 by Chris HayesStory of the Week, Up w/ Chris Hayes |
Last week, during a brief tangent in our discussion of Medicare that got at the nature of the Republican base, I was defending the GOP base against generalizations that they are, as a blanket matter, racists, misogynistic and homophobic and then concluded with this statement:
"It is undeniably the case that racist Americans are almost entirely in one political coalition and not the other."
The problem with that statement is that it's not true. I was just wrong about what the data say about the way explicit, avowed racists are distributed between the two parties. Economist Alex Tabarrok looked at some data from 2002 that show roughly equal percentages of white Democrats and white Republicans (around 10%) favor laws against interracial marriage and about 15% of white members of both parties agree strongly with the statement "blacks shouldn't be pushy."
He points to overwhelming majorities of both Democrats and Republicans who say they would vote for a black president and concludes: "It is undeniable that some Americans are racist but racists split about evenly across the parties. No party has a monopoly on racists."
Political scientist John Sides responded to Tabbarok to flesh out the picture a bit. Using data from the 2008 National Election Study he shows that the people who express explicitly racist views—such as that black people are lazy, or that black people are unintelligent—are more likely to be Republicans than Democrats. "Identification with the Democratic Party tends to decline, and identification with the Republican party tends to increase, as attitudes toward blacks become less favorable."
And when you look at General Social Survey data through the prism of ideology, this tendency is even clearer. Razib Khan writing for Discover Magazine points out that twice as many white conservatives as white liberals would "strongly oppose" a close relative marrying a black person. The good news is that the numbers in both cases are low, only 20% of white conservatives and 10% of white liberals.
So: I was wrong when I said that "It is undeniably the case that racist Americans are almost entirely in one political coalition and not the other." That is simply not borne out by the data. It was a moment, frankly, when my own biases led me to say something that wasn't true. My bad for saying it and thank you internet for correcting me. But my deeper mistake was focusing on racists as a countable group of individuals, as people with an essential core nature that can be analyzed and charted. Rather than focusing on how race reverberates through the two different political coalitions and the vast racial disparites in the effects of the policies favored by each of those coalitions. This is a seductive error that the great Jay Smooth has warned us about, in his now classic how-to video about how to talk about race and racism.
Remember the difference between the what they did conversation and the what they are conversation... The what they did conversation focuses strictly on the person's words and actions and explaining why what they did and what they said is unacceptable... the what they are conversation on the other hand takes things one step further and uses what they did and what they said to draw conclusions about what kind of person they are. I don't care what he is but I need to hold him accountable for what he did, and that's how we need to approach these conversations about race.
So instead of focusing on what conservatives are, we should keep the conversation focused on what they are doing, or, what they are calling for, and in this realm there are some very obvious racial asymmetries. The first and most obvious one is an issue we've been covering here on Up and on the network, the Republican push in many states to impose new restrictions on voting—whether through voter ID laws, or curtailiment of early voting—that will disproportionately disenfranchise people of color.
One Ohio county chairman told the Columbus Dispatch he opposed additional voting hours because, "we shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read, African-American—voter-turnout machine." But the reality is, you don't have to have a single individual white racist in the entire party to pursue this strategy. And this is the core truth about American politics—we have a multi-racial society with two political coalitions. One of those coalitions, the Democrats, contains almost all of the African Americans, a majority of Latinos, and Asians and a minority of white people. The obvious racial disparity you see at the political rallies is also reflected in the institutional makeup of the parties.
This is the racial breakdown of the US, according to the 2010 census:
This is the racial breakdown of delegates to the DNC in 2008:
And this is the racial breakdown for delegates to the RNC in 2008:
It is therefore not too surprising that in Tuesday's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll Romney managed to get zero percent support from black voters. And keep in mind this is a country that is only growing less white. This is what America's racial composition will look like in 2050, according to the Census Bureau: Just 50% white.
Into a nation already reeling from a total crisis of authority, a cascade of institutional failure, and a stalking, corrosive anxiety about decline, the multi-racial political party nominated and then managed to get elected the first black man to run the country in the nation's history.
And one of the chief paradoxes of his time in office is that despite the fact that the economic misery produced by the crisis and recession has fallen disproportionately on people of color, they, according to Pew, are far more optimistic about the future than white people are. Barack Obama was elected partly on an implicit promise, or at least a promise thrust upon him, to suture the still gaping wounds of slavery, white-supremacist terrorism, rape, lynching, discrimination, and humiliation that have marked our body politic from its birth.
Today, it is a wound that if no longer festering quite so openly is scarred over in such away that it cannot be scrubbed away or excised or even covered. It is part of who we are. At the turn of the 20th century, W.E.B. Dubois predicted, rightly, that the "problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." Twelve years into the 21st century, on the eve of the nominating convention for the party that destroyed slavery and enshrined the right to vote and due process into the constitution, in the midst of the hard-fought reelection battle of the first black president, that line seems as un-erasable as ever from our politics.
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It is a shame that we live in a country that tries to suppress the vote instead of making sure that everyone in this Great Nation has the chance to be heard through their vote. I wonder what our forefathers would think of us now and the way we are trying to manipulate the vote to favor one certain party over the other at no cost. Sounds like something you would see or hear about in a third world country instead of the United States of America.
you are right. We cant let mitt get this. we the people can stop this. we have to. rep. are going back. you surly dont want to go back and let mormor take over stop him.
Get out and vote! Even if you have to take a day off, get it done. Don't let voter suppression tactics work. We should make this the largest vote in recorded history.
I have to say I disagree with the guest Ta-nehisi Coates on MSNBC yesterday about how wrong it is for Obama not to be addressing race more often in this presidency.
Wrong way for him to go. Obama wears his bi-racial identity with considerable grace, sensitivity and insight into the peculiar prejudices of other people. He is never bitter or self-pitying, like some people who claim victimization due to race (whites are increasingly claiming this!) nor is he trying to 'be' white; he married a black-American woman, not a blonde white girl, which would indicate that he does not now and never has aspired to be white or to think of whiteness as a superior quality.
We should be praising him for this, not worrying that he doesn't cry foul enough.
For all I see, with those stats you proved your former statement right. If whites in both parties are equally racist, but the Republicans have only whites in their party - well then it is true that they have more of the white racists by a margin. What am I missing?
Also I saw some comments of your panel as racist. When a black person says "I voted to get one of us there as president" - then he didn't choose because of ability. Just imagine a white person saying "I want Romney because I want a white guy".
Similar was Mellissa Harris Perry's outrcry when your guest said "Michelle would have killed Obama when he did what Clinton did". She instantly insisted "black woman are not more violent" or whatnot. Again - she reacted because of race, while your other guest was just talking about a specific personality. Who is the racist there?
Chris has finally thought this through. There are white racists in both parties. There are black racists in both parties. Evil doesn't just exist in one camp. Those who suggest it does are plain goofy.
u r goofy. rep. hate the President he is black. did you see that the rep. had a meeting and those goofy men said they would be the congress that said no on any vote the President wanted and it would help for jobs and it would put people back to work.we need the President. Go vote
This is one of the most biased, uninformed comments from a host on MSNBC I've ever heard. And that's saying a lot.
Damn right! Now perhaps instead of bringing more data to try to paint the Republican party as more racist, or having more racist policies, you should have just stopped there, after admitting you were wrong, and turned to another subject. But you couldn't help it.
You just had to make the point that even if not all Republicans are racist, you were half-right, since they have "racist policies". That's weak.
That is just like the racist K_K_K member who explains that while not all blacks are criminal, or lazy, the statistics show that more unemployed are black, and relatively higher percentage of prison inmates are blacks compared to whites. That doesn't prove anything about their character! And it doesn't prove ANYTHING about ANYTHING because it's only part of the whole picture. Just as your "statistics" don't prove anything about Republicans or the Republican party. It only shows that your bias prevents you from looking at the whole picture.
Good luck with that!
Oh, and for the record; American men and women who died for their country are heroes! No "ifs" and no "buts" about it.
They might not all be "heroes" like Bruce Willis in Armageddon, but the only difference is, that they are REAL heroes, not imaginary Hollywood heroes like you see in the movies...
At least he's trying to use data - I much prefer that to your factless ranting. Maybe you're right, but without proof its hollow.
Republican policies (and thats all that matters in the end) are racist - you can see that by there outcomes. Since the outcomes are predictably hurting minorities, it means the party leaders are racist.
And this stupid hero crap is getting on my nerves. I always found the resisters that went for example to Canada to resist the wars far more heroic than the high-tec warriors that kill villagers. Or how about Manning - who is actually paying a high price for his deed to the public.
Right now the US military prefers to kill children while they sit in a air conditioned room with drone controls. How heroic is that?
In agreement with you, not all of the Republican Party is racist, and I can go further and say... not all of the Republican Party supporting the suppression of 'targeted' minorities can be put in that category either.
The label that all Republicans are racist can be laid to the mere fact that the Republican Party is using the legislative process to restrict certain 'known' voter groups from supporting a president who happens to be Black! You don't hear mention of any registered Republican voicing displeasure at the methods used - only Democrats; you don't see any racially laced slogans and signs at rallies among Democrats, but you do see them within the Tea Party ranks!
This form of voter suppression, to restrict President Obama from being re-elected, does have racial overtones and that is the real issue! To disagree is expected, but to do so by garnering collective support through a division of voters based on a candidates religion, racial identity, or any other factors that incite racial epitaphs is wrong!
Agreeing in advance that the following is a "push" of the data, let's use some numbers from what Chris reports.
"Razib Khan writing for Discover Magazine points out that twice as many white conservatives as white liberals would "strongly oppose" a close relative marrying a black person. The good news is that the numbers in both cases are low, only 20% of white conservatives and 10% of white liberals."
And. 93% of RNC delegates are white while 65% of DNC delegates are white.
20% of 93% is about 18.6% of Republican delegates could be described as 'racist'. 10% of 65% is 6.5% or roughly one-third as many Democratic delegates could be described as 'racist'. This last number would be very hard to get to zero given the number of Democrats from 'Blue Dog' states. And the Republican number would be significantly higher if there weren't delegates from really, really BLUE states.
So, "...almost entirely in one political coalition and not the other." is too strong but not really all that wrong.
Just a quick note of congratulations to Chris and his guest for one the best discussions on race that I have witnessed on Television! It is a very rare event to see a an intellectually and emotionally honest, robust and comprehensive. As an African American who spent a significant amount of time as the only black voice in these types of dialectic discussions. As such, it has been my experience that the challenge of disussing race issues is the fact that we have not discovered an adequate venacular or terminology that facilitates an substantive conversation. More specifically, a verbal tool set that avoids the emotionally loaded and coded language that has proven inadequate to date.
The program yesterday achieved provided the country with a public service.
What both Dave Delage and Thomas Veil don't understand is that all these statistics quoted by Chris Hayes are just a static and partial picture of reality. Let's just look at this with some common sense: So Razib Khan from Discover Magazine got these numbers that supposedly 20% of white conservatives have some racist views, while only 10% of white liberals do. And how accurate is this data exactly? How many people were interviewed? What was their methodology? Over what period of time?
Besides, if anyone thinks that only 10% of white liberals have racist biases, then they must be a white liberal. Anyone else will tell you, that racism in our society is still way higher than that. Even if it is not always expressed overtly, I'd say that probably half if not most of all people have racist views, even if they're politically correct and try to hide it...
Polls aren't the most reliable thing in the world. You can't base your whole theory on a small snap-shot of reality. As a general rule, I think polls and statistics should be viewed with some skepticism, and in context. Since they are often unreliable and could never be absolutely accurate, and since they can easily be manipulated in the way that they are designed they should always be seen with that understanding in mind. So basing your entire theory on a few polls is ridiculous.
And in my humble opinion, if you didn't just ask people straight out whether or not they have these racist views, but instead used a hidden camera to film thousands of people over a period of several months and put them in situations where their real racist biases might come out, you might get a more realistic view of their true tendencies. For instance letting young white middle-class people in Manhattan, and Boston face an African-American mother with a child who will ask them for help with her bags, and maybe a control group with a white mother and child who will ask them for help with her bags. Or perhaps seeing how many will agree to help an elderly African-American man get into a cab, as opposed to maybe helping an old white lady. I wonder if our liberal white men will do as well in these tests as those polls Hayes cited would suggest...
;)
Again, I don't think that statistics gathered through polls, or even through experiments like these would give you a perfect picture of people's real biases, which is why serious studies often admit that there are inherent weaknesses in some of the data, no matter how meticulously it was gathered, and often suggest further studies in the future. There are simply too many variables and unknowns which can affect the results.
So if you're going to be a liberal, at least don't be as liberal with your reasoning as you are with your politics.
And Thomas Veil, any man or woman in uniform who died for their country are heroes even if YOU don't think so. They might not all be comic book heroes like you're used to, but they are REAL men and women who served their country. Oh, and the number of soldiers who actually control those drones from those "air conditioned" rooms is a tiny percentage compared to the number of soldiers who served on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. So statistically speaking, your example is not representative of most of the people who serve in the military (and certainly not of the vast majority of those who died for their country!). And as for "killing children", maybe if you had the guts to serve in the military you could have done a better job than the people who are over there, and maybe YOU could have made sure that only the bad guys get killed...
Yeah, right...
If all Americans were liberal leftists, then the Soviet Union would control most of the world, and Saddam Hussein would be sitting not in Kuwait, but in Saudi Arabia, and telling you how much your gas is going to cost you this month!
Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. Rings very true to me what you say about the statistics.
Just to clarify a bit: My point was not so much about the truth of the statistics, but more pure mathematical. If Chris Hayes relies on them to determine the truth of his claim, then just mathematically he was correct at first.
But you're right, one should be skeptical about his try in the first place. I guess his approach of looking at policies (what are the effects of the Rep/Dem policies) is the better one.
As for the hero in uniform part: I disagree. Do you want a list of people in uniform throughout history who are definitely not heroes? I don't think your outfit makes you a hero - your actions do.
Killing people in Iraq helped no one. Also no one in the US - it made everyone less safe.
Vietnam anyone? Those "heroes" dropped napalm from fighter jets on farm people! Who did all that slaughter help?
I can see how someone in uniform can be a hero. But again, I (and hopefully history) judges that based on the outcomes, not on the outfit.
Drone strikes are one the rise (your statistic is btw. as unsubstantiated as the race ones you criticized, as you have no real clue how much there are, as it is classified).
Obama did willingly accept that children would die when he approved them - to kill people without oversight. And we will see how much his cyberwar will kill in the long run - another completely unheroic act.
And Saddam was helped by the US - please don't put that under the carpet. He would have never been able to attack Kuwait was it not for US weapons he got. Another "heroic" meddling in other countries affairs.
I appreciate your candid reply. And although I might not agree with some of what you said, we all have a right to our own opinion.
See you around!
The Republican party have been exclusionary to people of color. How could you possibly be with a party that constantly insults your race? And calls on the lowest common denominator of the public, to be their base.
Some further thoughts.
1. Thomas Veil and I and for that matter Chris Hayes and his guests use our actual names which at least in my case leads to shorter and more direct and hopefully more thoughtful comments.
2. Despite the polling method, the relative presence of 'racism' remains unless the definition changed when asking Republicans versus Democrats. That is, the actual percentages may be wrong, but the relative differences remain.
3. "...any man or woman in uniform who died for their country are heroes" is pure jingoism. "Any" implies "All" and that certainly is not true. I honor the men who fight honorably for their (not necessarily our) country in honorable conflicts whether they survive or not.
4. "Racism" is a relative measure with a great degree of variability from very subtle to very hidden to outright blatant ignorance. "Racist" is binary, you either are or you aren't depending on the criteria of the person doing the measuring.
That said, I believe, though I have no actual defensible data, that not only are there more racists (by any consistent measure) in the Republican party than the Democratic party, but that there are significantly more racists in the Republican party hierarchy than in the Democratic party hierarchy. To put it another way, when's the last time you heard a statement by a Democrat referred to as a "dog whistle"?
Wow, kudos to Chris Hayes for not shying away from the race subject. It's an important topic that isn't talked about nearly as much as it should. If you look at Gallup's breakdown of Obamaean support, one of the biggest determinants is non-whiteness.
Very few news and media outlets are reporting that:
Tampa, Florida (CNN) – Two people were removed from the Republican National Convention Tuesday after they threw nuts at an African-American CNN camera operator and said, “This is how we feed animals.”
Multiple witnesses observed the exchange and RNC security and police immediately removed the two people from the Tampa Bay Times Forum.
Why is there so little coverage of this? Any ideas?