I know every failed campaign looks for a scapegoat, but this is a New Day full of Hope and Change and Hypo-Allergenic First Puppy. I was kind of hoping for something more original than Blame Black People.
The proponents of the “black people passed 8″ theory rely on a parade of specious arguments, but the most facile is the reliance on a single exit poll of 2,240 voters showing 7 out of 10 African Americans voted yes on 8.
Let’s take a peek at how many black people were polled—224. 224 black people speak for the entire African American electorate in California? Note, the dashes in the “black men” columns indicate that with only 90 black men polled, they couldn’t even get a statistically relevant result.
But for the sake of argument, let’s accept this 7 out of 10 statistic. According to the US Census, African Americans are 6.7% of the entire California electorate–that’s 2.3 million people. White people comprise 43% or 22 million. Our single exit poll says white people were evenly split on 8. So that’s about 11 million white votes for 8. Our simple arithmetic reveals…whoa…way more white people voted yes on 8. Wait, that’s almost FIVE times the entire black electorate.
If we want to really use this non-reasoning and one poll in the Blame Game, the correct answer to who passed prop h8 is: White Republicans (82% for h8) and voters of all races who attend church on a weekly basis (84% for h8.)
Note, lest APIs think we can gloat about our “majority against 8” status. Puhleez, 134 “Asians” represent the ever mythical unified Asian America? Let’s be consistent in our demands for disaggregated data and not present ourselves as a blended happy SouthAsianFilipinoChineseJapaneseTonganSaomoanVietnamese family. We know there’s a lot of in-house work to do. Talk to your parents or born-again cousin about being queer lately?
So why blame African Americans? It’s lazy, easy and sells. If that were all, blaming black people for prop 8 is no less harmful than instant ramen. This knee jerk racism is more dangerous than your cup noodle because it focuses blame on a caricatured impenetrable “scary scary black peoples” who we can then fear, ignore and not engage. Shifting blame to some unknowable outsider breeds complacency and a self-righteous cocoon of All is Good in our non-scary house devoid of black people. And it erases the real lives, loves and struggles of queer people of color who create blended communities of Asian, Latino, black, haole and mixed race peoples.
So, as a dear friend often reminds me, it’s never ALL Good. Every community has its homophobes— 24% of San Franciscans voted FOR 8. That’s right, 1 in 4 voted for h8 in the gay Mecca. The wackness knows no bounds.
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Comments
This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Semi-daily thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I found you through Racialicious. Great post (and so succinct too)! That statistic on San Francisco is crazy. I’m still reeling from the data that says only 50% of San Francisco voted and only 55% of Alameda County voted. I think that turnout is at least 10 points lower than the national average. It’s very surprising. You’d think people here would be motivated to go to the polls this year. Moreover, I live in Berkeley and the voting lines were long (even at 7 a.m.). On the other hand, one-quarter of San Franciscans voting FOR 8 might be even more unbelievable.
Thanks for reading and commenting! I was also surprised at the voting rates in SF and Alameda. Since 8 passed by around 400,000 votes, it makes me wonder if greater voter turnout in anti-8 counties in the Bay Area would have tipped the scales.
Thanks for your post — it’s refreshing to hear your perspective on this really annoying and very disturbing reporting. How is it that all those major networks, with significant financial resources, commissioned this bogus, UNreliable exit poll? Could it be that they weren’t really interested in statistically significant data, that they are more interested in looking for the next sensationalist angle at a very disturbing result? Why doesn’t someone write about the fact that more Californians, and San Franciscans, in particular, were more concerned about poultry rights than their neighbors’ rights? How about an in-depth analysis of the irony of Mormons defining “traditional” marriage? Why not ask why Mormons believe they should be allowed to marry a multitude of wives, while denying us queers the ability to marry just one single, sole person? What if these networks did a hard-hitting analysis of why the defenders of marriage don’t work to ban divorce? Oh, perhaps it’s because that might actually get at the real issue, which is that the marriage defenders are defending nothing but their bigotry!
Thank you I too found your site through Racialicious. I’ve been searching for some semblance of sense on this Prop 8 blame the blacks game. I thought the craziness was quarantined to the net but when the MSM was talking about blacks being overwhelming for Prop 8 I was shocked. In a legitimate piece of work they tell you the sample size for a statistic and any real or potential irregularities. However, the newspapers I read or the news programs I watch don’t even bother to mention that this 70-30 is a POLL. They say 70% of all blacks voted yes as if it’s a fact or actual data. Anyways, thank you!
I don’t doubt that increased turnout in the Bay Area would have defeated Prop 8. In fact, I think nearly every county, save one, that voted No is here in the Bay Area. This fact makes the “blame the Black people” argument even more hollow. With regards to other surprising statistics, I also think 1/3 of GLBT people in California didn’t vote (or aren’t registered to vote).
I just wanted to point you and your readers toward this article, Positioning Privilege. It’s certainly one of the best treatments I’ve seen of this issue.
http://profbw.squarespace.com/home/2008/11/6/propositioning-privilege.html
Thanks everyone for the interesting comments and I hope you all participate in the joint day of protests this Sat.