Blacks and Jews and … Blacks – A Washington Post article today describes some troubling fallout from the defeat of anti-Israel, pro-Muslim Cynthia McKinney in a Democratic primary in Georgia.
Black and Jewish political leaders voiced concerns yesterday that the defeat of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), a critic of pro-Israel policies, by a challenger receiving extensive Jewish support might intensify ill feelings between two important Democratic constituencies. Any increase in tensions between Jewish and African American voters, political activists said, could damage Democratic hopes of taking back the House and keeping control of the Senate.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D, Tex), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said there was a growing concern that “Jewish people are attempting to pick our leaders.” Jesse Jackson said the coalition between blacks and Jews must be preserved if the Democrats are to take over the House and keep control of the Senate, but he complained that the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee “now does not place a great premium on that coalition.”
The problem with this Johnson-Jackson-Democratic handwringing is that it assumes pro-Israel (even Jewish?) means anti-“black,” and “black” means pro-Arab. It’s as though the black challengers who defeated the pro-Muslim incumbents were not themselves black, or somehow not authentically black.
Now is not the first time that observers have noted that “black” has come to refer more to political than pigmentary coloration. Jessie Jackson is black; Clarence Thomas is not; etc. One of the earlier if unintentional popularizers of this perception was none other than Lani Guinier, some of whose law review articles argued that only “authentic” blacks, by which she meant in part blacks elected by black majorities, could represent blacks. (See, for example, “The Triumph of Tokenism: The Voting Rights Act and the Theory of Black Electoral Success,” 89 Mich. L. Rev. 1077 [1991].)
I have not seen a racial breakdown of the vote in Georgia’s fourth congressional district, but it is abundantly clear that Denise Majette, who won with an astounding 58% of the vote, had very substantial black support.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (link via Photodude),
Majette carried predominantly African-American precincts despite a full-court press by the traditional black political machine of preachers and politicians to deliver the election to McKinney. And in deep south DeKalb, McKinney’s stronghold over the last 10 years, voters failed to come out as strongly as they have in recent elections.
….
In the Stone Mountain area, a popular destination for middle class African-American newcomers moving to metro Atlanta, Majette prevailed. The former State Court judge also ran competitively with McKinney across a swath of central DeKalb precincts dominated by African-American voters.
And in her traditional south DeKalb stronghold, McKinney’s voters didn’t come out in the kind of numbers she has typically drawn. For example, at Stoneview Elementary School, a McKinney stronghold and the site of a melee over ballot access for the 1,767 people who showed up to vote in the 2000 general election, only 169 people cast ballots Tuesday, most of them for McKinney.
Majette suggested Wednesday that black voters in DeKalb have long been more diverse in their political attitudes than past elections may have indicated.
“Black,” in short, may not mean what it used to, and what the Jesse Jacksons wish it still did. One Majette voter quoted by the Journal-Constitution captured this point nicely:
The appeals by the Jesse Jacksons, the [Louis] Farrakhans and the [Joseph] Lowerys fell on deaf ears,” said Leak, who is an African-American. “The typical black voter didn’t want to hear that. . . . The typical political kingmakers didn’t play a role in this.
