While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton keep trading wins during the primaries, there's one trend that's not only significant for Obama's campaign but for the country as well. Via The Nation:
South Carolina's Democratic primary continued the trend seen in every contest this election, with young voters strongly throwing their support behind Barack Obama.
So far, Obama has won among 18-29 year olds in every state, garnering 67% of their votes in South Carolina, 59% in Nevada, 51% in New Hampshire and 57% in Iowa. (In Michigan, only Hillary Clinton's name was on the ballot, but perhaps significantly, the majority of young people voted "uncommitted," rather than Clinton.)
White South Carolinians in this age demographic voted for Obama almost twice as much as they did for Clinton. So clearly, Obama's message of change has clearly reverberated in the hearts and minds of politically-engaged youth.
Yet I think the most important trend to keep in mind isn't Obama's allure to the young but that young white Americans are less and less racist than their forebears. When a black man decisively wins the vote of young white southerners in a state where older white idiots still argue about the legitimacy of the Confederate Flag - which a Republican candidate panders to - then we know the United States may be able to heal its racial wounds in a few more generations as my generation teaches its children to treat individuals as individuals and not as repositories of stereotypes.
But what accounts for this lack of racism among young white Americans? While I'd like to say good parenting or education or both, I owe it to greater exposure to black culture, if not the out and out commercialization of it, from Hollywood and the music industry. But more importantly, I'm interested in what readers across the pond think. So what say you?
