The effects of Race in Politics

Racism? Black leaders fret white person may take Jesse Jackson's House seat

*Black leaders in Chicago are worried that a white person may take the congressional seat formerly held by Jesse Jackson, Jr., son of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, Politico reported Tuesday.
The concern is that so many black candidates are competing for the position that a white candidate may step in and take the seat.
"The worries escalated this week after former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, a white Democrat and veteran of suburban Chicago politics, threw her hat into the ring," Alex Isenstadt wrote.
“There’s a great deal of concern that Debbie Halvorson would win because the black vote would be split 18 ways,” Delmarrie Cobb, a longtime Democratic political consultant in Chicago said.
“The battle we have is that we can’t afford to lose a black voice in Congress,” she added. “It would be a terrible loss in many ways,” she added.
According to Politico, losing the seat to a white person, no matter how qualified, would "be a blow to the black establishment."
Halvorson, Politico notes, is no newcomer. She "served two years in the House and spent 15 years in local and state office," but lost her primary bid against Jackson earlier this year. According to Politico, she won majorities in two of the district's three counties, described by Isenstadt as suburban and mostly white.
"Chicago, long a center of black cultural and political power – it’s the home of the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, and the first black member of Congress, Oscar De Priest - would see its delegation in the Congressional Black Caucus diminish from three seats to two," Isenstadt added.
The district Jackson served since 1995 has a small majority of black voters, Politico said. Jackson resigned from his seat last week, citing mental health issues.
The message is quite clear: White people need not apply, no matter how qualified they may be, or how well they may represent the district. Race is all that matters and nothing else -- except for one's political party.
Had the roles been reversed, with white Republicans expressing concern that a black person may win a seat formerly held by a white person, the entire Democrat-media complex would explode with rage, and Twitter would be flooded with death threats.
But one must remember, this is Chicago, and the seat was held by a black Democrat. Therefore, the rules are different. It's enough to make one wonder who the real racists are these days.*


This article is not subtle at all, but, instead, shows explicit examples of racialization. Rather than being, what is considered to be, the norm of racialization (that of white people racializing blacks), we see the opposite. Here, black people are stating that white people must not take Jesse Jackson's seat in Congress. However, it is not as if they would be taking the seat by force, but would rather be voted in, fairly. This is an example of racialization because white people are being targeted specifically for their skin color and not because of the political views that they may hold. The article even implies that it doesn't matter if the white person is affiliated with the same political party as Jackson, they just do not want a white person in his seat because they feel as if they will lose some of their say in Congress. If people are being voted into the House of Representatives and the Senate merely because of their skin color, what does that say about America's political system?