Why do people say "there's basically no black people in Iowa" but wouldn't say that about Jews?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Because the black population of Iowa is over twice the total population of the US. So if you want to say that Iowa has pretty much no black people or "there's only twelve black people in Iowa" or other types of hyperbole people have used here before, you're basically implying that applies to Jews as well and someone would be correct to say that there might as well be no Jewish population in the US at all. Also applies to say Native Americans, or various other ethnic groups...like the black population percentage of Iowa is significantly higher than the Vietnamese population percentage in California for instance.

Not that I'm trying to argue that the black vote in Iowa is some sort of immense important bloc or anything, just pointing out that there's a silly and statistically inaccurate double standard to say that black people in Iowa (and other similarly heavily white states) might as well not exist with some pretty problematic implications.

[Kevinstat]

Well, I don't hear the Jewish vote being talked about much other than in states like New York (and some neighboring states like Connecticut) and Florida.  And the Vietnamese vote is mostly talked about in certain parts of California (like in a certain iteration of Loretta Sanchez's district, when she seemed to once have a credible Republican challenger from that community).

Still, I agree that racial or ethnic groups shouldn't be dismissed just because they're a small portion of the population.  Maine is one of if not the whitest state in the nation, and we have a Black Speaker of the State House.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think you bring up an interesting point.

I honestly think topline % of the state's population doesn't really matter when discussing a state's poltics, but more if that ethnic group has a distinct community one can point too.

A good example would be Michigan; so much talk around the black community in Michigan revolves around Detroit, even though over 2/3rds of MI blacks don't live in Detroit. It's just that Detroit has a particularly large concentration of African Americans, so they have a greater influence over local politics but statewide they're still a minority of blacks.

For the Jewish Community, I think they tend to be much more scattered throughout; outside of NY there are very few notable Jewish communities, even though there are still tons of Jewish folks throughout this country with their own distinct cultures and voting habits that matter in statewide results.

[Pres Mike]

I'm going to be blunt. There are several in the Democratic Party who believe that the African American community should be the ones who pick the Democratic nominee, not any other demograpchic that might vote Democrat.

Black people do not make up the majority of Democrats in Iowa, unlike South Carolina. Thus there is an attempt to downplay states like Iowa or New Hampshire.

Granted, this argument has some merit. The Democratic nominee won't win the general election without high black turnout, so the black community should have a big say. But not the only say.

Of course, I have preached many times on this forum that no one state should decide who the nominee is. All 50 states should vote on the same day.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm going to be blunt. There are several in the Democratic Party who believe that the African American community should be the ones who pick the Democratic nominee, not any other demograpchic that might vote Democrat.

Black people do not make up the majority of Democrats in Iowa, unlike South Carolina. Thus there is an attempt to downplay states like Iowa or New Hampshire.

Granted, this argument has some merit. The Democratic nominee won't win the general election without high black turnout, so the black community should have a big say. But not the only say.

Of course, I have preached many times on this forum that no one state should decide who the nominee is. All 50 states should vote on the same day.

I think one thing that's unfortunate for black voters is that in most of the states where they dominate the primary, the state leans R because whites in that state are near homogenously R. Usually in order for a state to be D leaning, there has to be a significant number of liberal whites or in a few cases Hispanics. This is why imo you have so few black Governors and Senators today and in recent history. If you look at the D nominees for statewide races in states like LA, AL, and MS, they're very frequently African American but they have no chance of winning a GE. In a state like Georgia which has become more competative for Democrats, Blacks have started to lose their strangle hold on statewide primaries.

Therefore this is why I think national primaries tend to be especially important for Democratic blacks since they tend to be underrepresented in so many other ways.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I'd also say that there are far more black people than Jewish people in the United States.  So, while both populations are relatively low (relative to the whole country), it feels more anomalous that there aren't that many black people in that part of the country than that there aren't that many Jewish people.

[Epaminondas]

Besides the statistical aspect (base rate of Blacks is higher nationwide), it's probably inextricable from history that numbering the Jewish community has grim undertones.

There wouldn't really be a problem with any other group.

[Del Tachi]

Blacks and Jews are pretty different in that only one is a visible minority.