Election Coverage

Watching the election coverage, I didn't really notice any comments regarding race directed toward Obama, other than him being the first black president. However, I did notice a strong emphasis on "groups" when votes were being recorded. On CNN, whenever they would refer to incoming votes, they would always display a screen with a red or blue bar crossing over a group of people. "White Evangelicals." "Women." "Jewish." "Black." I sort of understand where the interest in knowing that would be, but I also doubt that it is a beneficial thing to publish both when the votes are being counted and when the candidates are actually campaigning.

In both of these situations, it draws attention to the differences of in-groups and out-groups. When a president is being elected, you'd think it would be better to think of Americans as one people, rather than groups of people. Also, during the campaign, pointing out these differences may lead to corruption, or at least misinformation from the candidates. For example, if someone is running for president and is told that (s)he's down on votes from the "Women" group. Now he or she may be inclined to manipulate his or her policies to appeal to the females of the county. Then the candidate sees that he or she is lagging in the "Mexican-American" group. Because of this, all of the population is expecting to be appeased for their specific group needs, most of which cannot be done simply because one president can't do everything he or she promises. On top of that, the divides have been accentuated, and each group now has room to accuse people in their relative out-groups, and in some cases the president, of racism or prejudice. Pointing out the groups really only makes a mess of things.