If Barack Obama were a state, he’d be California, said Maria Shriver as she endorsed Obama last weekend.
But what if Barack Obama were white? What if Hillary Clinton were a man? What if John McCain were a woman? What if Mitt Romney were a black female Baptist? The “what if” question is useful across the board as voters wrestle with identity politics. I don’t mean to be flippant, but rather to suggest that we are more biased than we admit and that just possibly our bias interferes with judgment.
We keep hearing that Obama’s candidacy isn’t about race and Clinton’s isn’t about gender. But clearly this presidential campaign season is about both. It is also about age and religion, in the cases of McCain and Romney, respectively.
Sometimes it isn’t possible to separate content from these prisms of perception, as this exercise demonstrates. But removing the lens of personal identity can be instructive by forcing us to focus more intently on substance.
Some may be able to justify biases as recompense for past inequalities, but we shouldn’t be confused about why we vote a certain way.
