I've known Willey since the time my parents abandoned Detroit's run-down East Side for the less-run-down West side. I was ten and Willey was in his early 20s, but wise beyond his age and ninth grade education. We often talked in the backyard over the fence about civil rights, Vietnam, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye and voting. Willey embraced the ballot box like the cross on a chain he wore around his neck every day plus Sunday. I called Willey this week to get his take on the travails of Detroit's beleaguered mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, but he wanted to talk instead about the primary election. Willey, now in his 70's, has never missed an election, to my knowledge. He has awful pulmonary problems but hopes to live to make it to the polls in November. He's been praying to cast a ballot for Barack Obama. But he had no problem voting for Hillary. That is, until Ohio. That's when he said he saw "some really ugly things." By ugly he was not referring to the widely distributed photograph of Obama in traditional Somali dress replete with a turban. It was the racial-religious imagery that leaped from that photo which had Willey breathing harder than he should have over the phone. The picture was linked to the Clinton camp, according to the Drudge Report, which first published it.
Exit polls taken in the aftermath of the Ohio primary found that race played a significant role in how people voted. And last Sunday on CBS's 60 Minutes a white worker interviewed by Steve Kroft said his hesitancy in voting for Barack Obama stemmed from "the fact" that he is a Muslim. Kroft corrected the man but Hillary did no such thing. When Kroft asked Clinton about the rumor she said it was not true "as far as I know."
That just about sealed it for Willey. And after Hillary's refusal to call for Geraldine Ferraro's resignation after she told a California newspaper that Barack had been successful only because he is a black man, Willey's no longer wavering. Ferraro did finally step down, but there's nothing to indicate that she was pushed. Moreover Clinton's initial impulse to defend the former Democratic vice presidential candidate's peculiar notion of black advantage does not inspire confidence in people like Willey.
Ferraro's comments reflect the mounting anxiety of many ethnic whites especially, who have come to believe that there are built-in advantages to being black or Mexican or another so-called minority. But the assumption of privilege based on black or brown skin color seems illogical. Just ask all those African Americans left stranded on rooftops and in the squalor of a football stadium in New Orleans after just about everyone else had left the city. And studies on affirmative action in education like Bowen and Bok's seminal "Shape of the River" found that really deserving white kids are more likely to be passed over by lower-scoring white athletes or the children of wealthy alumni than some smart black kid, like Barack, who was ushered into the Ivy League only partly because of the color of his skin.
Ferraro, Ohio and Bill Clinton's comments leading up to the vote in South Carolina have been too much for Willey, and it will cost Hillary at least one vote in November if she clinches the nomination. Even her apology to a group of black community newspaper executives may have been too late for Willey. He sees her primary season mea culpa as strategic not heartfelt. But there's also no way in hell that Willey would ever vote for a Republican. Yet, he also does not want Clinton Democrats to assume that the black vote is automatic. And divisive race-baiting tactics make the delivery of that vote less likely.
"God willing" says Willey, he will go to his polling station in the fall but only to check off the list of state and local races. The problem for the Democratic Party is clear: If loyal voters like Willey demur from casting ballots in the 2008 presidential election, the Clinton campaign would have succeeded in suppressing the black vote more than Karl Rove could ever have dreamed.