Black Poll

A new BET/CBS News poll of African Americans contains some findings that are entirely unsurprising, some that are depressing, and one or two that I find more interesting.

No one will be surprised that blacks are supporting Kerry over Bush by 8-1 (though some might have expected even higher margins), even though there is not much enthusiasm for Kerry.

When asked whether “the results of the war with Iraq was worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq,” 90% said it wasn’t worth it. Interestingly, however, this answer apparently does not reflect a principled isolationism, for when asked whether “you think the U.S. should or should not intervene when crises occur in Africa,” 67% said we should intervene.

41% of the respondents felt their votes were less likely to be counted than the votes of whites, and only 47% believed their votes were just as likely to be counted.

On same-sex marriage, black voters are a bit more conservative than all voters: 21% think gays should be allowed to marry (vs. 26% of all voters); 22% to form civil unions (vs. 33%); and 53% wanted “no legal recognition” (vs. 39%). (I couldn’t tell from the information presented whether the “all” figures included the black numbers; I assume they did, which would tend to minimize the difference in attitudes between blacks and whites).

On “affirmative action” (significantly, not the more descriptive “racial preference”), the poll asked:

What do you think should happen to affirmative action programs — 1. Should they be ended now, or 2. Should they be phased out over the next few years, or 3. Should affirmative action programs be continued for the foreseeable future?

Not surprisingly, a whopping 3% said it sould be ended now; 15% said it should be phased out; and 76% said it should be continued for the foreseeable future.

A more interesting question provided some alternatives to affirmative action, and the pollsters summarized the findings as follows:

Given a set of choices, blacks say some things would work better than quotas to get more African-Americans to attend college. 65% of African- American voters say better college preparation in elementary and high school would be the best way to help more African Americans attend college. 25% think more financial assistance from the federal government would be the best way. Only 4% cite more spaces in college set aside specifically for black students as the best way to help more African Americans go to college.

What I believe would have been the most interesting and revealing question to black Americans was not asked on the poll: “Do you favor treating everyone equally, without regard to race, or should minorities continue to be given preferences based on race?”

UPDATE [7/24/04]

MSNBC has also noticed the above anomaly, based I believe on confusion over the meaning of “affirmative action,” in the BET/CBS poll results.

Three-quarters of African Americans believe affirmative action should be continued for the foreseeable future, yet only 4 percent said college spaces should be set aside for black students; two-thirds said better preparation in elementary and high school is the best way to get more African Americans into college.

I mentioned above that the poll question that is never asked is something like, “Do you favor treating all individuals equally, without regard t race, religion, or ethnicity, or do you believe some individuals should be given preferential treatment because of their race?” Here’s another (Gallup, Roper, Pew, CBS, NBC, Zogby, et. al., Listen Up!):

Which of the following do you think best describes the meaning of “affirmative action” in employment and college admissions:

A) Giving preferential treatment to minority applicants;

B) Taking pro-active steps to ensure that all applicants are treated without regard to race, religion, or ethnicity;

C) Implementing policies to ensure that the acceptance rate of minority applicants equals their proportion of the population in the U.S.

Say What? (16)

  1. StuartT July 22, 2004 at 7:16 pm | | Reply

    This poll offers much to despair over. Not just for American conservatives, but Americans.

    The overall portrait is of a monolithic and solipsistic group of Michael Moore marching ants. No diversity to be found here, I’m afraid. I only hope the sample isn’t representative.

  2. Helen July 22, 2004 at 9:53 pm | | Reply

    Here’s what would get more blacks into college: show more interest in education and make an effort to learn. Take the tough courses and don’t be afraid of being challenged.

    I’ve taught to many black kids who have cut and run once they realized that an English class involved WORK.

    Once black kids get serious about education, they’ll realize how demeaning affirmative action is to them.

  3. Nels Nelson July 23, 2004 at 5:00 am | | Reply

    It’s frustrating that the poll doesn’t consistently have “All” numbers for comparison. For example, the “Should U.S. intervene when crises occur in Africa?” question is so vague, as well as loaded with the word ‘crises’, that I’m not sure you wouldn’t see a majority of all Americans answering ‘yes’ to it. But that’s of course just my guess – and I may be very wrong – as there’s no way to know from the poll.

    Or on the question of how much confidence those polled have that their votes will be counted, I’m amazed at how pessimistic they are. But perhaps that’s a common sentiment among all voters of which I’m simply not aware. It seems to correlate with the related questions about the 2000 election and so is probably peculiar to African-American voters, but there’s no way to know for sure from the data. I’d be curious to know those numbers for non-African-American Democratic voters, for example.

  4. Cobra July 25, 2004 at 1:14 pm | | Reply

    I don’t see why you anti-affirmative action types are so shocked at the results of the poll. I’m a 36 year old educated African American male, and based upon my life experiences, and the experiences of my family and friends, I don’t see any reason for optimism either. History, and current societal trends clearly dictate that left upon their own devices, without government oversight or coercion, the vast majority of white Americans choose to hire, promote, live with, worship with, date, marry, network and allign themselves, and send their kids to school with other white people. This fact is susbstantiated by Census reports,housing discrimination probes, EEOC documentation, church roll memberships, and studies too numerous to document here.

    Do I think that this fact is neccessarily evil, in and of itself? I don’t know. However I think that these facts are SEVERELY downplayed and glossed over whenever anti-affirmative action types begin tossing around vague terms such as “color-blind society” or “judge them by their merits.” And that doesn’t just apply to African-Americans. Asian-American groups have been extremely vocal about the “glass ceiling” that exist for them in the white dominated corporate structure, and anti-affirmative action types can’t dismiss them based upon “educational qualifications” or “test scores.”

    Does it mean that there aren’t exceptions to this reality? Of course not. There are pockets of integration in this society, fostered by INCLUSION.

    Many anti-affirmative action types are quick to say..”If you are truly discriminated against, there are laws on the books against it, and you can sue.”,

    Well, if people like Ward Connerly with his “Racial Privacy Act” have their way, the government will no longer keep records based upon race, thus eliminating evidence of discrimination needed to successfully pursue litigation. I mean, how can a person claim that Nissan motors charged more interests to black purchasers than whites, when they don’t have to keep that statistical data on record? How can they say the schools in segregated black neighborhoods are underfunded when there is no official designation of race for the neighborhood?

    Of course I’m pessimistic. There is no scheme to re-segregate America. That’s like trying to re-scramble eggs. It’s already here, and my only point is that you anti-affirmative action types be HONEST ABOUT IT.

  5. John Rosenberg July 25, 2004 at 1:56 pm | | Reply

    Cobra – I appreciate your comments. In response, I think am most struck by your repeated use of the term “anti-affirmative action types” (5 times, I think). This strikes me as a new stereotype, since it is my impression that people opposed to racial preferences aren’ t a “type” at all.

    In a related manner, you claim that “color-blind society” is a vague term, but I don’t think it’s vague at all. I think it’s quite precise. It means simply that neither burdens nor benefits should be distributed on the basis of race or ethnicity. The idea that people should be judged “without regard” to race used to be a core value of this society (otherwise, there would have been no problem, no complaints, when it was violated), but now it obviously isn’t. I, and whatever “types” agree with me, think that’s unfortunate.

    You argue that racial preferences are necessary because, left to “their own devices, without government oversight or coercion, the vast majority of white Americans choose to hire, promote, live with, worship with, date, marry, network and allign themselves, and send their kids to school with other white people.”

    One could quarrel with this assertion on factual grounds. I believe, for example, that evidence shows that by large majorities Americans believe in hiring, promoting, etc., on the basis of color-blind merit. And, as you acknowledge, there are laws that make it illegal not to (though those laws have been undermined by arguments such as yours, that on many occasions it is either permissible or mandatory to “take race into account” in making those decisions). It is also my impression that those laws have widespread public support, i.e., that few object to the “government oversight or coercion” necessary to enforce anti-discrimination laws.

    But your argument seems to me to go far beyond calling upon government to enforce anti-discrimination laws. You seem to imply that “government oversight or coercion” is necessary pre-emptively to insure something like a representative racial/ethnic mix in every area of life. As I’ve maintained here many times before, this argument rests on a new conception of fairness as proportional representation. As long as we’re calling for honesty, let’s honestly admit that. I don’t see how the principle embodied in the 14th Amendment and its most far-reaching offspring, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, are consistent with that conception, but then maybe that color-blind principle has by now been trespassed upon for so long that this newer conception of fairness has in effect taken adverse possession of the old principle.

  6. StuartT July 25, 2004 at 3:56 pm | | Reply

    I have a counter-point to Cobra:

    History, and current societal trends clearly dictate that left upon their own devices, without government oversight or coercion, the vast majority of black Americans choose to hire, promote, live with, worship with, date, marry, network and allign themselves, and send their kids to school with other black people. This fact is susbstantiated by Census reports,housing discrimination probes, EEOC documentation, church roll memberships, and studies too numerous to document here.

    Do I think that this fact is neccessarily evil, in and of itself? I don’t know.

    However I think that these facts are SEVERELY downplayed and glossed over whenever affirmative action types begin tossing around vague terms such as “diversity” or “white prvilege.”

    And that doesn’t just apply to white Americans. Asian-American groups have been extremely vocal about “diversity” initiatives that actively discriminate against them in the “designated victim group” oriented admissions process. And affirmative action types can’t dismiss them based upon their memborship in the “hegemonic white power structure.”

    Just my two-cents.

  7. Laura July 26, 2004 at 7:53 am | | Reply

    Cobra, when black people prefer to live around, go to school with, promote, and hire other black people, is that wrong?

  8. 76406 July 26, 2004 at 1:20 pm | | Reply

    Whom I choose to

    “live with, worship with, date, marry, network and allign themselves”

    with is

    A PRIVATE MATTER. No government, or other, oversight or coercion is necessary or permitted.

    Or aren’t we free to make ANY of our own decisions any more?

  9. Claire July 26, 2004 at 3:47 pm | | Reply

    I am a white woman. I have a black colleague who works with me, and we have several areas of overlapping responsibilities. Therefore, we occasionally travel together. We may eat lunch together. We may arrive together to meetings away from our offices.

    We BOTH get all kinds of nasty remarks directed toward us from both people we know and strangers on the street. They ASSUME that a black man with a white woman is someone how ‘sexual’ or something, and many feel compelled to tell us, separately or together, to ‘stay with our own kind’. The blacks are just as guilty of this as the whites, and don’t even bother to use the euphemistic language of whites when sharing their displeasure.

    Sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s infuriating. Obviously, we’ve got a very long way to go before there is real equality and colorblindness.

  10. Cobra July 27, 2004 at 4:50 pm | | Reply

    Claire,

    Thank you for lending an insightful, and authentic dose of REALITY to this conversation. I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood in suburban New Jersey. I had very similiar experiences, as one of 20 African Americans in a high school class of 377. Whether in honors classes, atheltic participation, or extra-curriculars I was often the “only black.”. Like you, Claire, I faced the comments, stares and remarks, and still do to this day in many settings. But what my experience in a predominantly white environment taught me was to try to treat people as individuals, but never forget the significance of race, ethnicity and religion.

    I feel that the experience of studying, playing, and emoting with people who weren’t my ethnicity gave me a more open mind when dealing with others. I can’t characterize groups into one specific box. Stereotypes tend to evaporate. People become human beings and not statistics. In turn, I’ve had many friends tell me that their experience to me had done the same things for them.

    Sure, I had my share of frustrating, backhanded comments thrown at me, but you can’t let that stop you from connecting with different people in this brief life span we have in this world.

  11. Cobra July 27, 2004 at 6:37 pm | | Reply

    Laura,

    I was very careful to state in my post that I didn

  12. Laura July 27, 2004 at 7:02 pm | | Reply

    It’s hard for me to look beyond my experience. I know I only experience a tiny fraction of life in America. I live in a city that’s 62 or 64% black, can’t remember which. The mayor is black, as is a majority of the city council and the school board. (And believe me, when the power in this city shifted over to the black inhabitants, the back-scratching and so forth didn’t stop – far from it.) My neighborhood has been thoroughly integrated since well before we moved into our house in 1990. The dominant culture that I experience in this city is black, right down to the radio stations that I have to listen to at work. The only mostly white thing in my life is church, to which black people are welcome if they want to come; we do have several black members, some of whom are elders and deacons. So I am not seeing your story of oppression. (I’m not complaining, by the way. If I didn’t like it here, I’d move.)

    I know that white people wrote the Jim Crow laws. I know you realize that the white people you see around you today are not those people, unless they’re fairly old. It was white people who wrote and voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it was largely white people at the University of Michigan who went all the way to the Supreme Court to keep racial preferences in their admissions programs. So I think you are being a little paranoid in thinking we would all have you in the back of the bus if you relaxed your vigilance just a little bit.

  13. John Rosenberg July 27, 2004 at 7:36 pm | | Reply

    Cobra: As an “anti-affirmative action type” (it sounds like a stereotype because it is a stereotype), I’m not telling you to trust anybody, white or otherwise. I am telling you that in my opinion if you sacrifice the principle declaring that every person should be judged “without regard” to race for the limited and fleeting rewards of a few more minorities being admitted to selective schools, etc., you will have given up much more than you’ve gained, not to mention what those who don’t gain anything will have to give up. Besides, when you abandon the “without regard” principle you undermine the possibility of a principled (as opposed to a merely self-interested) criticism of the discrimination of which you so rightly complain.

  14. Cobra July 28, 2004 at 1:55 pm | | Reply

    I find it interesting that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legislation both John and Laura point to was opposed by the current Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who even today claims that the act was “bad law.”

    Leopards don’t change their spots. That’s why I don’t relax my “vigilance.”

    –Cobra

  15. John Rosenberg July 28, 2004 at 5:36 pm | | Reply

    Cobra: I’m all for vigilance — from everyone, all the time. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty!” etc.

    I’m not sure how long you’ve been reading this blog, but in case you’re a recent arrival let me say now what old readers (masochists all) already know: I am not now nor have I ever been an across the board defender of Republicans. Their role in creating racially gerrymandered districts was reprehensible. Etc. You are right about Rehnquist’s opposition to the CRA, although you also might have noted that that act was passed much more because of Republican than Democratic votes. I do not suggest ignoring history, but I’m also inclined to stress the fact that today the vast majority of Republicans support the “without regard” principle while virtually all Democrats oppose it.

  16. Cobra July 30, 2004 at 12:52 pm | | Reply

    I would like to hear any comments on the follwing news story concerning minority hiring Abercrombie and Fitch.

    http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/12/09/BAGEM3J5H01.DTL

    –Cobra

Say What?