Playing the Race Card?

We've been amazed during this campaign to see talking heads wonder if people will vote against Barack Obama just because he's black. Nevertheless, it has been a common conjecture, rendered even more prevalent thanks to Obama's pre-emptive warning that his opponents would say that he's inexperienced, has a funny name, and by the way, he's black.

You don't say!

But seriously, folks, how can anyone with half a brain take that charge seriously, except under the banner of political correctness? Most blacks vote Democrat anyway, so the anticipated Obama landslide among that community won't be a surprise. But how do we explain the 90%+ poll numbers Obama had among black voters when he was competing against Clinton in the Democratic primaries? There were some relatively minor differences between them in terms of policy, but nothing that would even come close to choosing one candidate over the other on purely racial lines.

Now, it's an open question as to whether or not one should vote for a candidate based solely on race. Maybe in some hypothetical circumstance where all else is equal, it would be worth voting for a black (or a woman, etc.) on the grounds that it would provide uplift to the members of that community. Maybe, maybe not, but only if there's absolutely no other basis for making a decision. Are we really going to pretend that's the case here?

So to white voters out there, if your only reason to vote for McCain is that Obama is black, then shame on you. But to blacks who are guilty of the opposite, shame on you, too. Looking at polling numbers, one must say that race-baiters are right: this is a racially divided society. Unfortunately, most of the racial division, percentage-wise, seems to be taking place on the black side of the equation. Whites are pretty evenly split between the candidates, pretty much as they have been in the past two elections. That's not what one would expect from a racist society. But blacks going for Obama over not only McCain but Clinton by better than nine-to-one? Yeah, that's beautiful. No racism here.

See all this article for more on the Obama team's race-baiting shenanigans.