All these journalists need to do is read getbig to get an idea about the mindset of some of America's youth. 
October 15, 2008
The Youth Vote
In Generation Seen as Colorblind, Black Is Yet a FactorBy SHAILA DEWAN
LEXINGTON, Ky. — William Osborne, a sophomore political science major and member of the currently all-white University of Kentucky chapter of FarmHouse, an international fraternity, is naturally soft-spoken. But when asked if he had heard people say that they would not vote for Senator Barack Obama because he is black, his voice dropped to a barely perceptible level.
“I might have heard something like that,” he said.
Asked if what he had heard was hard to talk about, Mr. Osborne stopped talking altogether and simply nodded, looking miserable.
Throughout this campaign season, many commentators and politicians have proclaimed today’s youth to be a colorblind generation in which racial prejudice has receded and diversity is embraced.
But in two days of interviews here and north of the Ohio River in Cincinnati, most young people acknowledged — or even insisted — that race was still a powerful if subtle factor among their peers.
At the University of Cincinnati, Anthony Galarza, a graduate student in urban planning, said he had heard off-color jokes about an Obama presidency that suggested the White House would become “more ghetto” with “barbecues on the front lawn.”
“I would think on a college campus we would be a little more liberal,” said Mr. Galarza, 29. “To hear it so openly talked about, it’s disturbing — it really is. I don’t think anyone who is colorblind would make a comment like that.”
The significance of race as a powerful factor among the young is supported by statistical data. Most polls show that Mr. Obama is far more popular among younger voters than his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain. But in exit polls conducted by Edison/Mitofsky this year, younger Democratic primary voters were no less likely to say that race had been an important factor in their vote than people 30 and older. And in two states — Georgia, where African-Americans dominated among younger voters, and Illinois — young voters were actually more likely than older ones to say that race had been important.
Some data have also found that young voters are less likely than older ones to say the country is ready for a black president, though these data make it hard to tell whether the young are more influenced by race or simply more realistic about its power. In a nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in July, more than two-thirds of voters said the country was ready for a black president. Among voters 30 or older, 23 percent disagreed, compared with 34 percent of younger voters.
“There’s a whole lot of students that are excited about the election, but what I’ve noticed is there’s a whole lot of students that are iffy about Obama,” said Kanetha Mack, a black freshman at the University of Kentucky, where the undergraduate student body is about 9 percent black. “People don’t want him to be president, because America’s used to a white Christian man. And he’s black, so they’re going to sit up there and try to make it seem like he’s something that America doesn’t want.”
Asked about the influence of race in the campaign, several white students at both the Kentucky and Cincinnati campuses were quick to say that it helped Mr. Obama, but seemed not to consider that it might hurt him.
Whit Chafin, a 19-year-old white sophomore at Kentucky who has not yet chosen a candidate, said: “I think it’s playing a heavy role, honestly, because Obama’s taken that side pretty much, like he’s got it on lock. I went to a high school where I was pretty much a minority in the school. They’re all for Obama.”
Adam French, a 21-year-old white senior and supporter of Mr. McCain, said: “It would be interesting to consider if Barack Obama had the same credentials but was John Smith, a white guy from Texas, that he would be in the same position to run. I don’t think anyone with his credentials could come anywhere close to being on a presidential ticket” without being black.
Mr. French is the president of the FarmHouse chapter, where all but one member are McCain supporters. The exception is Kevin Mattingly, who said that his parents, dairy farmers, were Democrats and that he was leaning toward Mr. Obama.
“I don’t have any problem with a black president,” he said. “I think it would be fine, because a lot of things people stereotype black people with, I don’t think Obama has any of them.”
