Race Matters?

How far Philadelphia has (and hasn't) come in terms of voting.

by Tom Namako

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Michael T. Regan YOUTH VOTE: Could Mompie Rogers, 1, live in a Philadelphia where race is less important politically? (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

At the High Tech Auto Repair Shop on the 1600 block of Belfield Avenue, the usual talk about timing belts and oil changes gave way to a single topic on Tuesday: Barack Obama. MaryMichelle Suttles, the election judge in this North Philly polling place, hung more than a dozen posters and placards bearing the candidate's name and visage. "This," she said, "is an Obama division."

That much was obvious. But it was a bit harder to find out why Suttles was backing Obama. At first, she offered canned explanations, like "hope" and "change," lifted directly from the banners behind her. Then, after a few minutes, she said:

"Fine, I'll give it to you straight. He's a brother. He's a member of the minority community, and that has brought out this neighborhood's black community for what seems to me to be a record turnout. It's simple as that."

Across the city in South Philly, outside Capitolo playground, Amy Fiorentino, 39, is eight months pregnant and has been holding a Hillary Clinton sign outside the recreation center for most of the day. She's not a Clinton staffer or registered volunteer; she's just doing this on her own, she says, because she's a die-hard supporter of the former first lady.

"She needs the votes here," she says. And though Fiorentino points out that she isn't voting based on race, she explains: "When you look at the numbers and you look at how the city's neighborhoods break down, you have to admit that race is a factor. ... And I don't think the numbers just break down that way on their own."

Indeed, race has been an obvious issue in Philadelphia politics for decades. The city became deeply divided over former Mayor Frank Rizzo's contentious civil rights record in the 1970s and voted along black-and-white lines right through the John Street/Sam Katz face-offs of 1999 and 2003. In the second race, Street won more than 90 percent of the North Philadelphia vote, while Katz won about 85 percent of the far Northeast vote, according to statistics from the Committee of Seventy.

The norm finally changed in 2007, when current Mayor Michael Nutter ran a campaign that appealed to both white and black voters (and successfully defeated both white and black opponents).

"Based on unofficial vote tallies from predominantly white and black wards, it appears that Nutter got the largest percentage of white votes ever cast for an African-American in a Philadelphia mayoral primary," the Inquirer reported after analyzing poll results.

Nutter had barely finished his first hundred days in office, though, when Philadelphians were faced with another electoral contest that carried racial undertones: the presidential Democratic primary. And race did surface as an issue, from Gov. Ed Rendell saying some white voters in the state weren't ready for a black president, to Obama calling rural Pennsylvanians "bitter," to Bill Clinton accusing the opposition of playing "the race card."

All this history set up two interesting questions for voters on Tuesday: Did Nutter's election move Philadelphia into a post-racial voting era? Or were voters still widely using race as a deciding factor in the polls?

The frustrating answer: It was hard to tell. For one thing, what Nutter and Obama have in common, according to Camille Charles, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and associate director of the Center for Africana Studies, is an ability to benefit from what she calls "exceptionalism": the idea that a person who holds negative stereotypes about a group will make exceptions for people he likes individually.

"People who might be reluctant to vote for a black candidate, or have negative attitudes about black people as a group, don't see these candidates as a part of the group," she says. This is likely because both men used messages that appealed across racial lines.

And indeed, Obama's message of change ultimately went over well in Philadelphia: He won the city by about 30 percentage points, an accomplishment which required substantial white support.

It's true that at polling places around the city, one could still see hints of the old racial polarization. At three polls with large black constituencies — two in North Philly and one in West Philly — it was hard to spot a Clinton placard; at two largely white polls in South Philly, Obama signs were just as scarce.

But many voters said they were making their decisions for more nuanced reasons.

"Personally, I'm not going to do this based on some guy's color," said William Squilda, a 49 year-old white man standing on Passyunk Avenue, next to Stephen Girard Elementary School. A nearby iron fence held about a dozen Hillary placards, with one for Obama. "The older folks might, though, and I can see that. They're not too vocal about it, but they vote that way in the booth."

Squilda hadn't voted by early afternoon, and claimed he still wasn't sure who he'd support. "I'm going to make a split-second decision," he said, "right there and then. That's how close it's coming for me."

Beverly Cofer, a 50 year-old black woman who voted at the Stenton Park Recreation Center at 18th and Courtland streets, also said her decision had not come down to race. Many of her friends, she said, decided against Clinton because they thought the former first lady had "too much baggage." Cofer's deliberations were about class.

"He feels us," she said about Obama. "I see him as having struggled, too, like I do and like everyone else in this neighborhood. We've been electing people born with silver spoons in their mouth. His mother wasn't born with loads of privileges, and I think he understands the struggle more than [Clinton] does."

That's not to say there wasn't tension between the campaigns. At one point, at the 52nd and Chestnut streets YMCA, Hillary and Obama supporters got into a yelling match ("O-bam-A" vs. "Hill-A-ry"). But both groups of chanters were multiracial.

Dennis Anderson, 45, saw the whole thing. And even though he had an Obama placard, he also took a Hillary sticker and placed it on his shirt. "I voted Obama, but I have no beef with Hillary either," he said. "The way I see it, if I vote for either one it'll get done what I really want: Getting my boys, my people, home. Home from Iraq."

(tom.namako@citypaper.net)