by got tonkaed on Sun Aug 16, 2009 10:02 pm
Thought about the question for a little bit and here is why I voted no.
First, it was fairly straight foward to see where the question could come from and it has a lot of superficial common sense. Get a definition of racism, put it out there, and allow both scenarios to apply to it. If racisms meaning is to discriminate, it is not difficult to see how both sides of the coin could be argued. Certainly arguing from something of a vaccum perspective (ie there is not large scale racism today or that most people are not racist) it would be easy to point out that any actions on either side of the proposed statement would in fact be equally racist.
This seems to be a rather flawed proposition though, and i think its essential in understanding the question. Should your statement be true, we would be inclined to argue that in fact black americans who voted for Obama, if in any way based on race, are racists. This type of mass action toward racism invalidates the underpinning proposition, that people are in fact not racist. This also does not account for any individual who voted for Obama because he was black of any other race or ethnicity as well, but it would still count under the same idea. Since this event happened we can either classify it one of a few ways that might make sense. First, there are apparently a larger number of people who did a racist action in favor of a black person (disregarding for the moment any of the arguments about "Obama's blackness") than people who did any action against him. Now one could argue if people were making a decision primarily based on race, it is just as probable that these views did not appear out of nowhere, and that they have harbored them for some time. Under the first option, it would be possible to argue (incorrectly in my view - and far too simplistically) that there is racism in america today, and that it occurs against whites (though of course youd have to argue it occurs in all directions if you were going to argue the above).
Two other ways of looking at the issue (though they are related and i tie them together) make more sense than arguing what amounts to different racial groups are in some way acting in a unified way with unifed goals against one another (in something akin to a cold version of a race war). The first of these two is to argue you against the word "just" in your question. It would seem possible to argue that by voting for someone just because of their race it is a discriminatory act without arguing that it is the same as other discriminatory acts. It would probably look akin to a spectrum of sorts, where we take the most positive act that a person does because of someone's race or ethnicity and on the opposite end place the most negative actions that a person could do. Though of course the spectrum would probably be different in some ways depending on the person is evaluating actions, it seems very clear (at least in my view) that the actions on the bad side are far worse than the good of the actions on the good side. I dont know if its really worth arguing what it would look like in this post, any reader could simply think about it for a moment and I believe they will see a similar outcome.
In the light of what seems to make a lot more sense than saying A = B and if you do A you are therefor the same as a person who is B, its now time to argue intent and the possibility of a multitude of reasons for doing something. As it stands, I have no doubt that there are people who vote primarily on the race of a candidate. Just as I have no doubt there are people who vote primarily on a candidates gender, age, religious values, presumed morality as well. Voting using any one of these as a singluar criteria is at the very least a less rational vote. However that does not mean i believe most people vote in this way. Even many people who did vote for Obama considering his race or who did not vote for Obama considering his race, probably had other motivations as well, though of course its very difficult to know if the former had influence on the latter.
The difficulty in placing people who do things positively toward someone else in regards to their race on such a spectrum is that you seem to be arguing racism does not exist anymore or that it is far less frequent than at any prior point before. I do not believe this is necessarily the case. Your counter argument would probably take the look of are you equating today with the past where racism was overt (ie anytime from when slavery started until more recent history). I am not, it is not the same, though i think a spectrum of actions can account for that. Under the proposed spectrum I could find agreement with the idea that racism has taken on far less negative actions, (ie people are not lynched frequently) but that racism still exists perhaps currently in a more benign fashion. As I do not believe racism has disappeared (or that it ever will in entirety) it is difficult to say actions that support someone based on race are equivalent to actions done against a person based on race.
Final note, you can use a spectrum correctly i believe both on a personal level and on a group or societal level, which may be important in cleaning up some of the muck above.
I've thought along the same lines before, but I could never have explained it so clearly and succinctly. 
