Reversion to the Meanest

I saw this tweet by Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher yesterday:


Then this morning I saw this from Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) on Twitter, who was responding to President Obama’s farewell speech:

The hilariously sad thing is so many people expected Obama to be a Magical Negro. When he was merely human, the anger started and never stopped. Now people are blaming Obama for Trump winning instead of their own racism. It's fascinating. And horrifying. We'll all pay for it sadly.

Both of these remind me of research that shows white people are more supportive of voter ID laws when shown photos of black people voting. I remember the first time I heard about that research back in 2014… I did a double take. I couldn't believe it. But it has been upheld in other research.

Having Barack Obama as president reminded white people every day that black people exist. So, in reaction, a significant number of us voted in an orange baboon to take his place.

Nose. Face. Meet knife.

The only thing that’s unclear to me is whether this is an attribute of white people in particular (as a group) or if some other hypothetical group in the dominant position in a society, with similar dynamics of oppression, would have made the same decision.