Black Flight from San Francisco
John Marzan ·
May 7, 2011 at 12:06pm
Michigan and Illinois to southern states. Hmmm, if African Americans are leaving black-majority neighborhoods in droves, will this force current Black Dem elected officials to appeal to voters outside their race ala Allen West and Herman Cain?
Will this be the "end of identity politics based on racial lines?" asks Richard Fernandez.
- Open thread: will demographic trends coupled with mobility eventually mean the end of identity politics based on racial lines? When does a black “multicultural” candidate essentially become just another politician in which ethnic identity means little or nothing in comparison with his economic and policy positions? Will the Democratic “Big Tent” need re-architecturing? What will the impact of these shifts be on the Republican Party? Granted that these are long-term trends, what will these developments mean for 2012?
Uhm... but what about the Latino vote? Prime example: California
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Not to worry. Republican politicians will cravenly continue to accede to racial gerrymandering, under the mandates of the Voting Rights Act. Black Congressmen will continue to enjoy electoral immunity as they steadily climb the seniority ladder.
Edited on May 6, 2011 at 7:08pmJan '11
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Is "Black Flight" a variation of "acting white"?
Unfortunately, fleeing blacks will, like their white urban predecessors, bring their Democrat liberalism with them. In fact, freed from the immediate fear of urban violence and the daily disgust at urban squalor, these middle-class blacks will become even more liberal Democrat than they had been. (See Vermont)
It's wonderful to be a Democrat when there are no immediate consequences for such stupidity; when instead stupidity is rewarded. (See 90% of the university towns in the US)
Until Republicans are willing to confront and help to solve the real problems of inner city America, rather than abandoning those places to the tender mercies of the Democrat Party, they will cravenly accede to gerrymandering. After all, by ignoring their fellow countrymen and refusing to fight for them Republicans will have shown themselves to be craven.
Preaching virtue from afar and tossing vouchers at single moms ain't good enough.
Let me know when an Allen West gets elected from Camden or East St. Louis.
Oct '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Freesmith:
Until Republicans are willing to confront and help to solve the real problems of inner city America, rather than abandoning those places to the tender mercies of the Democrat Party, they will cravenly accede to gerrymandering. After all, by ignoring their fellow countrymen and refusing to fight for them Republicans will have shown themselves to be craven.
they need to get elected first.
Oct '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
John Marzan
Freesmith:
Until Republicans are willing to confront and help to solve the real problems of inner city America, rather than abandoning those places to the tender mercies of the Democrat Party, they will cravenly accede to gerrymandering. After all, by ignoring their fellow countrymen and refusing to fight for them Republicans will have shown themselves to be craven.
they need to get elected first. · May 6 at 8:17pm
If you genuinely believe that the GOP can win the black community by being "compassionate conservatives", then you have already lost. [Comment has been redacted by an editor]
The saddest part of the above is that the black community has produced some genuinely superior leaders. Allen West and Herman Caine will happily get my vote, but the pathologically addicted black community will not support them.
Edited on May 7, 2011 at 12:15pmNov '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Good post, John Marzan!
Jan '11
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Yes, John, Republicans need to get elected first. And what, pray tell, will be the platform and policies that they need to advocate to get elected?
Enterprise zones? Faith-based initiatives? Urban renewal?
Open your eyes. It is the lack of any realistic policy that addresses the problems and concerns of the black and Latino inner-cities that characterizes the conservative approach to them, and which results in no approach at all.
Read all about it. Check out the Republican parties of Philadelphia, Camden, Newark, or Detroit. Don't worry: you won't have to spend much time researching.
No ideas. Utter bankruptcy, unless you consider moralistic posturing a program.
"They need to get elected first." What a joke! Let's put the cart before the horse and then complain that we're not making any progress.
Jan '11
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Raycon
I won't comment on your ideas concerning our fellow Americans in the black community. I'm sure that you can defend them, and the language.
I will, however, ask where you ever got the idea that I propose "compassionate conservative" solutions to the social problems of America's inner-cities? Certainly not from anything you read above.
But here's something I've posted before:
"What the Republican Party should do in order to make real inroads into America's urban wastes - wastes deliberately created by Democrats - is to promote freedom and responsibility.
"And a major plank in that platform should be the end of the interminable, ineffectual and counter-productive Drug War, a war which like all other wars always benefits the state.
"The black church produces fine grandmothers. Republicans should appeal instead to black men. And the first way we will do that is by taking the boot of the Drug War - and all it engenders - off the necks of young black men."
That may be compassionate, but not in the knee-jerk way that you probably meant.
Jul '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
A few thoughts:
1. Blacks take their politics with them. Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who hails from Queens, New York, regularly receives close to 100% of the black vote in her district. Many of those black voters migrated to Houston.
2. Since the civil rights era, the portion of blacks who are solidly in the middle class has risen from a tiny percentage to something around 30 percent. One would have expected some of these people to change party identification, yet the numbers haven't budged.
3. People on the lower rungs of the economic ladder are highly susceptible to demagoguery - they want to hear that their status is someone else's fault. You cannot sell conservatism with demagoguery.
4. Many blacks enjoy being represented by roguish characters who proudly stick it to the white man. How else to explain that there have been three Black Panthers elected to Congress, or the election of Alcee Hastings, an impeached Federal judge?
5. Notwithstanding all of the above, Democrats do fear the exceptional conservative black politician: beginning the day after the November election, they've been feverishly organizing and fundraising to defeat Allen West next time around.
Dec '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
The irony of liberals moving to red states from the blight generated by the policies they supported and voted for is so pungent it would exceed even the genius of Alfred Hitchcock.
May '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Yes. And the ironic stupidity of it is that even after their move they will continue to support and continue to vote for those same destructive policies.
Jan '11
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Black voters are no different than white voters. Because of their particular history blacks have a greater trust in the central government, and for its partisans. Whites of the “Leave Us Alone” school of conservatism find that trust almost impossible to fathom – and it shows.
Also, as a formerly persecuted minority many blacks find assertiveness bracing. Who wouldn’t?
And BTW, what percentage was roguish Trump receiving in recent GOP Presidential polls?
I’m glad Allen West and Tim Scott are Republicans. But West’s FL-22 is 83% white and Scott’s SC-1 is 75% white. They are symbols of white voting preferences, not avatars of a new black electorate. They would fare in a minority district as well as Reverend Stephen Broden did in TX-30.
That’s what I meant by “Let me know when an Allen West gets elected in Camden.” The victory of a conservative black in an inner-city district will mean that someone has learned to appeal to the history and sensitivities of American blacks. It will mean he has joined conservative principles to a program that makes a real difference in the lives and dreams of our black brothers and sisters.
Jan '11
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Remember, folks, the program comes before the presence.
You don't get elected and then figure out what you're going to do (unless you're Robert Redford in "The Candidate"). You develop a platform and take it to the voters in order to get elected.
Align conservative libertarian principles with the sensibilities of black Americans, for whom the time of oppression is as real as a conversation with grandma or an old yellowed photograph.
But don't succumb to moralizing. First, it's condescending and turns people off. Second, it's not the job of politicians to preach virtue. Who's going to believe them on that subject, anyway?
Politicians are engineers of the government and black Americans want the government to help them. Republicans and conservatives have to devise programs that reward good behavior. Just as importantly, we have to be neutral on behavior that we haven't been able to change.
De-criminalize drugs. Have faith in the goodness and sense of your fellow citizens. Eliminate the appeal of the drug millionaire to up-and-coming black and Hispanic youth. Take the boot off their necks. Eliminate the jail culture.
Automatically you will elevate work and prudence.
Oct '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
I don't know, but if Americans are tired of identity politics (or being called racist for 4 more years), then the first step is to NOT re-elect Obama.
May '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
The "black community" is a kind of low-trust society within the larger society. Democracy doesn't work very well in low-trust societies because people vote along tribal lines, not based on general issues. In other words they don't think "What's best for my society" but rather, "What's best for my extended family."
Dec '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
For sure.
And they have a good opportunity to retake his district given the demographics, and in spite of the honor, integrity, and character of a new citizen-warrior-legislator worthy of legend.
His neighbor in the coterminous district, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was appointed Chairman of the DNC tasked with the highest priority of defeating him.
Money will spill across their jaggedly gerrymandered avenues and streets with the storm surge-like fury of a Democrat Party scorned.
Dec '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
I think it's even less examined than that. It's simply reflexive. Look at the defeat of the Mayor of DC who was engaging in real school reform.
Ultimately, if you see society as being one step away from destroying you, you will associate with whomever you perceive to be on your side, even if they exploit, oppress and lie to you.
Dec '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
Charles Gordon
For sure.
And they have a good opportunity to retake his district given the demographics, and in spite of the honor, integrity, and character of a new citizen-warrior-legislator worthy of legend.
His neighbor in the coterminous district, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was appointed Chairman of the DNC tasked with the highest priority of defeating him.
Money will spill across their jaggedly gerrymandered avenues and streets with the storm surge-like fury of a Democrat Party scorned. · May 7 at 7:45pm
Does this analysis reflect redistricting?
Dec '10
Re: Black Flight from San Francisco
A state constitutional amendment passed in 2010, with 62.9% in approval, mandating standards for the pending congressional redistricting.
Within 24 hours, lawsuits raged, the most prominent of which was filed in collaboration by two Washington congressmen representing Cuban and black districts, respectively, in order to protect the racial identity status quo of their districts (they were silent on their expectation of ensuring their incumbency and furthering their power from seniority—were unions used as a model for congress, or congress for unions?).
Their reasoning caused no surprise in its appeal to collective harmony: Why create mixed districts in which every federally funded building project would only generate disputes in naming rights and design—like Ground Zero for nearly 10 years?
Why not have only districts of exemplary demographic purity in which federal funds can be used to build projects to which each congressman can attach his own name?
Career politicians have great respect for the path of least resistance.
However this redistricting debacle turns out, DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's impugning the decency of her neighbor Allen West will be a spectacle if only for her self-abasement in conformity with her caricature of the loathsome politician.