Black Power!!!

Black power!

May 8th, 2013.

Miguel Ángel Dominguez Luna.

Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/us/politics/rate-of-black-voters-surpassed-that-for-whites-in-2012.html?ref=politics&_r=0

For the first time in American history, black votes surpassed the rates of white participation.  According to a survey by The New York Times whites, Asian, and Hispanic rates decreased in political participation. The survey also shows that women rates have increase and that black vote was primarily women black votes.

The survey show that the 66.3 percent of the black eligible people voted in comparison with the 64.1 percent of the non-Hispanic American eligible voters. . This means that more black people went to vote in comparison with 2008 election and that less whites voted. Michael Blake was in Obamas campaign and he said that campaign efforts were focused on getting more black and minority voters.

Wheaton argues that a lot of black voters voted in order to protect the president and their rights, she shows that in several states, republicans tried to rise the requisites for being a candidate, tried to limit voting times and to make harder a candidates registration. Marvin Randolfh vice president of the NAACP declared that black voters increased their rates as a response of republican actions in different states.

I relate this article with Katnelzon and Helen´s theory which says that “ almost everything that informs our social identities- such as race, gender, ethnicity and nationality can be called social construction”. In the article the authors point that social construction can be reconstructed as “social opportunities for change”. According to this idea we can relate that because of republicans altitudes against democracy and the hard work on Obama’s campaign led the non-white voters to go out and actively participate in America’s public decisions . “ the societal culture of modern democratic societies  not only inform and structure people’s choices; they also shape people´s desire and needs for social recognition”.

 Social construction can be shaped with the used of media, public speeches and policies made bye government, in this case the articles shows that Obama evidenced bad republican actions and turned the independent vote towards him. Obama´s campaign used some techniques that according to the reading of Going Negative helped to increase his popularity making republicans look bad, the also used the sell of fear to show the citizens that republicans did not want and look for a really democratic election.

Americans are more political aware nowadays than they were in 2008, campaign and media made efforts to increase the participation rates, it can be assumed that in next elections the participation rate will be higher and that campaigns will be focused on minorities and changing beliefs. Both republicans and democrats know that their target should be the independent vote instead of the value vote.