A startling video released today by Jeremy Segal (“Rebel Pundit”) ofBreitbart.com shows inner-city Black Chicagoans expressing outrage against President Obama, union racism, and the Democratic Machine, whom they say no longer represent their agenda.Further, when money is directed at their community, it is funneled through so-called community-based organizations and nonprofits or unions, and never touches the residents themselves.
Community resident Paul McKinley says, “Everything in Chicago is controlled by the Democratic party. Everything in my community is controlled by Black Democrats. There is no Tea Party in my community. There is no Republicans. So they can’t blame the Tea Party.” Later, he says, “I tell you that the liberal agenda is not the black agenda, it is not the family agenda, and it is not the American agenda.”
Another woman interviewed, Jean Ray, said, “They feel they can just take us for granted, and we’re just going to vote Democratic anyways. But if there was a Republican out here doing what I felt they should be doing, I would vote for them.”
It goes beyond party politics. One woman, who describes how any money put into the community simply goes to (non-Black) union contractors, says, “As far as the community outreach, once again, these community organizations that’s taking money and shuffling paperwork, but not really reaching out to the community…The union won’t let us in, as a whole. They will not let us in. They will figure out any way to close the doors to us…I’m going to say it right out, they’re prejudiced against us”:
The video made me think of the Bradley Effect, which is usually thought of as whites falsely claiming they will vote for a black candidate, thus inflating the black candidate's standing in the polls, as compared to actual votes.
I'm wondering if there isn't a black Bradley Effect in play at the moment.
Blacks support Obama -- they say -- by 92-8. That makes sense, as blacks generally vote for Democrats by 90-10 or, at worse, 88-12. With a black president on the ballot, 92-8 seems pretty likely.
Except... except for the fact of Obama's record, which is generally miserable, and specificallymiserable when it comes to soaring black unemployment and rising black poverty rates.
Plus, some progressive social policy adventurism, which is generally unpopular in the black community.
Now, the Bradley Effect posits that there is a "socially preferred" answer and, people being people, they offer the socially preferred answer -- sure, I'm voting for the black candidate -- in higher rates than they actually vote for that candidate. The voting booth makes no judgments, whereas in the usual sort of poll you're on the phone with a human being, who might.
It seems likely to me that within the black community there is an even stronger social preference tostating that one is supporting the first black president.
And so the polls might overstate Obama's support among blacks. Given the very high passions of some blacks about this -- Stacy Dash was vilified with the worst sort of racist and sexualized insults -- it just might be that more blacks are voting for Romney than are willing to say so aloud.
Now blacks only make up 12% of the population, and even a robust Bradley effect would only account for a 5% swing within that 12%; so we're not talking about large numbers of votes here.
Still, in a tight election, in a state like Pennsylvania... who knows.