8 November 2008, 4:59 pm
12 Comments
Politics: Race and Proposition 8
Tags: poc
Exit polls on California Proposition 8, from CNN.com. While African-American voters overwhelmingly elected for Proposition 8, they only accounted for 10% of the vote. That’s slightly higher but in line with projected Likely Voters determined by the Public Policy Institute of California. My conclusion from this is that, while African-American voters may on a whole oppose gay marriage in California, they were hardly significant in the success of Proposition 8. Let’s focus our ire on the Mormons.
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I half-agree with you here.
Singling out particular groups for blame is not productive. The opposition among African Americans is very disheartening, and in my view a complete betrayal of the civil rights movement.
The task here is not to apologize for the rampant homophobia that fluorishes in the black community–no, we must hold them, and ALL communities, accountable for their homophobia. Rather, we must drill it into everyone’s head that YES, this is a civil rights issue. YES, this is the exact same discrimination they faced.
But as a whole, I think this election is conclusive evidence that the majority will NEVER protect the minority, and that elections are the wrong way to go. We are a republic of laws, and we need judges and politiicans to enforce them, even if it turns out to be unpopular.
Our nation’s founders wisely put up many checks and balances, and hardly any federal issues are subject to direct election (really, only our congressional delegates). Sadly, the constitutions of many states, esp. western states, give the electorate so much power with so few checks.
trying to find a group to blame here is like trying to find a party to blame for gore’s loss in 2000. was it nader? gore’s home state, tennessee, which narrowly voted against him? the florida republican leaders? the supreme court? who cares!? he lost and no one party was to blame.
similarly, i think that people are more willing to blame mormons because it is more PC than blaming african americans. but it’s no less wrong to do so, both morally and realistically. mormons may have given money, and african americans may have voted overwhelmingly in support, but millions of people voted for prop 8 of all races and religions. in the end we can only blame the “yes” voters. not mormons, not blacks, not religion, not the GOP, not shitty “liberals.” just yes voters. blaming anyone won’t help us move forward, in my humble opinion.
This is an interesting post from Volokh Conspiracy, a legal blog. It’s worth a read, and I don’t have the time to comment at length now, but it basically calls out gay protesters for bashing Mormons and blacks in response to the prop-8 vote.
http://volokh.com/posts/1226094712.shtml
I agree with Corey, and I think that we need to figure out why those yes voters voted yes and then better ways to speak to them, because obviously something didn’t happen. It’s tempting to blame the African-Americans or the Mormons for two reasons: one, they are identifiable groups with reasons seen as intractable that make it easy to explain away why they voted/influenced the vote in the way that they did, and two, (related), because then we don’t have to look at the problems with the our own overall strategy of combating such marriage legislation.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell commented on The Rachel Maddow Show last night that the reason that the African-American community voted for Prop 8 was not because they are necessarily homophobic, but that no one went to them and clearly connected the rhetoric used to support Prop 8 with the arguments against interracial marriage and Loving v. Virginia.
What can we do better next time?
I have to disagree with the other commenters: blame the Mormons all you want. I was raised Mormon, and had to put up with their bullshit for the first eighteen years of my life. The sheer magnitude of gay-hating they generate is astounding.
Furthermore, the church specifically instructed its members to work in support of the campaign. In a letter to the membership that was read over the pulpit, the leadership of the church offered the following instructions: “We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman. Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.” That, combined with the culture of absolute subservience and obedience that the church encourages, resulted in huge participation in Yes on 8 by church members: they provided anywhere from 50% to 70% of its funding, depending on whose numbers you believe.
and, as was pointed out in the article, african americans only made up 10% of the vote. which is not to excuse the yes votes, but to chime in with others in noting that it is unfair to place BLAME on african-americans.
i hope this provides more initiative for those working in the gay rights movement to reach out more to minority communities. we can be upset all we want about the “yes” votes, but we really can’t assume that people are for gay rights because they vote democrat, are generally liberal, or are another minority group. just like in other social movements of the past, reaching out to others and education is essential. though it is clear to many of us why gay marriage is a civil right, i think others, even other minority groups, have not seen it this way largely because many still see it as a CHOICE.
i think the gay rights movement is often (and i think in some cases rightly so) criticized for being overwhelmingly white, male, and middle class. in effect, the issues of queers of color or low income queers are left out of the agenda. and beyond this there seems to be little communication between the gay rights movement and a broader civil rights movement.
clearly, we need to do more to build a more inclusive movement that recognizes the value in building partnerships not only with a broad base of queers, but with other minority groups as well. racism and homophobia are intricately connected.
another thing to note… click on the chart and check out the full results. young people voted overwhelming against Prop 8, with older people voting heavily for. so if we’re going to look at it in terms of demographics, if young voters vote in higher numbers, and as the current younger generations grow and older ones shrink, we can expect measures like this to have a harder and harder time getting passed.
“While African-American voters overwhelmingly elected for Proposition 8, they only accounted for 10% of the vote. …they were hardly significant in the success of Proposition 8. Let’s focus our ire on the Mormons.
Would you also argue we should excuse gay racism because gays only comprise an estimated 10% of the population?
Ignoring black homophobia is to absolve black people of any responsibility or intelligence and is truly racist.
While it is unacceptable to assign “blame” for the passage of Prop 8 it is entirely reasonable to discuss all proven causes of that result including the roles of Black voters, the Catholic Church and the Mormons.
If, indeed, Blacks (and Catholics and Mormons) object to gay marriage on religious grounds how is it atheist heterosexuals (of all colors) get married all the time? How do religious Black voters explain their anti-gay marriage position then?
At the time of Barack Obama’s birth in 1961 his parents were not allowed to marry according to anti-miscegenation laws in most US states, including Hawaii, barring inter-racial marriage. Given this history the degree to which Black Californians voted against gay marriage in this particular election is noteworthy and, to say the least, relevant.
To discuss this is not racist nor does it minimize the larger role of Mormons, Catholics and white people in general in the passage of Prop 8.
It can all be summed up relatively easily.. Ignorance crosses all racial, ethnic, and cultural barriers. The catholic, mormon, and baptist churches spew out this ignorance. The blame really lies in the reason why people do not like gays; it’s RELIGION! Religion is to blame for prop 8 passing!
Thanks Michael for posting this. While I do not excuse homophobia or acts of discrimination by any community, I find it very troublesome that people are blaming the passage of prop 8 on black people.
Mathematically, African American voters contributed *far more* to the passage of Prop 8 … far disproportionate to their population size.
In fact, if the AA had voted the same as White voters the proposition would have been defeated.
This isn’t racism… this is numbers, folks.
“Whites voted very narrowly against the ban, 51-49 percent. Asian-Americans voted the same. Hispanics voted for it, by 53-47 percent. Blacks voted for it, overwhelmingly, 70-30. Blacks can be said to have put it over the top. Hypothetically, had no blacks voted, we compute a vote of 50-50,”
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