Since the race for the White House began, the topic of race has been one of the most thoroughly reported and virtually exhausted issues, as it relates to politics, politicians, geography and voting trends.

But in retrospect, another interesting and possibly alarming correlation has emerged, but it can only be seen after some numbers are crunched.

In state after state, region after region, regardless of almost everything that has happened throughout this race, Barack Obama has received the lowest percent of the white vote in states with the largest black populations, while reflectively he has received the highest percent of the white vote in states with little to no black population.

While conventional wisdom suggests that integration leads to tolerance, alarmingly, it appears that states with the highest racial integration also had the highest tendency to vote along racial lines. 

When Obama won Iowa, a state that is around 95 percent white, the mass media lauded the results as Obama was officially the “post-racial” candidate, helping the nation permanently move past race politics and into a new era where only policy proposals, leadership ability and charisma were on the political table…or so we thought.

 While causality cannot be proved, it appears that, in a way, it is actually because Iowa was so white that Obama was able to capture the white vote.  Similarly, in the 15 states with the largest black populations, Obama received some of the lowest percent of the white vote in the nation.  Let’s look at some results:

(Illinois was left off of the list due to Obama’s home-state advantage, and Michigan was left off because Obama was not on the ballot)

One can see that the data above, culled from 2006 U.S. Census data and CNN exit poll results, suggests a strong correlation between a high black population and a low reception of the white vote for Obama.  In fact the only state where Obama won the white vote was Virginia.  In the state with the highest black population (Mississippi), Obama received a dismal 26 percent of the white vote. 

Bear in mind this is only looking at the Democratic white vote throughout the primary season.  With the high level of black support for recent Democratic candidates, it is surprising to see a lack of support from white Democrats for a black Democratic candidate.

In the past four presidential elections, Democratic candidates have averaged about 42 percent of the white vote, according to CNN.  However, Obama only received the average or better in three states: Georgia, Maryland and Virginia, and that is only looking at white Democrats, not all white voters.

It can also be seen that Obama’s reception of the white vote was not affected greatly by increased exposure to voters.  In Iowa and many of the Super Tuesday states, including Idaho, Obama won the white vote by significant amounts.  But even after months of additional exposure, Obama pulled a meager 26 percent of the white vote in Mississippi, a state where its contest was held on March 11, more than two months after Super Tuesday.

On the other hand, Obama has received a tremendous response from 14 nearly all-white states, such as Idaho, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Utah, Alaska, Oregon, Minnesota, Maine, Vermont and Connecticut – all have black populations of 6 percent or less.  So while the mass media was reporting that the black vote was carrying Obama in Southern states, it also appears that the exact opposite is true in Northern and Western states.  Without the white vote, Obama would have been decimated in nearly half of the contests where he won.

So why the stark difference?  Well, the first and most obvious reason is that there are low racial tensions in states where there is little racial diversity.  As an Idahoan, I can attest to the fact that my opinion of black people is based around only a few factors – television, the few black people I know and my own ideas of human nature.  Personally, I don’t see much of a difference from white to a black other than the geographic region where that race evolved.  And in Idaho, I don’t have any reason to alter that opinion.  After all, if there are no heavily black or high-crime urban areas and I’m not seeing the kinds of black-on-black crime as depicted in the show COPS, then my beliefs are not challenged.  Also, the hot-button issues of racial profiling and affirmative action are non-issues in Idaho, two topics that generate some of the hottest debate and hottest tempers in states where minority integration is of a higher level.

In Idaho, race is so low-key that many people simply don’t take it seriously.  Earlier this year there was some controversy over a radio host who allegedly said “I would never vote for that black negroid Barack Hussein Obama” and later had a prominent Colorado columnist as a guest on the show, who said Obama became a Marxist Muslim who was trained at an Indonesian madrassa.  Letters to the editor were written and the station was boycotted by Obama supporters, but the host is still on the air and was never seriously reprimanded for the alleged offenses.  One can only imagine the attention this would get if someone like Don Imus or Rush Limbaugh uttered these kinds of words.

Candido Gadaga, president of the Black Student Alliance at Boise State University, said there is racial tension in Idaho, but it might not be as palpable for white residents.

““There is definitely racial tension in Idaho,” he said.  “You don’t encounter it every day, but it’s there to see as a person of color.”

Another cause could have nothing to do with race and more to do with political distribution.  Of the 14 white states I listed above, all of which were won by Obama, eight of the states went Republican in 2004, and Obama has made it public that he aimed for primary wins in states where his chief rivals would not campaign.  For example, Obama was the only Democratic candidate with paid staffers in Idaho, and ran powerful campaigns in other small, rural caucus states.  But this is, at best, only a partial explanation, and many questions still loom.

The issue of race has been the number one underlying theme to this election season, spanning from Obama’s “major race speech” earlier this spring to the airing of CNN’s “Black in America,” a two-night event on July 23 and 24, which attempted to explain what it is like for black Americans to live in modern America.

In a run-up to the show, CNN, Essence Magazine and Opinion Research Corporation conducted a poll that helps explain the above phenomenon.  The poll found that there is a significant difference between how blacks and whites think of racism.  Forty-three percent of blacks said racial discrimination was a major problem in the United States, while only 11 percent of whites agreed.  Likewise, 42 percent of whites said racial discrimination was not a serious problem, while only 12 percent of blacks agreed.

But these results don’t explain the animosity that exists between these numbers.  These two groups do not simply disagree about whether or not blacks see discrimination.  In the states addressed above, where significant black and white populations live in close proximity, the difference in attitudes is apparently causing a difference in political preference, which proves this is not a dormant subject in American politics and American society.  Perception is reality – for these black people, it can only be assumed that the 43 percent who believe racial discrimination is indeed a problem are voting for Obama as a way to right the wrong of discrimination and break the final glass ceiling.  For the whites in the same region, the data suggests they may be voting against Obama out of spite for the black community’s feeling of discrimination.

“My guess would be in the white population, people are not ready to give up that mentality to see a black person be president,” Gadaga said.  “From my understanding there are higher levels of racism in areas with more black people. I don’t think the white people are ready to give up their power.”

He said it’s more of a power struggle in southern states because of the high black population, while in Northern states, whites don’t see minorities as a threat to their hold on political power.

“Since Idaho has never had a highly black population it would slowly adapt to [higher levels of integration],” he said.  “If there was a rapid rise of blacks in Idaho, that would create more tension.” 

“I think it’s in our nature,” Gadaga said.  “Where there are black people, most whites don’t want to vote for a black person because they think they’ll become a minority and the president will give strength to the black population.”

Attesting to the complexity and sensitivity to the subject, I was not able to find another organization interested in even commenting on this topic, which suggests still the ongoing difficulty of truly addressing racial discrimination and the politics of race in America, even in a state that is only .7 percent black.  Even the main multicultural/ethnic offices and advisers at Boise State University and the University of Idaho simply refused to comment on the subject because of the difficulty of approaching the topic with the necessary sensitivity and nuance that is required when addressing racial topics.