@auhsojsa First-hand experience, really. I used to hang out in the Office of Multicultural Relations when I was in school (2006–2009) – where ‘multicultural’ mostly worked out to ‘black Americans.’ Exchange students would move through there, but were not the regulars.
I would get into politically-flavored conversations, and around and after the 2008 election, those would often focus on the Presidency. I had the occasion, in the course of discourse, to ask my interlocutor why she voted for Obama (a fact that had been established earlier). Her response was that she wanted ‘one of us’ in office for a change. I rebutted that skin color is hardly something to base any kind of decision on (outside of SPF, perhaps), to which she replied that I (a man of immediate Italian ancestry) couldn’t really appreciate how important that was.
There were similar conversations in other places (some people would field the less-shortsighted, slightly more inflammatory, “it’s good to see Americans putting aside their racism” line), but this is the one that stands out most in memory.
As for quotes, theres Tom Joyner, radio show host who says,
Forget that bin Laden was captured and killed under his watch. Let’s not even deal with the facts right now. Let’s deal with just our blackness and pride – and loyalty. We have the chance to re-elect the first African-American president, and that’s what we ought to be doing. And I’m not afraid or ashamed to say that as black people, we should do it because he’s a black man.
I am not trying to say that everybody who voted for Obama did so for his blackness. I’m referring specifically to all of the ones who did vote for a melanin count. Shame on the lot of them, racist hypocrites that they are.