within the democratic party as much as it is among the republican party we are being forced to come to grips with our self proclaimed superior “tolerance”

I for one think were not doing so well.