Andanh.com

Sure, I'll answer your question. It rose from a column about the Democratic primary in West Virginia ("Sorrow, not anger, for West Virginia," May 26 Opinion). The contest, you will recall, was a decisive victory for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, amid reports that 2 in 10 voters in that overwhelmingly white state said race was a deciding factor in their decisions. I called that atavistic, to which dozens of readers responded: If 2 in 10 whites voting for Clinton is wrong, isn't the overwhelming support of blacks for Obama equally wrong?

It isn't quite the stumper some folks seem to think.

I suppose the first thing that needs saying is that I have no objection to people of any marginalized ethnicity, race, religion or gender voting in a bloc for some member of their group. That's how they become less marginalized, how they win a seat at the table. The Irish did it in New York. The Cubans did it in Miami. Many women are doing it now.

Thing is, that's not what happened in West Virginia. Not unless you're going to tell me with a straight face that vote reflected marginalized whites (an oxymoron if ever there was one) seeking a seat at the table. No, all the evidence, statistical and anecdotal, tells us those folks did not vote for Clinton because she is white; they voted "against" Obama because he is black. There's a difference.

So there is something rather specious in all this hand-wringing about black support for Obama. Moreover, it is based upon a fallacy -- that black support for Obama was automatic.