Posted on 06/25/2013 5:26:10 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The fate of the Voting Rights Act before the Supreme Court may hinge on whether it's right.
"Is it the government's submission that the citizens of the South are more racist than the citizens of the North?" John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, asked that in February during oral arguments over the fate of the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 civil rights law. Donald Verrilli, the government's chief lawyer, said no. Not surprisingly, the Obama administration was not willing to assert that citizens in Southern states were statistically more likely to hold racist beliefs. Without making such a claim, though, it was harder for the government to defend the VRA's requirement that some states—but not others—seek federal approval (which lawyers call preclearance) before changing their voting laws. The eight states that are required to seek preclearance are determined by a formula intended to pick out areas with a history of discrimination. (Places that go for 10 years without discriminating can escape the requirement.) But if all states are equally racist (or not racist), why not treat them equally?
Certainly plenty of people outside of the South are racist, and plenty of people in the South are not. But here's the trouble: there's social science evidence that, 150 years after the Civil War, Southern states do have bigger racism problems than states outside the South. And many of them are the same states that the VRA requires to seek federal approval before changing their voting laws.
The key study on this subject is new. In May, Christopher Elmendorf and Douglas Spencer—law professors at the University of California-Davis and the University of Connecticut, respectively—released a paper arguing that the list of states required to obtain federal approval under the VRA "remarkably" mirrors "the geography of anti-black prejudice" in the United States. "What we have generated," Elmendorf says, "is an answer to the question that the chief justice asked during oral arguments and [Verilli] was either unable or unwilling to answer." The answer, they argue, is yes.
Elmendorf and Spencer used data from the 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey, which asked non-blacks to rank their own racial group and blacks regarding intelligence, trustworthiness, and work ethic. Respondents ranked their racial group above blacks by an average of 15 points in each of these categories, perhaps proving the Avenue Q claim that "everyone's a little bit racist." Elmendorf and Spencer, however, only counted a person as "prejudiced" if he thought his racial group was more superior to blacks than the average person—and only if he thought so in two or more of the three categories. That is, a respondent could think his race was a lot better than blacks and still not count as racist under their methodology.
The results were striking: the researchers' mathematical model suggests that of the seven states in the country with the highest percentage of people who are biased against black people, six are Southern states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina—required to seek federal approval for election law changes under the VRA. Arizona and Alaska, the other two states required to get the feds' permission before changing their election laws, ranked much lower in anti-black bias. But as Elmendorf and Spencer note, these states are presumably required to seek that permission because of other bias—anti-Latino in Arizona and anti-Native American in Alaska—which their study did not measure. (Besides the eight states mentioned above, the VRA requires some counties and municipalities in seven other states to seek federal permission to change election rules.)
The researchers crunched the data several different ways to make sure they were getting valid results. But "whichever approach you pick, the Deep South states are close to the top," Elmendorf says.
Elmendorf and Spencer's study may have come too late: The Supreme Court is widely expected to strike down the portion of the VRA that governs which states are and are not required to seek the feds' permission to change their election rules. If that happens, Congress will have to come up with new rules to determine which states this section of the VRA should cover. If lawmakers decide to embrace Roberts' implication that states with more racist attitudes should receive special scrutiny, Elmendorf and Spencer's study suggests they could end up with a list of VRA-covered states that looks a lot like today's.
> Well, I guess then it is YOU who owe the reparations. Please give your check to the first black person you see. :)
Are you kidding? I ALREADY have! I’ve been taxed to death for almost 40 years so they can eat for free, get free housing and medical care without having to work so they can watch television and let their butts spread out even further. Go into Walmart and look around...: )
Well, in this case the VRA is racist since it picks on the south. Im racists.....im white and proud of it...
you forot the Obamaphone...
you forgot the Obamaphone...
If that is not true then it proves the point that the voting rights monitoring by the federal government has out lived it's purpose and is no longer necessary.
I live in central Va that has a very high black population. It is a rare day when I am out and about that I see any blacks at work. Doing anything at all. Just an observation.
Just a joke...I know what you mean, though...
In my experience, having only visited South Carolina, I can safely say minorities in my home state of NJ are DEFINITELY more racist.
I’ve lived in a lot of places—North and South, East and West, small towns, fancy suburbs, inner-city slum, chic urban neighborhoods, mountain village, farms, working-class neighborhood. In my experience the North is far more racist than the South, in overt actions, in speech, and in the “soft racism of low expectations.” This is mediated by the fact that there are simply more white liberals in the North, and more serious, believing Christians in the South, both black and white. Yes, there are probably more people in the South who use the N word openly. But for the most part, blacks and whites in the South get along more amicably and think about racial differences less.
I dismiss statistics that say otherwise. Most such statistics are generated by leftist “researchers” whose study design, methodology, peer review, and analysis leave much to be desired.
As a lifelong southerner it has been my observation that some northerner s learned all the think they know about the south from watching “Roots” and reading “Tobacco Road”.
Until air conditioning made its way south, you couldn’t find a Yankee with 500 miles from the Mason-Dixon Line.
From spending time around guys from many states (Air Force) I have noticed that many Northerners base their opinion of Southerners based on the accent alone. They think themselves all-knowing that people who don’t sound like them are somehow, less intelligent. Profiling, anyone?
Insofar as slavery goes, that was a loooong time ago. And even though “progressives” like to fear-mongering people that we are trying to bring back slavery, or even “Jim Crowe” laws, it’s simply a canard to justify race-baiting.
Southern attitudes are based on individuality, whereas up North the tendency is “groupthink”. Down here we accept, or reject, persons of any color based on their personality, attitude, and honor...not just because some community organizer says we “must” like and/or accept them as a person.
Most Southerners now would not partake in slavery if they legalized again. It’s not worth it.
So, if “racism” is to be defined as not accepting blacks on a group basis, I guess we are more “racist”. But, percentage-wise, I know and like as many black people I’ve met, as white. It’s the individual, not the color, that makes the difference.
Now, I’ll let the author of this article get back to his stereotyping...
The critical problem with this study is that it has no correction factor for the truth.
We know that black people are convicted of crimes far more than other groups of people, so how is it racist if honest people's opinion reflects that fact?
Similarly, all measures of racial differences in intelligence indicate that black people, as a group, do less well on intelligence tests. So for a person to reflect that fact in their opinion does not make them racists.
The unstated assumption in the “study” is that all racial groups are the same in intelligence, trustworthiness, and work ethic.
I find it hard to believe that any honest person would claim that that assumption is true.
Racism has always followed the Democratic Party, just look at the Party’s history. There may be racist in the Republican Party (and I blame Liberal Republicans for this), but it has always been that equal rights before the law has been the institution strived for by the base. Liberalism breeds racism, Christian Conservatism does not. Follow these two philosophies to where they migrated and you will see where the racists are.
Well i played in an all black band years ago One of my best friends is black so you tell me. No I don’t hate blacks. I do dislike black thugs and white trash equally though.
“But then, that is the point of the constant bombardment of stories about race from the media and other lefties.”
Exactly. Lots of trolls here and all we have to do to find them is look for their bigotry about the South. It’s been on the rise again.
Correction. All black band minus me...: )
The biggest “racists” are the people who hate the South, several post on FR. Liberal trolls, nothing more.
Marge Shott.
Frank, I’m not doubting YOUR personal beliefs, but what do you make of the following comments?
“The fact of the matter is, being made a slave was the best thing that ever happened to those blacks. The vast majority of blacks that were made slave were simply captives from internal tribal conflicts among Africans. If they had no value, they would simply have been slaughtered (as they are today). Instead, since they had value as slaves, they were allowed to live, sold to slavers, and then brought to the greatest nation on the face of the Earth while their brethren were left in the hell hole of Africa.”
“Africa was such a horrible place to live that many Africans volunteered to come to America as slaves. The problem was that some of their descendants wanted out of the deal.”
“Some slaves were mistreated, but most were treated as beloved members of the family much as pets are today.
Would you condemn all pet owners because a few beat there pets or some fight them against each other? Should the states that allow pet ownership be justifiably burnt to the ground as someone suggested was deserved of the South earlier in this thread?”
“The point was, every argument you use to justify pet ownership can be applied to slave ownership.”
What do you think is the common component to each one of these FReepers?
For what it’s worth, the two most racist towns I’ve ever been to were in Michigan and Ohio respectively.
In one I saw a mob assemble, hurling obscenities and rocks at a Black woman in her car, telling her to “get out of town!”
In the other the Black manager of a local store had to be moved out of town by his company for his own safety after receiving numerous death threats.
Been to Alabama several times. Did not get anything close to the same vibe.
Yes I have a comment! I am a certified behavior bigot. If you act like a sub-human then I dislike you, won’t hire you, won’t patronize your business and would rather you go away.
When a large percentage of a group behave in a low class manner it is safe to say we are better off without the group.
Those who want to be contributors and refuse the plantation mentality of victimhood are A-OK in my book. The rest of you P— off and get out of the way. You’re nothing but leaches and a detriment to society.
No amount a diversity training, affirmative action, sharia law... can make a civilized human out of an animal.
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