Immediately following the reports of the election results,
mixtures of angry and ecstatic statuses inundated my FaceBook news feed. They
continued into Friday morning, with some statuses congratulating President
Obama and others threatening to move to Canada. Many statuses showed concern about
Obama’s economy, and others rejoiced in the fact that Romney won’t be in office
to raise taxes. Some statuses and comments, however, discussed a topic that
should not contribute to a person’s presidential decision in our day and age.
One
person, a white male, wrote, “I can’t believe we have to deal with this idiot
for four more years.” In the comment section, a white girl called him “a racist”
and “ignorant”. The boy said nothing about the president’s race, but insulted
his intelligence. He was called a racist simply because he insulted somebody
who happened to be black. On the other hand, a black girl put up a status
saying, “woke up this morning happy knowing my president is still black.” Her
comment says nothing about his policies, only that he is black.
With
the past two elections I have noticed that many people support candidates based
on race rather than the policies and views of the candidates. In a Gallup
poll taken from May 2012 up until the week before the election, 90% of
blacks supported Obama by the end of October. Hispanics and those who
identified as “non-white” also strongly favored Obama. Romney was favored by
the white population, but without the large gap: 59% of whites supported Romney
and 37% favored Obama.
It is
not fair to call someone a racist for not supporting Obama and it is not right
to refrain from voting for someone just for being different. I for one voted
for Romney in this election, not because he was white, but because I felt he
had the business and financial knowledge to fix the economy. Four years ago, I
voted for Obama because of his promise of hope for the country, and as a
college student, hope was exactly what I needed. I personally felt that he didn’t
deliver. I changed my vote because I no longer felt hopeful, especially when it
came to finding a job outside of college. His race had nothing to do with my
decision. There is no problem with voting for someone who you identify with;
however, I think it is very important that voters know each candidate’s policies
before voting. It is not the race of our president that is going to solve our
nation’s problems, but his actions.
I like how you did this. Simply because I can see your point of view. I too have a social network that was flooded with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney pictures/comments about who should be president, at the time. I also seen comments like "My president is black." I may have posted a comment similar of that.
ReplyDeleteThe term "black" is used because Romney's plan seemed or is degrading to different cultures, campaigning against a black man Romney obviously wouldn't have gotten the upper hand of popular demand. Hence, when votes came in that 90% of African Americans voted for Obama. The reason for the short quote, on my behalf, is simply because some people do not feel safe with Mitt Romney as president. Romney is against birth control, possibly women's' rights (Lilly Ledbetter bill) and also lower class people would suffer more because of his financial plan, etc. If you did not know, the Lilly Ledbetter bill guarantees equal pay for equal work with no discrimination involved. Why would women want Romney as president either? We are supposed to progress not return back to the past. Im glad Barack Obama is president.
Romney does not seem fit to run a country. Yes, he might know a better financial plan but that plan does not help everyone and Obama at least attempts to. It does not matter about the race, maybe to some, but it is everything else Romney would do to degrade us as a whole.
I rather have an honest president than a greedy one.
I also saw a ton of racially offensive pictures on Twitter and other social networks. But what I find funny is that people always disregard the fact that Barack Obama is half white - meaning he is just as much a white man as he is a black man.
ReplyDeleteRomney was no good for our country. Like RelavantThoughts said, he was not planning on catering to the middle class at all. It seems like a lot of people actually knew he wasn't a good candidate, but they voted for him just to get "the brown man" out of office. We shouldn't have been basing our decision on skin color, we should have been basing our decision on authenticity. Clearly, Obama was the most authentic candidate and he had everyone's best interest at heart, not just the wealthy.
I'm glad he is still our president and he now has 4 more years to finish cleaning up 8 years of George Bush's mess.