Racial Politics In Great Britain

[cwelsch]

I'm having an American moment, because I can't help but think if only for a second that any time somebody says "blacks," they're racist.  That's never said here except by insensitive or offensive people, Southerners, or some black people (other racial minorities as well).  Most people I've heard talk about it tactfully (of any race) say "black people" or African- Americans.  I prefer black people since I don't say caucasion or European-American, I say white people, the symmetry makes sense.  But African-American is the most common term.  Anytime somebody says "blacks" I cringe, I expect them to talk about the Jews and how the Holocaust was fake.



Anyway, as to the voting habits of African descendants, I know they voted overwhelmingly, in this country, for Republicans for several decades.  The Republicans were then very much what a Euro socialist would call a bourgeois party, focused on markets and trade, "free labor" (euphemism for working in a free market) and generally what one would consider a capitalist business haven.  The black voters of Virginia post Reconstruction organized into the Readjuster Party (which met with much success and white Republican support, winning the state legislature and electing Reps and 2 Senators) and try as they might to separate themselves from both parties, they were fighting the dixiecratic Democrats in VA, and after a few years the Radjusters lined up with the GOP in Congress.

When Wilson ran for President, black people voted in large numbers.  Ironic, since Wilson was born in the South and was actually fairly wishy washy both on civil rights (most people of the time were anyway) and the actual civil war itself.  He was the President that popularized the change in terms from Great Rebellion (the Northern Yankee term for the Southern treason) to calling it the Civil War (which makes it seem sort of mutually to blame).  For a few decades black people went from 90% Republican to closer of an even split, with the urban black people voting Democrats along with all the other immigrants, migrants and workers and the rest mostly voting GOP.  The switch was more or less complete after FDR and then in the 1960s when Dixiecrats invaded the GOP.

But for a while there black people were soldily in line with a very laissez faire, right-liberal party against a populist, left-liberal party.



Second piece of evidence:  Rasmussen did a 2001 poll basically quizzing respondents on the World's Smallest Political Quiz.  Racially, black people got the most libertarian score with 21% scoring libertarian compared to 16% for the country as a whole.  They also scored the least number of left-liberals of all races, at 9%.  This would suggest that either they vote party or race before ideology, or they think the Democrats are the more libertarian party.  I'd tend to guess it's an identity issue, just like there are still some Southerners who refuse to vote GOP because their great great grandfathers fought for the Confederacy.


Anyway, interesting subject.

[cwelsch]

And for other minorities - in 2000 Muslims went over 80% for Bush in this country.  What a weird statistic.  Wonder how much they regret that now.

[cwelsch]

Well one, "blacks" is simply through comon usage a little frowned on because so many Dixiecrats and KKK types would say it with such scorn.

But also because it sounds like such a definitive final description, as though being black is the complete sum of a person.  This is fueled by the fact that nobody says the n-word any more except in off-color jokes and rap music, so there's a whole rescaling of all racial words.  Really, most politicians won't even say black people, they say African-American.  It gets a little absurd, like when somebody talks about the "African-American" leader of like Cameroon or something.  But Americans have a strong hatred and distaste for racists, and even innocent comments (saying the phrase black sheep or the word ndly, neither of which are related to black people) can attract serious wrath.

Remember Rush Limbaugh was forced to resign as a football commentator?  Trent Lott was forced to resign as leader over the Strom Thurmond thing?  Tons of other people get serious criticism in the media for saying anything racist or even smelling of racism.  It gets crazy at times, but it's motivated by our strong reaction against the racists of the past.