I originally wrote that blacks "made the difference" on Prop 8. I calculated this based on a margin of passage of 4 percent. This was erroneous, because the final margin was 4.6 percent. To prevent Prop 8's passage, blacks would have had to vote against it by a margin of something like 53 percent to 47 percent.This is no small thing. If we accept CNN's flawed exit poll numbers it would require blacks to voted "No on Prop 8," not just at the same rate as the rest of the state, but more than any other ethnic group in California. Oh, I wish it were so. But this only leads to the biggest problem with Saletan's piece--the assumption that black community is a cabal of pinko commies:
Here we have a left-leaning constituency (blacks) that has become politically pivotal on an issue (homosexuality) and is susceptible to a reframing of that issue (seeing sexual orientation, like color, as inborn) in accord with ongoing scientific research.No we don't. Any writer who's spent significant time in the suburbs of Atlanta, on the South-Side of Chicago, or here in Harlem, knows that black people aren't "left-leaning"--they just think the GOP is racist. Surveys may show blacks leaning-left on certain issues (minimum wage? ending the war?) but take it from an actual black leftist, there is a conservative streak running through black America wider than the Mississippi. Don't confuse "enemy of my enemy"-ism, with actual sympathy.
UPDATE: More thinking on that first point. Look at black folks by their demographic profile. Saletan is pinning his argument on the chance that an undereducated, underemployed, over-religious, disproportionately impoverished 6 percent of California's electorate would turn the tide, not simply by supporting gay marriage, but by supporting it a higher rate than any other ethnic demographic in the state. Are you fucking kidding? Are we even trying to be serious here?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
We gays convince 2% of the California population: blacks, whites, hispanics, asians and all combinations of them and we get marriage equality. Even less than that due to generational replacement. It is perfectly doable. We might get it in 2 years, 4 years top.
For a writer whose area of expertise is supposedly science and human nature, Saletan can be very, very dense a lot of the times. But he is at his most dense when writing about race and abortion.
But then Saletan is the same guy who, erroneously, agrees with Watson that blacks have a lower IQ than whites.
http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178123/
I actually stopped reading Saletan outright when he got into the IQ thing-- it was pretty clear the whole thing was absurd from the start, and then he kept digging. I'm not surprised his data's fucked again.
In all seriousness how does Saletan still have a job writing for the public?
While I agree with you that there is a streak of conservatism in the black community that often gets dismissed by white conservatives and ignored by white liberals, I believe black americans are more liberal because they tend to want more government. ( I know this borders on stereotyping, but I believe it to be true in general)
There has been an ongoing arguement since the election about whether the country is center right or center left. Much of it is tedious and each side cherrypicks like crazy. The nation, and the black community, is more complex than the debaters admit.
Maybe this obsession with how black Californians voted on this is due to democrats assuming that black voters have the same beliefs, interests and values as white liberals. When reality hits, the first instinct is to lash out rather than to try to understand. Seems condescending to me.
William Saletan? That man is a joke. His idea of science is "there are numbers and it confirms my prejudices."
Of course he's forced to write up a correction when he gets his facts totally backwards. He just grabs whatever pseudoscience comes along that looks controversial. Remember his phrenology series?
It's too bad he doesn't base his abortion "compromise" theory (basically: pro-choicers start to say mean things about women who have sex) on anything more than hand waving, otherwise he'd be forced to write a correction for that, too.
Are we even trying to be serious here?
No. We're trying to be "Serious." Big difference.
Saletan-style "Seriousness" means carefully calibrating your stances to irritate left-leaning people on occasion, regardless of the merits. (Debbie Howell is another high priestess of Seriousness).
This view of the world is dying-- the bubble has burst in reality, and voters are rejecting it. But unfortunately, many of our older journalists have been trained to believe that Serious balance is journalism's lodestar, rather than factual accuracy.
I'm with Persia: the IQ thing was really unsettling, and his weird rationalization of it "just because blacks are natively intellectually inferior doesn't give people the grounds to discriminate against them" made me violently angry.
He is not to be taken seriously on issues of race, at all.
Over-religious and disproportionally Protestant as well, which seems like the most important difference to me. According to the exit polls white Protestants voted 65% for. Add in education and income differences and I can't see why anyone's surprised at the black vote being 70%. Why in the world would anyone expect the beliefs of black Baptists and Methodists to be significantly different from white Baptists and Methodists on this issue?
I think that, in general, black people have a deeply held conservative view on homosexuality that mere education will not overcome. Black belief in biblical literalism has survived Darwin, Einstein and Microsoft. Even Coretta Scott King and Jesse Jackson tried to dissuade black churchgoers from homophobic belief and actions. But these two leading opinion makers largely failed.
I do believe that there is a generational divide on this issue in the black community. However, I also believe that younger blacks are more homophobic than their peers. Again this stems from a culture that appreciates and rewards biblical literalism. (I also think that the rise in public knowledge of bisexual black men has created a hysteria among black women of all ages.)
I think that the next time Californians voted on this issue, a majority (60% or more) of blacks will vote against gay marriage. Maybe the best strategy is to encourage people not to vote on this issue at all. Otherwise, I fear that the disappointment and division will continue to spread.
One of the missteps of gay outreach to Black communities is equating gay rights to the civil rights struggles of Blacks. As a Black woman, this argument is off-putting to me.
Second Sarah, Persia, Crack, et al -- I stopped reading Saletan after the IQ debacle.
I believe I shall now just stop reading Slate, period.
"...supporting it a higher rate than any other ethnic demographic in the state."
One more way Saletan is an idiot is that, typical for an Easterner, he is unaware that Mormons are a separate demographic in California and are basically an ethnicity unto themselves, and they almost certainly voted for Prop 8 in a greater percentage than any other ethnic group or demographic.
Yet another way that Saletan is an idiot is that it pretty undeniably was the Latino vote that put Prop 8 over the top. Blacks are numerically insignificant in the California electorate, probably on par with Koreans and behind the Chinese.
To be precise, shouldn't you be comparing African American Democrats to White Democrats rather than African American turnout to White turnout? When you say that the AA numbers would have had to be disproportionaly against Prop 8, I think you are incorrectly assuming that the party splits for the different ethnic groups are the same. Generally, Prop 8 was supported by Republicans and generally opposed by Democrats. I'm not saying that the AA turnout was to blame for Prop 8 passing, but if we are going to be referencing the data, I think we need to be accurate.
As for your comment on the conservative streak of the AA community, although I hope it never happens, I could see a Rovian strategist using that (the way the Republicans used the Hispanics Catholicism or the Jewish concerns for Israel) to piece together a majority for the future of the Republican party.
One of the greatest and least noted elements of Obama's campaign is that he rallied thousands of people to volunteer to canvas outside of their neighborhoods. Instead of simply talking to like-minded people, the Obama campaign got lefty urban folks greeting and making polite conversation with conservative suburban and rural folks. While it may not sound like a big thing, in fact it sounds a lot like what you do at your first circle time in Kindergarten, I think it made a huge impact in the way we have been writing off different parts of our country. And I think this is what has to continue to happen if we are to take down Prop 8 and the idealogy behind it. It's got to be about people talking to people beyond their own communities. We need people to see that gay folks' daily lives do not look like the Pride Parade just as most rural folks' lives are not represented by the Jerry Springer Show.
Seriously enough is enough.
I think that the whole california prop 8 debate shows us how the whole idea of identity politics should be scrapped. I'm not Jewish, and I don't think that Joe Liberman speaks for the Jewish "community". I'm not African American and I don't think that Farakhan or Jackson speak for the African American "community". I wouldn't presume for a moment that any community is monolithic. People voted for prop 8 for a variety of reasons, and to say that any single reason is representative for either a person or a community is hogwash.
Seriously how far down does the rabbit hole go for these people?
"We need people to see that gay folks' daily lives do not look like the Pride Parade just as most rural folks' lives are not represented by the Jerry Springer Show."
Excellent!
Marisa,
No. I'm following Saletan's own math. He didn't differentiate--and neither have most people making the charge. I'm using the same exit poll numbers he used--and the same formulation.
Saletan is pinning his argument on the chance that an undereducated, underemployed, over-religious, disproportionately impoverished 6 percent of California's electorate would turn the tide, not simply by supporting gay marriage, but by supporting it a higher rate than any other ethnic demographic in the state. Are you fucking kidding?
No. Saletan is not kidding. American white liberals are the most casually racist group of people in the world.
American white liberals are the most casually racist group of people in the world.
I'm not going to give credence to this argument. However I will say that having attended a small liberal arts college for the past 3 years I have heard more offensive statements by well meaning white-folks than I heard either growing up or in the Army.
It seems that there are two types of racism (at least). One that grows out of ignorance of other people's cultures, habits, and beliefs, and the willfull kind that grows from conscious choice.
Also remember that black leftists have a much more recent history of errant nonsensical homophobia to come out of. The father of black studies programs and academic ethnocentrism, Molefi Asante, thought and taught that black gays were a product of white decadence or being shut up in prison. While this kind of bad scholarship has since been revised, the intent behind the ideas lingers, that gay is a 'white' thing and the generation of gay black intellectuals who were actively debunking all this died out from AIDS in the 1980s. So on one hand you have a real conservative streak running down the middle of black America, then you have a progressive wing that not too long ago was hobbled by this type of 2nd rate scholarship that left in it's wake persistently bad ideas.
correction to above Asante was 'father of academic Afrocentrism' NOT 'ethnocentrism'. DAMN. Though it kind of works in concept it is still the wrong word.
"I believe I shall now just stop reading Slate, period."
Well, John Dickerson and Dahlia Lithwick are still pretty good. But it's weird reading Slate now because it doesn't seem to be primarily focused on politics anymore. The new editor, David Plotz, doesn't even write about politics. Jacob Weisberg was as big a tool as Saletan in many ways, but at least his background is in political writing. It's hard to believe this is the publication Michael Kinsley started.
(And don't even get me started on Mickey Kaus. His latest gem in arguing against more Democrats in the Senate: "In any case, I'll risk less health care to avoid the disaster of card check, immigration semi-amnesty, and a Leyland-like auto bailout". Nice priority, there, Mickey.)
We don't have to call them tools, guys. Yes I know. Coming from "Are you fucking kidding me" Coates.
"We don't have to call them tools, guys."
Yeah, sorry about that. I've been kinda disappointed about Slate lately. I used to like the contrarian bent, at least Kinsley can be very funny and insightful sometimes.
"No we don't. Any writer who's spent significant time in the suburbs of Atlanta, on the South-Side of Chicago, or here in Harlem, knows that black people aren't "left-leaning"--they just think the GOP is racist."
"Why do blacks seem conservative, but...?". It's just like the question "Why can blacks call each other...?", and it's just as annoying, because they don't accept any answer they don't want to hear. To hell with 'em. Let 'em wonder.
I commented on this issue on the Pat Buchanan video thread.
Am I the only one who thought Saletan's series on IQ was not only unoffensive, but interesting? Yes, the motives of one of the studies he examined were certainly suspect, but he acknowledged that in the final (reasonable and thoughtful) entry.
I just don't see the controversy in simply examining the possible explanations of racial gaps in IQ. For the record I'm half-black, if you care (I don't).
I should clarify- the reason I am not concerned with the discussion is that I, like Saletan, don't think it *matters* to human equality or public policy if it turns out genetics play a significant role in IQ.
Accattone,
I wasn't offended. I just thought it was really poorly sourced. I mean really, really, really poorly. You can't make a pronouncement like that an just attribute to one paper on brain research. Especially when the researcher in question was funded by a quasi-segregationist think tank. I'm up for almost any argument. But you have to come correct.
"I just thought it was really poorly sourced. I mean really, really, really poorly. '
All these supposedly scientific ponderings on genetics and IQ suffer from three insurmountable defects.
One is that no one can adequately define intelligence, so no one can adequately measure it, and naming in IQ and slapping some numbers around won't change that. No matter how impressed you are with the sophistication of your statistical methodology, it won't cure crappy, ill-defined data. When I say ill-defined, what I mean is that if you ask these people what they mena by intelligence, they answer basically that it is what their tests menasure, and if you ask them what thier tests measure, they say they measure intelligence.
The second defect is that it is sophomoric and laughable at this stage of our understanding of genetics and the effects of genes on traits, especially complex and poorly defined traits suchn as "intelligence."
The third defect is that it is laughable to make generalizations about the genetics of a population such as African-Americans, who descend from populations across a huge swathe of western Africa, however far the trade nets stretched that could get captives alive to the coastal entrepots, probably the genetically most diverse area on the planet, as well as being descended from British and indigenous American populations. That's a huge gene pool to be generalizing about.
Remember when Latino/as were not going to vote for an African American presidential candidate? Didn't hold true. The media are just in love with their pre-fabricated narratives. Saves them from doing real journalistic work and helps them sell papers--especially when the narrative involves race.
Speaking of which, one piece of actual analysis that didn't get much play was the NY Times piece about how rural whites in the deep south are the only demographic to cling to their bigotries and become increasingly partisan Republicans.
The Bradley Effect is dead, but when you don't lie about how you would never vote for a "Muslim" or "a Black" you're not called out?
Let's put the "pit the democratic interest groups against each other" ruse to rest. If newspapers still know how to do interviews I'd like to hear what actual people have to say. If they can find people who support their conclusions.
As a white guy with phenomenal academic statistics, few things annoy me more than when some bloggers talk about racial superiority or inferiority in regard to IQ tests.
First, IQ varies -- someone may have a higher IQ in early childhood and a lower one during adolescence and adulthood, or vice versa. Second, it is only a moderate indicator of how well one's brain functions -- plenty of geniuses in terms of public speaking, academic research, writing, music etc. have only a median IQ; I think no one would disagree with that.
Most importantly it shows no indication of personal virtues like assertiveness, intellectual honesty (plenty of smart people like to fight dirty), compassion, sedulousness, or other leadership skills.
Bill O'Reilly may have a high IQ but no way in hell would I want him as my political representative.
"But then Saletan is the same guy who, erroneously, agrees with Watson that blacks have a lower IQ than whites."
"Erroneously"? We're talking averages here, but isn't that what the U.S. Government's National Longitudinal Study of Youth (and every other IQ study) has demonstrated? People may not like hearing it, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
One of the missteps of gay outreach to Black communities is equating gay rights to the civil rights struggles of Blacks. As a Black woman, this argument is off-putting to me.
Posted by atlantapril
me too, and I'm not one who would EVER vote for Prop 8. Being Black is unlike anything else in this country and no White person, no matter how sympathetic, can understand that.
marriage is a RELIGIOUS issue for Black folk.
Who are the largest group to vote in the Black community?
BLACK WOMEN
Who are the least likely, according to statistics to marry in America?
BLACK WOMEN
Who are the backbone of the Black Church?
BLACK WOMEN
Black people are conservative (small c) by nature because SURVIVAL IN AMERICA DEPENDED UPON IT.
We are 'liberal' fiscally, but socially conservative.
Saletan is a libertarian, so when he says "left-leaning," he is likely speaking about economic issues, like minimum wage. I honestly don't know what most people from any ethnic groups feel about these issues, but I think that's important to point out.
Quite right, there is a significant conservative streak. But does that really matter when the community as a whole votes so reliably Democratic? What matters most in terms of electoral politics is the ballot box.
I find it off putting that you find the comparison off putting. Where were gays when blacks were attacked with fire hoses and dogs? Being incarcerated and tortured through psycho-surgery, castration, electroshock therapy, and simulation of death using purified curare (anectine). See http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/frames/244/eskrfram.html.
My goodness, Frank! I'm a white, rural raised, fiscal conservative, FSU grad and you are offputting the stuffin' out of me! Don't quote my school to do it! How can you even for a minute compare being gay to being black? Oh, I'm so sorry that at some point in history, gays had to hide their photos of themselves and their lovers to keep their 6 figure jobs! Yeah, that totally compares with not even being able to get a job in the first place. Stop being silly.
I must admit as an African-American I was put off by the constant comparison of gay marriage rights to the civil rights of blacks. While I do think prop 8 was a form of discrimination that I, and most Americans should shun, to compare it to the injustices blacks have endured for centuries is not only glib, but downright insulting.
When black folk were being tortured gays were hiding because those same things were likely for them should they be found out. The fact is that the democratic party is a coalition. Several team members that band together to press an agenda. The african americans stabbed their team members in the back, when historically gays have been as supportive as they can to the advancement of racial equality. Period. And as for the religious arguement. Garbage. Gays reasonably question the validity of a religion that defines one group as inferior to another as would african americans question the validity of a religion that stated blacks were inferior to others (as many protestant christian churchs did historically)