I stumbled across an interesting story from NPR today. It indicates that those on the left of the political spectrum perceive President Obama as more light skinned than reality and that those on the right perceive him as being more dark skinned. Please check out the story here and follow my over the fold for some discussion of what this means.
I think that most of us would say that the fact that the right views President Obama as darker skinned is probably related to the racism that we tend to think of the GOP embracing. But what does this study say about us? and is it good?
A couple of weeks ago, I read an interesting discussion of the movie Precious in BlackKos. The diary pointed out that the abusive parents and the marginalized main character are portrayed by dark skinned actors while the charcters who help Precious and are depicted as good people are portrayed by ligher skinned actors.
So, are we only comfortable with those that we perceive as more light....more like the white (shrinking) majority? Do we automatically ascribe good characteristics to them and bad characteristics to the "other"? I think that the answer, generally speaking is yes.
I was surprised, however, that the findings were so stark when the study was limited to liberals. Shouldn't we be better? Shouldn't we be able to see the President as he is without resorting to a literal white-washing? What does this suggest about the state of our metaphorical house? And, most importantly, how do we as liberals/progressives/democrats move past this? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.