Two More Posts On Blaming The Brown For Prop 8

Since I posted this link round-up, there have been a lot of new posts critiquing the weird and unjustified focus on the black vote in discussions of how Proposition 8 passed. I want to highlight two in particular.

First, on Kos, Shanikka argues that it’s statistically impossible for Black voters to have been 10% of the California vote — which is what they would have needed to be to provide Proposition 8’s victory margin.

Since, of course, if Black folks were really 10% of the electorate, we would have contributed 1,730,409 registered voters to the pool. This is a number which with 5 minutes of demographic research any of the haters spewing “Black people are the Reason!” would have realized exceeds the entire Black adult population in the state by more than 300,000 people, and the entire eligible Black electorate using generous assumptions about eligibility by 400,000, and the entire Black registered population even this historic year by 1/2 million souls.

This question has gotten way too much attention — even if Black voters had provided Proposition 8 with its margin of victory, then so the fuck what? Black voters for Prop 8 — who are by no means all Black voters — would still be only a part of the larger coalition that passed Prop 8.

But, since people are being obsessed by this question, it’s worth pointing out that it’s simply not true that if not for black voters, Prop 8 would have been defeated.

Second, and more importantly, go read Nojojojo at Angry Black Woman, responding to Shaun Jacob Halper’s Huffington Post piece. (Nojojojo apparently misread his name and calls him “Jacobs.”)

Nojojojo’s response is absolutely top notch. There’s no way I can pick out quotes and do it justice, but here’s a small sample:

And the stupidest assumption underlying all this stupid thinking? The notion that LGBTQs = white.

Now, let’s pause here to consider that last point.

Whether you subscribe to the 10% theory or not, it should be blatantly obvious to anyone who actually interacts with it that the LGBTQ population is as racially diverse as, well, the human population. Certain cultures may do a harsher job of suppressing overt self-identification as such, but everybody knows they’re out there. Some of that diversity showed in the marketing campaign used by the Prop 8 opponents — though not much, from what I saw. Frankly, between those ads and the characterizations of people like Jacobs, which pit LGBTQs against PoCs as if the two are diametrically opposed, I get the distinct impression that LGBTQs are mostly white and well-off. Again, I’m aware that this characterization is false. […]

So although it’s clear to me, as a younger African American who grew up post Jim Crow, that what LGBTQs want is only fair and right, I’m not carrying around all this baggage. Given that so many African Americans are, I think it’s foolish for gay rights activists like Jacobs to frame things the way they have: us vs. them, white vs. black, our marriages vs. your struggle for survival, No on Prop 8 vs. an Obama vote. Not only is this strategy divisive and wrong, we’ve seen now that it’s just plain unsuccessful. Time to try a new tactic. […]

Nor do I mean to deny the very real anger GLBTs must be feeling right now towards everyone who voted for that dumbass law. I’d be mad too in Jacobs’ position, and I’d be looking for someone to blame. All I’m saying is that I’d blame 100% of the people that voted for Prop 8, not 7% of them. And I would try to understand why that group voted as it did, rather than simply dismissing them en masse as ungrateful, culturally-flawed wretches. That’s an oversimplification bordering on stereotype. And it sure as hell does nothing to solve the problem, so that the black community will vote more favorably the next time Prop 8 is challenged.

Again, you should go read Nojojojo’s entire post.

UPDATE: To be fair, Halper’s piece is more multidimensional than Nojojojo paints it. I think Nojojojo is correct that Halper’s piece sets up the queer community and the Black community as if they are separate, opposing parties. For example:

While seventy percent of self-identified gays and lesbians supported the first African-American presidential candidate (according to the exit poll reported by CNN), seventy percent of African American voters approved Prop 8, compared to 53% of Latino voters, 49% of white voters, and 49% of Asian voters.

The Obama victory was undoubtedly historic and groundbreaking, but it has come at a price: the aggrandizement and intensification of hostility between Blacks and gays. The irony is as ugly as it is heartbreaking. The betrayal gays feel can be summed up pithily: how is the outlawing of same sex marriage any different from the anti-miscegenation laws of segregation?

But Halper goes on to write:

But the failure to defeat Prop 8 does not lie with the Black community or any other minority. It is the gay community who has failed to build coalitions with other groups. Wake-up call to gay leadership: We must form institutional alliances with other minority communities and start supporting each others interests. We are not going to see these groups support our right to marry if we do not make an active effort to support them as well.

So although I think Halper does do some of the things Nojojojo criticizes him for, he explicitly opposed blaming the black community, and and I should have acknowledged that.