Voting for Obama because he's black

I've heard from many sources that 90% of black Americans will vote for Barack Obama because he's black. I've also heard that some whites won't vote for him because he's black. Then, there are a large number of white voters who will vote for Barack Obama because they agree with him on the issues.

But wait a minute, let’s look at this.

We're expected to educate ourselves on who the candidates are, and where they stand on the issues. We do this to determine whether or not we agree with their views on abortion, taxes, gun control, foreign policy, etc. This is expected so the informed, educated voter will show up at the polls and make their selection based on the issues. Isn't that what the expectations have been since the very first vote was cast in this country? I'm not saying that every voter has taken the time to thoroughly examine all of the issues, but there has been an expectation that voters will be aware.

Now we seem to be excluding blacks from this expectation. We seem to be willing to accept that they aren’t even interested in issues, only race.

Why is that? Has anyone in the media asked that question of black voters? Is that racist?
Is it racist of the media to accept the idea that black American voters will automatically vote for Barack Obama because he’s black?

Why is this acceptable? Is it acceptable that the majority of black Americans could be viewed by the world as issue ignorant in this election? It almost seems as if the blacks are not expected to be politically aware, so the movers and shakers give them a pass when they cast their vote based on race. That white voters are racist if they vote by race, but blacks, well, they're just black voters, so we understand. There is something terribly wrong with this expectation!

I believe that voters, black or white do themselves a great disservice by ignoring the issues and voting according to race. If you ignore what your candidate stands for, you could find yourself in the middle of a catastrophe and have no idea how you got there.