New York City’s institutionally racist and privacy-violating stop-and-frisk procedure is currently on trial for constitutionality:
Devin Almonor, the teenage son of a former police officer, said he was thrown against an unmarked car and temporarily handcuffed walking home from a bus stop. Medical student David Floyd was frisked by officers outside of his apartment as he helped a neighbor locked out of his home.
For both, the experience was humiliating and frightening. They also say it was illegal, because they believe they were stopped because of their race. Both are black.
“I am not a criminal. I did not commit any criminal acts,” said Floyd, who testified along with Almonor at the opening of a federal trial.
Testimony continued Tuesday in the case that challenges the constitutionality of some encounters under the controversial law enforcement tactic of stopping, questioning and frisking New Yorkers on the street.
Learn more here. Graphic via.
Minimum-wage laws date to the 1930s, and supporters in Congress at the time were explicit about using them to stop blacks from displacing whites in the labor force by working for less money. Milton Friedman regarded the minimum wage as “one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books.” When you artificially increase the cost of labor, you wind up with surplus labor, which takes the form of unemployment. Younger and less-experienced workers—a disproportionate number of whom are black—are more likely to be priced out of the labor force when the cost of hiring someone goes up. Prior to the passage of minimum-wage laws—and in an era of open and rampant racial discrimination in the U.S.—the unemployment rate for black men was much lower than it is now and similar to that of whites in the same age group. Today, unemployment stands at 7.9% overall but is 13.8% among blacks (versus 7% among whites), 14.5% among black men (versus 7.2% among white men) and 37.8% among black teens (versus 20.8% among white teens). Yet Mr. Obama has proposed increasing the minimum wage by 24% to $9 an hour to placate his union supporters who want less competition for their members. A higher minimum wage might lift earnings for existing workers—provided they keep their jobs—but it also reduces job opportunities for millions of people out of work. Out of political expediency, Mr. Obama is putting the interests of Big Labor ahead of the urban poor.
—
Jason Riley: Minimum Expectations
As a member of a Hollywood union, I face a sort of minimum wage hurdle of my own. The next step up in my career is a substantial one - and one in which I am more than capable of making (a position I held - with, in fact, greater pay - on a number of non-union reality shows). But because of the union, I cannot take that position without being paid the union minimum for that position. In other words, the studio and producers would have to pay me the same rate they would pay a multiple-Emmy winner with 30 years of experience. I cannot offer to work for less as an opportunity to prove myself. I have no leverage - I cannot offer any incentive - for producers to hire a [relatively] young and eager talent over a reliable veteran. And indeed, I have missed out on multiple jobs precisely because of this artificial price floor.
Related:
Who Goes to Prison Due to Gun Control? →
Perhaps the most telling data concerns the racial makeup of who goes to prison for gun violations. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, for Fiscal Year 2011, 49.6% of those sentenced to federal incarceration with a primary offense of firearms violations were black, 20.6% were Hispanic, and only 27.5% were white.
This is how gun laws actually work—those caught violating them go to prison. For the mere act of owning an illegal weapon—not necessarily for using it, not for threatening anyone with it, not for being irresponsible with it—people who have harmed no one are locked up in prison for years at a time. As with the rest of the criminal justice system, particularly the war on drugs, these laws disproportionately harm the poor and minorities. That is the inescapable reality of gun control.
It makes sense that blacks and others living in the inner city would rely more on private, illegal guns for self-defense. The police are unreliable at best in many of these communities. It also makes sense that minorities would be disproportionately hurt by these laws, because so many of the dynamics in play are the same as with the drug war—people are being punished for what they own, rather than what they have done to others; it is easier for police to go after those in poor neighborhoods than to search middle-class folks in nice neighborhoods; jurors approved by prosecutors tend to believe police testimony over the word of minority defendants; prosecutors tend to use discretion in possession crime cases that fall more painfully on the disenfranchised; public defenders offer inadequate services for those loads of court-appointed clients, and so forth.
(Source: hipsterlibertarian)
Open-minded and Tolerant [Left-Statists] Show Us How Open-minded and Tolerant They Are →
I’ve previously noted my personal experience with the “tolerance” of Leftywood here.
(Source: antigovernmentextremist)
Re: They’re back …
So there’s been a group of people running around the United States for 30 years or so who call themselves Constitutionalists, among other things. They have — shall we say —quirky ideas about the rule of the law, the nature of the US constitution and of citizens’ rights within it.
My personal favorite of their claims is that — in their claiming, not mine — that I (meaning Politicalprof and people like me) are “sovereign citizens.” What this means in practice is that since people like me — white, male and property owning — were legally entitled to be citizens of the US before the US Constitution was created, we are “sovereign” — e.g., superior — to the Constitution. This means that I — meaning Politicalprof and people like me — have the personal right to reject or nullify laws that seem to us to intrude on our freedom since, obviously, we would never have consented to such laws in 1787. I am sovereign over the federal government, which cannot take away my rights as I define them.
Now, many of my sharp and sophisticated readers will be have their brows in a knot, going, “but, Politicalprof, what if you’re NOT a white male property owner? What if you’re a woman? Or a minority? Or an immigrant?” No worries: you are what is known as a “14th Amendment citizen.” That is, you are a citizen, but not a sovereign citizen. (Again, this is their argument, not mine.) Rather, you were granted citizenship by the 14th Amendment.
The distinction here is important: I was a citizen (allegedly) who could have made the Constitution, so my rights and liberties exist independent of the Constitution. Everyone else is a citizen as a result of the Constitution, and is bound therefore by its rules and limitations. In addition, we can take your citizenship and rights away through Constitutional changes, but we can never take mine away — as I define them — because people like me defined them in 1787.
Simple, huh? In any case, such persons are on the loose again. The anti-government fervor of the last years, mixed with the rise of a legalistic strain of libertarianism, has combined to make nonsense sound like Constitutional reasoning.
To wit, the post below. A group calling itself the “Republic for the united States of America” (the lowercase “u” matters) has decided that the United States you and I think of is not the real united States. More, they’ve decided they’ve recreated the real the united States. I am posting their words in full, cause hey: you need the full crazy.
Have fun! …
Can’t seem to find anything on their site about being “white, male, and land-owning.” Normally I’d think that would be beneath you but our past conversations have shown you perfectly willing to use dishonest rhetoric to make appeals to emotion.
Though even if that were the case (which, given their focus on the Constitution, may be true - though it’s not even implied as far as I can tell), that would make them completely opposed to most people who adopt the label of “sovereign individual.” (The group is already pretty obscure: their facebook page has fewer likes than Cannibalism. Will people eating other people be your next post of grave concern?) Also antithetical to the idea of being a sovereign individual is apologizing for the misdeeds of others, which they do in their credo.
The idea of the “sovereign individual,” contrary to your [possibly contrived] explanation above, is not presupposed by race, gender, or owning land; nor is it, contrary to the group’s claims above, founded on Constitutional principles. In fact, most people who declare themselves to be “sovereign individuals” would find it conflicting to replace one state with another.
The idea is that each of us is the ultimate authority over our lives and that we are all free to do - borrowing Leonard Read’s phrase - anything that’s peaceful. It is self-ownership: We own our lives, we own the ability to decide what we do with our lives (that which we voluntarily choose to do without aggressing others, or liberty), and we own the product of our lives (that which we traded our time and talents for, or property). It is about the principle of non-aggression - to not initiate violence against others - and the justice, peace, and prosperity that naturally flows from it.
But we’ve had this dance before. You have repeatedly disregarded the primacy of consent (here, here, and here). Because you believe that aggressively forced obligations are fundamental to a safe and functional society, and thus the individual does not necessarily have final say over his or her life, I can understand why people claiming to be “sovereign individuals” could ruffle your feathers.
Sadly, you wear your shackles too proudly to ever acknowledge the barbarity of your stance.
Re: The only thing I’m interested in actually talking about with this whole Bloomberg-soda extravaganza:
This isn’t a post debating the merits of the idea to ban the sale of sugary drinks beyond a certain size, but rather a challenge to the language being used to talk about it. The debate has sparked a momentary surge in the common use of the phrase “nanny state” and variations on the term/notion. (As in “I don’t want the nanny state telling me what kinds of things I can imbibe.”) I think that particularly popular bit of language is important to look at and challenge.
A version of stereotyped femininity gets to be shorthand for what is considered overbearing, misguided action on the part of the government. Once again female gets to be a stand-in for bad and wrong and stupid. It’s an oft-used term, but it’s really being embraced in this particular debate. I’m going to venture a guess and point to the involvement of food and eating habits for that one. Someone irritating telling you what to put in your mouth? Women stuff. Dieting? Women stuff. Worrying about sugar? Women stuff. Downsizing? That’s for the females. When someone is telling you what to do with your food, that’s a woman, right? For the last time, no. Bad ≠ female.
Dan Trombly of Slouching Towards Columbia brought up the point to me on Twitter that ‘paternalism’ is also phrase often used in situations like this. And yes, that’s true. I’m not arguing here that we should throw out the idea that the government can be wrong and bad and overbearing as sexist in itself. It isn’t. The use of the term “nanny state,” however, is using sexism as one of the boosters for the power of its argument. The sexism is a critical part of the idea and argument of a “nanny state” as something differently constructed than an argument challenging the broad notion of paternalism. (For example, the term nanny state is not one I hear used in reaction to the government placing restrictions on women’s access to abortion…)
An excellent example, a full page attack ad in the NYT (Via Brooklyn Mutt):
Cool beans, guys. Let’s see, how do we make Bloomberg look like he’s wrong and stupid… I know! Let’s dress him like a woman. That will instantly get the point across.
As I said a few months ago to a different blogger: “[I]f you lefties keep shouting “sexism” and “racism” at anything you don’t like, it undermines the meaning and takes away from true victims of racist or sexist actions.”
There is, of course, no sexism with regards to the use of the phrase “Nanny State.” There are no “nannys” for adults. The occupation is strictly the tending to the minutiae of a child’s care. As such, “nanny state” makes an appropriate comparison between a nanny and a state that intercedes in the often trivial decision-making that any capable adult should be able to make for him or herself. These adults, like the children under the care of nannies, may not know what’s best for them and intervention is required “for their own good” (or, perhaps, some so-called “greater good” as defined by the nanny).
In various cultures around the world, nannies are and have traditionally been women. Many people generally recognize females as natural caretakers, as is the case in most mammalian (and particularly primate) species, and as such invariably choose surrogate caretakers for their children who possess qualities they subjectively value in that role. Indeed not all individuals may neatly fall into this gender stereotype, but noting biological and historical tendencies is not sexist. There is no misogynistic conspiracy that led to the use of this very apt phrase.
And noting that “the term nanny state is not one I hear used in reaction to the government placing restrictions on women’s access to abortion” only speaks to the fact that most people who make such objections tend to be perfectly comfortable with a state that interferes in an individual’s choices in nearly almost every other area of life. Employing the rhetoric of “nanny state” would, for such individuals, be self-defeating. Observe this ridiculous (and, ultimately, substance-free) defense of Bloomberg’s paternalism as one example that those who plead for a greater role for the state to play in our lives will accept and vindicate its overreach lest their favored interventions be called into question. (Moreover, as I noted earlier, “nanny state” is usually in reference to interference in minutiae for someone’s own good; it is not usually employed as a catch-all for every government action.)
After all, you began this post implicitly noting that you had no interest in questioning the merit or fairness of such a policy; there was “only [one] thing [you were] interested in actually talking about with [regards to] this whole Bloomberg-soda extravaganza”: perceived sexism in the employ of a common phrase.
Which explains what all this probably is: deflection.
Governor Vetoes Prenatal Bill As Promised →
Alternate headline option: “Governor Vetoes Pro-Baby Bill As Promised”
Here’s the story, a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the same topic:
Gov. Dave Heineman was in Grand Island earlier talking about why he vetoed the bill allowing cities to raise their sales tax rates with a vote of the people.
Late Friday, Heineman vetoed a bill that would restore prenatal care to low-income women, including illegal immigrants.
Across the state, lawmakers held news conferences at hospitals explaining why they voted in favor of the prenatal bill.
They said that care would prevent babies from being born prematurely or with other complications.
“But what about the baby of that illegal immigrant that’s going to be born a citizen, who, with bad prenatal care or no prenatal care, may end up the ward of the state for the rest of their life?” asked Sen. Mike Gloor.
Nebraskans — who are generally a staunchly pro-life bunch — seem to agree with the Governor, or at least the 700+ who have voted in this unscientific online poll:
I wonder how people would have voted if the poll had asked the question a bit more honestly: “Should babies whose mothers are in this country without proper documentation — and who will be American citizens when they’re born — get state-funded care while in utero?”
Frankly, this seems like the easiest and most obvious thing to support. You don’t like undocumented immigrants? Fine. I get that. But the fetuses that you typically love so much? What’s your problem with them?
You know, perhaps the wording in the poll doesn’t matter. Perhaps all that really matters is the race of the babies and mothers in question. Perhaps …
I just can’t stand the naked hypocrisy. And when it’s so obviously coupled with blatant racism … well … then at least the hypocrisy isn’t the worst part.
And what about those who’d oppose the “State-Funded” part even if it said “American residents of Nebraska”? Or those who simply oppose the “State-Funded” part irrespective of whatever words follow? They’re probably racists, too, right (I mean, you say it’s both “obvious” and “blatant”)? After all, that’s the only reasonable conclusion: anyone who opposes something done by the state opposes it being done in toto, ergo RACIST!
On libertarianism and racism.
I’ve often heard the claim that libertarians can’t be racist because they believe in individualism instead of collectivism, or something like that.
You know what? I call bullshit.
Racism can be done on a collective level, as well as an individual level. A form of collective racism would be state segregation laws. A form of individual racism would be not interacting with someone because of their skin colour.
It happens.
It would also happen in a libertarian society, where people would be free to interact or not interact with whom they please, including people of colour.
Of course, instituting the state to deal with issues of racism creates far worse problems, as it leads to collective racism in the form of systemic discrimination.
Racism isn’t an issue for states to deal with, but for societies, and people on a micro level. Passing it off to benevolent overlords doesn’t solve the problems, it only widens them, and creates new ones.
While I agree that it is possible for a libertarian to be racist, the point usually being made is that racism itself is a collectivist idea in that it views people as parts of a group instead of as individuals. Therefore, an individualist libertarian who disparages and mistreats a person because of the group she belongs to is not being consistent with his libertarian ideals. This is not unlike the ostensibly devout religious person who nonetheless violates the teachings of his faith and eats a forbidden meat, or commits adultery or theft or murder.
And while it’s true that one’s freedom to associate means that he or she may choose to not associate with anyone he or she chooses (even for reasons as ridiculous as skin color), in a libertarian “society,” racists would not be protected from the natural costs and consequences of their behavior.
Who are the victims of civil liberties assaults and Endless War? →
Glenn Greenwald being right, as usual
“Part of the debate over the last couple weeks among progressives regarding political priorities, the Obama presidency, the Ron Paul candidacy and the like has entailed a litany of accusations — smears — hurled at those of us who insist on the prioritization of issues of war and civil liberties abuses, and who vocally highlight the ways in which the Democratic Party generally and President Obama specifically have been so awful on these matters. Some Democratic loyalists have explicitly argued that contrasting Obama with Ron Paul on these issues is warped because issues of war and civil liberties are, at best, ancillary concerns, while others have gone so far as to claim that only racial and/or gender bias — white male “privilege” — would cause someone to use the Paul candidacy to highlight how odious Obama has been in these areas.
“Leaving aside the fact that (as I detail in the discussion with Pollitt), numerous women and people of color have made the same points about the vital benefits of Paul’s candidacy — voices which these accusers tellingly ignore and silence — these accusations are pure projection. Those who were operating from such privilege would not seek to prioritize issues of war and civil liberties; that’s because it isn’t white progressives and their families who are directly harmed by these heinous policies. The opposite is true: it’s very easy, very tempting, for those driven by this type of “privilege” — for non-Muslims in particular– to decide that these issues are not urgent, that Endless War and civil liberties abuses by a President should not be disqualifying or can be tolerated, precisely because these non-Muslim progressive accusers are not acutely affected by them. The kind of “privilege” these accusers raise would cause one to de-prioritize and accept civil liberties abuses, drone slaughter, indefinite detention and the like (i.e, do what they themselves do), not demand that significant attention be paid to them when assessing political choices.
“As I noted the other day, it isn’t white males being indefinitely detained, rendered, and having their houses and cars exploded with drones — the victims of those policies are people like Lakhdar Boumediene, or Gulet Mohamed, or Jose Padilla, or Awal Gul, or Sami al-Haj, or Binyam Mohamed, orMurat Kurnaz, or Afghan villagers, or Pakistani families, or Yemeni teenagers. In order to get the full depth of the oppression and injustice of these ongoing War on Terror policies, one has to do things like listen to this amazing — and tragically rare — interview conducted by Chris Hayes this weekend with Boumediene, as the former GITMO detainee explained in Arabic how his life was devastated by indefinite detention. It’s easy to convince yourself that these abuses are not an urgent priority if, like those above-linked accusers, your non-Muslim privilege (to use their accusatory terminology) enables you to be shielded from their harms.”
Careful, everyone
Ron Paul isn’t a racist; he just seems to be bafflingly surrounded by people who are.
Here’s the latest:
Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman says Rep. Ron Paul’s campaign is out of line with a Web ad that uses images of Huntsman’s adopted daughters to argue that he doesn’t hold American values.
The ad includes video footage of Huntsman, the former ambassador to China, speaking Chinese to his now-12-year-old daughter, Gracie, as an infant. In Concord Friday, Huntsman called the ad “stupid” and said he objects to suggesting that there is something sinister in his decision to adopt Gracie, and later another daughter from India.
Huntsman has spoken movingly of his daughters while on the campaign trail. Gracie was abandoned at a market at 2 months of age. Huntsman’s other adopted daughter was left to die on a roadside in India the day she was born.
The video, apparently uploaded by the Paul supporter, is here. The Paul campaign has now denounced it; according to Politico, “Paul spokesman Jesse Benton emails to denounce the ad, making it clear the Paul campaign was not behind it: ‘The video is disgusting. Whoever put that up should remove it immediately.’”
Let me understand. Some anonymous fool creates a Youtube account a couple of days ago and calls it NHLiberty4Paul, and then uploads a truly awful, racist video to it. And from this, Huntsman gets to denounce the Paul campaign? Bloggers get to speculate as to the video’s connections to Paul? And all of this gets reported as news?
The odds of this video having any connection to the Paul campaign are roughly 0%. The odds of the video being uploaded by a Ron Paul supporter are roughly equal, I’d guess, to it being uploaded by a Ron Paul opposer.
It’s sad that one anonymous fool can cause such a frenzy.
Exactly. This is a stretch, even for those who trade in deceptive tactics.
Note how Ari wrote “The Paul campaign has now denounced it.” What purpose does the “now” serve except to subtly suggest that maybe there was a time in which the Paul campaign hadn’t denounced and implicitly supported the video? Ari’s no fool.
Meanwhile, to borrow Ari’s phraseology: Barack Obama isn’t a racist; he just seems to be bafflingly willing to kill innocent brown people in the middle east, imprison peaceful black people at home, and deport a record number of brown people.
On Responding to Crass Fallacies
I don’t actually know of which post you speak, but the absolute falsity of such charges are obvious to anyone not blinded by an ideological desire to baselessly smear the opposition.
Sometimes, the best response is rolling like Buddha and letting that nonsense bounce off your belly like a grain of rice tossed by a child. Because when philosophical and intellectual rivals must resort to sweeping ad hominem, their puerility reveals their desperation.
There may be genuine points of contention about how the most just and prosperous society would function. Data and morality may be considered and parsed in earnest discussion. But, and perhaps I only speak for myself, once an ideological opponent accuses me specifically of dishonesty or nefarious ulterior motives, I take it as a sign that no thoughtful or productive conversation can likely be continued.
So your impulse to chuckle is right: there’s no need to respond. This type of commentary is meant for their echo-chamber of like-minded ideologues or unthinking followers. There is nothing that can be said, no matter how clearly truthful, that can dissuade those looking for validation of their own prejudices (frankly, this can sometimes be true for our side as well).
Though if you must respond, know who you are truly addressing: not the aforementioned entrenched ideologues or unsophisticated acolytes, but those spectators who do think and consider arguments. Therefore, responding to insults in kind will not place you in their good graces and may close an otherwise open mind.
![ilyagerner:
From the abstract:
Traditional surveys struggle to capture socially unacceptable attitudes such as racial animus. This paper uses Google searches including racially charged language as a proxy for a local area’s racial animus. I use the Google-search proxy, available for roughly 200 media markets in the United States, to reassess the impact of racial attitudes on voting for a black candidate in the United States. I compare an area’s racially charged search volume to its votes for Barack Obama, the 2008 black Democratic presidential candidate, controlling for its votes for John Kerry, the 2004 white Democratic presidential candidate. Other studies using a similar empirical specification and standard state-level survey measures of racial attitudes yield little evidence that racial animus had a major impact in recent U.S. elections. Using the Google-search proxy, I find significant and robust effects in the 2008 presidential election. The estimates imply that racial animus in the United States cost Obama three to five percentage points in the national popular vote in the 2008 election.
There’s more discussion at the Monkey Cage of the actual paper, but I’m interested in the above table, which ranks states by their interest in searching for “n*gger or N*ggers” on Google from January 2004-December 2007. WVa is the worst, Utah the best.
And you’re interested because it illustrates what, exactly?
I see in your source box you wrote “Way to confirm my preconceived notions about WVa and KY,” which I assume is insinuation that these search results are some sort of proof of racism. If there were a way to know the race of the searcher, then this might be more instructive. Otherwise, it’s speculation and an exercise in confirmation bias.
Racism is ugly and undeniable, but before you get too carried away it’s important to remember that it’s not only white racists who use the aforementioned word.
In fact, if you average the ten heaviest searchers of the word (West Virginia: 3.4%, Louisiana: 12.6%, Pennsylvania: 10.8%, Mississippi: 37.0%, Kentucky 7.8%, Michigan: 14.2%, Ohio: 12.2%, South Carolina: 27.9%, Alabama: 26.2%, New Jersey: 13.7%) you get a black population of 16.58%. Meanwhile, the bottom ten (Wyoming: 0.8%, Montana: 0.4%, Oregon: 1.8%, Minnesota: 5.8%, D.C.: 50.7%, Idaho: 0.6%, New Mexico: 2.1%, Colorado: 4.0%, Hawaii: 1.6%, Utah: 1.1%) average to 6.89% (and if you exclude D.C., it shrinks dramatically to 2.02%). [source]
It’s irresponsible and unwise, at best, to try to extract a socio-political narrative out of just this chart.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvl7hiU0HF1qd0p40o1_500.png "ilyagerner:
From the abstract:
Traditional surveys struggle to capture socially unacceptable attitudes such as racial animus. This paper uses Google searches including racially charged language as a proxy for a local area’s racial animus. I use the Google-search proxy, available for roughly 200 media markets in the United States, to reassess the impact of racial attitudes on voting for a black candidate in the United States. I compare an area’s racially charged search volume to its votes for Barack Obama, the 2008 black Democratic presidential candidate, controlling for its votes for John Kerry, the 2004 white Democratic presidential candidate. Other studies using a similar empirical specification and standard state-level survey measures of racial attitudes yield little evidence that racial animus had a major impact in recent U.S. elections. Using the Google-search proxy, I find significant and robust effects in the 2008 presidential election. The estimates imply that racial animus in the United States cost Obama three to five percentage points in the national popular vote in the 2008 election.
There’s more discussion at the Monkey Cage of the actual paper, but I’m interested in the above table, which ranks states by their interest in searching for “n*gger or N*ggers” on Google from January 2004-December 2007. WVa is the worst, Utah the best.
And you’re interested because it illustrates what, exactly?
I see in your source box you wrote “Way to confirm my preconceived notions about WVa and KY,” which I assume is insinuation that these search results are some sort of proof of racism. If there were a way to know the race of the searcher, then this might be more instructive. Otherwise, it’s speculation and an exercise in confirmation bias.
Racism is ugly and undeniable, but before you get too carried away it’s important to remember that it’s not only white racists who use the aforementioned word.
In fact, if you average the ten heaviest searchers of the word (West Virginia: 3.4%, Louisiana: 12.6%, Pennsylvania: 10.8%, Mississippi: 37.0%, Kentucky 7.8%, Michigan: 14.2%, Ohio: 12.2%, South Carolina: 27.9%, Alabama: 26.2%, New Jersey: 13.7%) you get a black population of 16.58%. Meanwhile, the bottom ten (Wyoming: 0.8%, Montana: 0.4%, Oregon: 1.8%, Minnesota: 5.8%, D.C.: 50.7%, Idaho: 0.6%, New Mexico: 2.1%, Colorado: 4.0%, Hawaii: 1.6%, Utah: 1.1%) average to 6.89% (and if you exclude D.C., it shrinks dramatically to 2.02%). [source]
It’s irresponsible and unwise, at best, to try to extract a socio-political narrative out of just this chart.")
From the abstract:
Traditional surveys struggle to capture socially unacceptable attitudes such as racial animus. This paper uses Google searches including racially charged language as a proxy for a local area’s racial animus. I use the Google-search proxy, available for roughly 200 media markets in the United States, to reassess the impact of racial attitudes on voting for a black candidate in the United States. I compare an area’s racially charged search volume to its votes for Barack Obama, the 2008 black Democratic presidential candidate, controlling for its votes for John Kerry, the 2004 white Democratic presidential candidate. Other studies using a similar empirical specification and standard state-level survey measures of racial attitudes yield little evidence that racial animus had a major impact in recent U.S. elections. Using the Google-search proxy, I find significant and robust effects in the 2008 presidential election. The estimates imply that racial animus in the United States cost Obama three to five percentage points in the national popular vote in the 2008 election.
There’s more discussion at the Monkey Cage of the actual paper, but I’m interested in the above table, which ranks states by their interest in searching for “n*gger or N*ggers” on Google from January 2004-December 2007. WVa is the worst, Utah the best.
And you’re interested because it illustrates what, exactly?
I see in your source box you wrote “Way to confirm my preconceived notions about WVa and KY,” which I assume is insinuation that these search results are some sort of proof of racism. If there were a way to know the race of the searcher, then this might be more instructive. Otherwise, it’s speculation and an exercise in confirmation bias.
Racism is ugly and undeniable, but before you get too carried away it’s important to remember that it’s not only white racists who use the aforementioned word.
In fact, if you average the ten heaviest searchers of the word (West Virginia: 3.4%, Louisiana: 12.6%, Pennsylvania: 10.8%, Mississippi: 37.0%, Kentucky 7.8%, Michigan: 14.2%, Ohio: 12.2%, South Carolina: 27.9%, Alabama: 26.2%, New Jersey: 13.7%) you get a black population of 16.58%. Meanwhile, the bottom ten (Wyoming: 0.8%, Montana: 0.4%, Oregon: 1.8%, Minnesota: 5.8%, D.C.: 50.7%, Idaho: 0.6%, New Mexico: 2.1%, Colorado: 4.0%, Hawaii: 1.6%, Utah: 1.1%) average to 6.89% (and if you exclude D.C., it shrinks dramatically to 2.02%). [source]
It’s irresponsible and unwise, at best, to try to extract a socio-political narrative out of just this chart.
“Given the poor quality of the post, I imagine that the only reason it was promoted to #Politics is that LA Liberty was happy that a right-wing African-American was trashing OWS, as if liberals would be unwilling to rebut or incapable of rebutting your nonsense because of your skin color. Rather hypocritical of him, though, to promote the piece on #Politics when he’s unwilling to like or reblog it.”— ryking
Seeing as how jeffmiller liked it before it was promoted, it’s pretty clear that Jeff was the promoting editor (it’s not hard to find since it is literally the very first note, though maybe since you block anyone who doesn’t fall in line with your statism, his name doesn’t show up for you?). And that is quite presumptuous to assume that the same editor who implored other editors to like or reblog a post before or after promoting it in order to maintain transparency would suddenly not do so to… what?… hide my opinions from others?
But good for you for completely divining racist aspersions on others on top of a false assumption. Your gentlemanly behavior is always a treat.
(Also, thanks for bringing holeycynicism’s post to my attention. I hadn’t seen it before but I’m glad to have read it now.)
1) Miller’s name doesn’t appear anywhere to me in the notes on the post when it’s viewed on the #Politics page or in my reblog of the post — even when I’m logged out of Tumblr. I thought that this was because I might have blocked Miller, but he doesn’t appear on my “Blocked” list… nor should that matter when I’m logged out.
2) Given that holeycynicism reblogged your drivel several times that day, it was logical to believe that you had taken notice of him and promoted his latest bit of idiocy to the #Politics page, as it was in keeping with other right-wing nonsense you have promoted to the page on previous occasions.
3) So what if you’ve implored other editors to be more transparent when they promote posts to the #Politics section? It’s not as if you’re not well-known for being a hypocrite.
4) “Gentlemanly behavior?” You’re whining about my tone? You’re pathetic, pretentious, and effete. And still overcompensating, I see, by putting on airs to hide the fact that you subscribe to an inferior ideology. As for my “racist aspersions:” It’s funny that when progressives correctly point out examples of right-wingers using non-whites to give cover to the Right’s racist policies, it’s the progressive who is somehow the racist in that equation. — Ryking
First, the fact remains that it was indeed Jeff who promoted that post. (Here’s another screen-cap in case the one I included in my first post wasn’t sufficient.) So no amount of explanations or equivocations can make your original charge less wrong.
Second and more importantly, re: “It’s funny that when progressives correctly point out examples of right-wingers using non-whites to give cover to the Right’s racist policies, it’s the progressive who is somehow the racist in that equation.” Let’s ignore the your regular false barb of “right-winger” and think this through: Jeff (who is probably one of the most fair editors of #politics) has posted and promoted numerous posts on OWS from a myriad of sources. However, because this one post happened to be penned by a black man, Jeff’s motivations are suddenly suspect. Now, a secondary racist motive emerges. And you know this is “correct” how, exactly? You don’t. It’s specious speculation, at best; though most will see your claim for what it is.
As always, your mature criticisms are appreciated.
(Source: holeycynicism, via diadoumenos)
Given the poor quality of the post, I imagine that the only reason it was promoted to #Politics is that LA Liberty was happy that a right-wing African-American was trashing OWS, as if liberals would be unwilling to rebut or incapable of rebutting your nonsense because of your skin color. Rather hypocritical of him, though, to promote the piece on #Politics when he’s unwilling to like or reblog it.
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Seeing as how jeffmiller liked it before it was promoted, it’s pretty clear that Jeff was the promoting editor (it’s not hard to find since it is literally the very first note, though maybe since you block anyone who doesn’t fall in line with your statism, his name doesn’t show up for you?). And that is quite presumptuous to assume that the same editor who implored other editors to like or reblog a post before or after promoting it in order to maintain transparency would suddenly not do so to… what?… hide my opinions from others?
But good for you for completely divining racist aspersions on others on top of a false assumption. Your gentlemanly behavior is always a treat.
(Also, thanks for bringing holeycynicism’s post to my attention. I hadn’t seen it before but I’m glad to have read it now.)
(Source: holeycynicism, via diadoumenos)
Those people of good will who want to replace the racism of the past with a post-racial society have too often overlooked the fact that there are others who instead want to put racism under new management, to have reverse discrimination as racial payback for past injustices.
