Yes We Can?: White Racial Framing and the Obama Presidency by Harvey-Wingfield Adia & Feagin Joe

Author:Harvey-Wingfield, Adia & Feagin, Joe [Harvey-Wingfield, Adia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136156540
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Asian Americans and the Democratic Primary

Asian-American voting patterns during the Democratic primary season—and the mainstream media response to them—were similar to those of Latino/as. Like the Latino/a population, during the 2008 primary season Asian American voters generally voted for the Democratic Party and supported Hillary Clinton in large numbers.11 One important factor in their support for Clinton may have been the recommendation she received early on from the 80–20 Initiative, a political action committee (PAC) that strives to achieve equal opportunity for Asian Americans by uniting their votes and support behind candidates who will best serve their political–economic goals. Again, Senator Clinton enjoyed the political benefits of being a more familiar candidate, with her years of exposure on the national political scene. Hence, during the early primaries in California and New York, states with very large numbers of Asian Americans, Senator Clinton handily won majorities of these important Democratic voters in the party primaries.12

As Asian-American voting patterns mirrored those of Latino/as, so too did the mainstream analyses of their political decisions. Once again, many media commentators and political pundits speculated that Asian Americans were not voting for Obama at least in part because of supposed suspicions and mistrust of black Americans. Unlike Latino/as, however, Asian Americans tend to be portrayed in the mainstream media as overrepresented in professional and other white-collar occupations, and are typically not envisioned by mainstream media and other commentators as working class and major competitors for jobs and resources with predominantly working-class African Americans. Nonetheless, intergroup tensions between black and Asian Americans do exist, such as in urban areas where Asian-American small-business owners have been viewed by black Americans as encroaching on or exploiting older neighborhoods that are predominantly black. Given these community dynamics, in some urban areas the strained relations may have contributed to some Asian Americans’ mistrust of black Americans, resulting in an initial unwillingness to support a black candidate.13

Not surprisingly, thus, numerous media and other commentators jumped to the conclusion that Asian Americans’ initial support for Clinton was likely a manifestation of their racial animosity towards blacks. One noteworthy example was a CNN segment by a reporter that aired on a February 2008 episode of “Anderson Cooper 360.” The stereotyped piece, “Asian Americans to Vote for Hillary Clinton Across the Nation,” featured heavily accented Asian Americans of different nationalities naming Senator Clinton as their choice for president in 2008. This important story hinted that Asian Americans’ racialized fears of black Americans were a primary factor in their decision to back Senator Clinton. Not surprisingly, this segment generated immediate outrage from Asian Americans and generated a petition that condemned the CNN feature as “a misleading portrayal behind why 75% of Asian Americans support Hillary Clinton.” Furthermore, these Asian-American petitioners questioned the CNN reporter’s decision to include only people with heavy Asian accents, noting that this furthered the widespread stereotype of Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners.”14 Overall, the political concern commonly voiced by the mostly white media commentators was that Obama, in the words of a Time magazine article, might have “an Asian problem.

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