On Prop 8, and scapegoats.
Nov. 8th, 2008 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThe "black vote" didn't pass Prop 8.
We have a black population of about 6 percent. Assume they all voted, that's about 1.9 millon people. Assume all of them (whch isn't the case, but bear with me)are of voting age, and all of them voted, and the 70 percent of the black vote was pro 8 is true.
That's 1.3 million votes. Last I checked the prop was passing by about 500,000 votes. But... about 600,000 of those 1.9 million are under the age of 18. And, sadly, a large percentage of that population is in prison right now, and not eligible to vote. so we can lop another 190,000 votes (with a conservative estimate of 10 percent of black either in prison, or on parole).
That gives us about 750,000 votes, assuming (arguendo) all the blacks in the state who are eligible are registered.
The amendment is ahead by about 500,000 votes. Ok, if every black in the state voted no, then the amendment would be dead.
There are 17 million registered voters in Calif. The stats say black are registered at about the same rate as other groups, so we can probably figure they are registered at, call it 60 percent (because Obama was certainly something of an in-group identifier, much as a the home state of a national candidate is expected to have a larger turnout in their favor).
Take those votes we tallied up and adjust for that number.... 525,000.
So yes, the total number of votes which have it ahead is almost exactly equal to the black voting population.
But there are an awful lot of white folks who voted, and a lot of hispanics too.
My neighbors account for at least two of the vote for. They are white. A really small percentage shift of the white vote would have made the difference. The absentee ballots (which are not, traditionally, black, but rather white folks) aren't reversing the trend.
The whole of the polity voted, the whole of the polity takes the rap. The white folks (and it was a whole lott a white folks spending the money to flood the airwaves with the ads equating a vote againt 8 with a vote for religious intolerance) voted for it. The hispanics voted for it, the asians voted for it.
Yeah, we might be justified in pointing fingers if the black population were the only group which voted for it. Even if we call it 70 percent of the black population who voted for it, that's only 20 points (roughly) more than the percentage of whites who voted for it.
Which means the part which matters is that differential; the actual EXTRA votes of the black population is about 150,000; and that's if every one who is registered actually showed up to vote.
Which means everyone else is to blame for, at least, 350,000 votes.
It's not their fault.
We have a black population of about 6 percent. Assume they all voted, that's about 1.9 millon people. Assume all of them (whch isn't the case, but bear with me)are of voting age, and all of them voted, and the 70 percent of the black vote was pro 8 is true.
That's 1.3 million votes. Last I checked the prop was passing by about 500,000 votes. But... about 600,000 of those 1.9 million are under the age of 18. And, sadly, a large percentage of that population is in prison right now, and not eligible to vote. so we can lop another 190,000 votes (with a conservative estimate of 10 percent of black either in prison, or on parole).
That gives us about 750,000 votes, assuming (arguendo) all the blacks in the state who are eligible are registered.
The amendment is ahead by about 500,000 votes. Ok, if every black in the state voted no, then the amendment would be dead.
There are 17 million registered voters in Calif. The stats say black are registered at about the same rate as other groups, so we can probably figure they are registered at, call it 60 percent (because Obama was certainly something of an in-group identifier, much as a the home state of a national candidate is expected to have a larger turnout in their favor).
Take those votes we tallied up and adjust for that number.... 525,000.
So yes, the total number of votes which have it ahead is almost exactly equal to the black voting population.
But there are an awful lot of white folks who voted, and a lot of hispanics too.
My neighbors account for at least two of the vote for. They are white. A really small percentage shift of the white vote would have made the difference. The absentee ballots (which are not, traditionally, black, but rather white folks) aren't reversing the trend.
The whole of the polity voted, the whole of the polity takes the rap. The white folks (and it was a whole lott a white folks spending the money to flood the airwaves with the ads equating a vote againt 8 with a vote for religious intolerance) voted for it. The hispanics voted for it, the asians voted for it.
Yeah, we might be justified in pointing fingers if the black population were the only group which voted for it. Even if we call it 70 percent of the black population who voted for it, that's only 20 points (roughly) more than the percentage of whites who voted for it.
Which means the part which matters is that differential; the actual EXTRA votes of the black population is about 150,000; and that's if every one who is registered actually showed up to vote.
Which means everyone else is to blame for, at least, 350,000 votes.
It's not their fault.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 04:30 am (UTC)The agnostic/atheist and Unitarian movements (if "movement" is the right word) are overwhelmingly white. Paganism has a vast white majority. Traditional Buddhism does not, but many self-proclaimed Buddhists in California are white people interested in "eastern" religions. (Can't say whether it's a majority, but unlike the number of white people involved in Voodoo, Ifa or Candomble, it's substantial.)
Churches were (and are) a big part of the support network for nonwhite civil rights; trying to pit people against their churches for a civil rights issue was probably doomed from the start. At the very least, it needed a much better and more coherent explanation--perhaps a comparison to the Prohibition Era, to point out that you can think an act is immoral without thinking it should be banned for everyone, and can realize that banning it just causes problems all around.
Of course, doing that compares gay marriage to a vice, and the anti-8 crowd didn't want to do that. So instead, they kept insisting "give us equal rights!" And the churchgoing crowds, even liberal ones, couldn't figure out what kind of "right" was involved in a type of marriage that had never existed in the history of the U.S... and didn't want to risk unknown legal changes that would go with it.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 09:58 am (UTC)Seriously, I don't get it. I mean I don't get why churches can't understand that they don't have to marry anyone they disapprove of (like the Catholic Church refuses to marry me), and why no one has thought to plainly state, look, there are laws that are being denied to me, isntead of going for the emotional "But we LOVE each other" stuff.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-11 03:10 am (UTC)The rights people are worried about are things like custody battles, minors/college students' rooming situations (can a married couple live in a fraternity?), the legal right to tell children that gay is wrong even if it's legal (why they think that'd change with marriage, I dunno), and whether divorce and separations will become even more common. (What kind of cause-and-effect is there, I couldn't tell you. But changing the legal & social dynamics of marriage is a touchy thing, and could certainly have unexpected results.)
And, of course, there's a lot of concern about loss of expected privileges, which has been phrased as "eroding our rights," like "the right not to be asked your spouse's gender on a form" or "the right to buy wedding cards without having to look at the text to make sure what genders are involved" or "the right to not see two women holding hands while in a line for a romantic comedy" or "the right to not have to ask a young father wearing a ring whether he has a wife or a husband."
Everyone can argue for "we're in love; we want to get married." It takes legal study to figure out the exact rights and responsibilities of marriage (some of 'em, anyway; they're not all described), and people who don't actually understand it, sound like idiots when they try to discuss it. I'm happy with huge mobs saying "you can't block my love!!!" and a small cluster of that mob being able to also say "... and here's the list of fourteen essential rights of marriage being denied to me, and two thousand non-essential rights."