In response to an opinion piece by Michael Jacobs in today’s News & Observer.
Dear Mr. Jacobs,
I agree with you. I have no idea why the News & Observer would ask somebody who relies on straw men and hyperbole to write a monthly column. Like you, I don’t like extremes but I don’t like lazy pseudo-intellectual arguments, either. Maybe that’s the state of conservatism in the Age of Trump.
However, I can answer a few of your questions. You ask why “black people consistently vote for liberals in overwhelming numbers while they flee the state’s most liberal towns, Chapel Hill and Asheville.” Well, that’s several stupid questions bundled into one.
First, black people vote for Democrats today because your party invited the racist wing of the Democratic Party from the one-party South into your ranks fifty years ago and have pandered to them ever since. You began by running Republicans on segregationist platforms in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, your party perfected racial dog whistles and reinforced negative stereotypes with the rhetoric and imagery embodied in George H. W. Bush’s “Willie Horton” ad and Jesse Helms “Hands” ad.
And they haven’t stopped since. Once your party controlled the North Carolina legislature, it passed legislation that targeted African-Americans to make voting more difficult. Extreme gerrymandering packed black voters into too few districts to deny them any real political power. And finally, your party nominated Donald Trump for President of the United States, a man who has emboldened white supremacists, led the birther conspiracy that questioned Barack Obama’s citizenship and began his real estate career discriminating against minority renters. Few of your party’s elected officials will call him out. Is that due to cowardice? Do they quietly agree with the president? Or are they just willing tolerate his racist instincts to get the tax breaks and deregulation they want?
As for your question, why are African-Americans leaving Chapel Hill and Asheville, that’s simple. It’s becoming too expensive for them to live there. People have been moving to these areas because of the high quality of life associated with good schools, walkability, open space, public transportation, support for the arts, and access to institutions of higher learning. This influx of people has driven the price of real estate up because of supply and demand. Surely, you know about that.
Unfortunately, African-American wealth and income has failed to keep pace with that of the white, Asian and people of other ethnicities moving to the area. That’s a national problem and your party blames the victims. That’s why the GOP has consistently opposed programs like affirmative action designed to help right the wrongs imposed on black citizens. People like me believe systemic racism still exists and that 50 years is not enough time to reverse 450 years of government-sanctioned oppression and discrimination that denied black people opportunities and access to capital.
Black people, like the rest of us, vote their self interest. For most of them, the Republican Party is not an option, but a threat. The GOP has doubled down on the idea that it can win elections by garnering an increasing percentage of white non-college educated voters and they’re willing to pander to the racist subset of those voters to do it. The Party of Lincoln now has the support of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon David Duke and white nationalist Richard Spencer. The silence from the GOP leadership is deafening–and defining.
You asked the wrong question. It’s not why are black people voting for liberals. It’s why do Republicans continue to promote policies and politicians that alienate black people.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Well said.
Mr. Jacobs begins oh-so-many of his paragraphs with phrases like “I don’t understand why…”, I don’t understand how…”, “It makes no sense to me…”, I don’t understand how…”, “Nor do I see the logic…”, “I don’t get…”, “It escapes me…”, It doesn’t register..”, “It perplexes me…”, “I can’t comprehend why…”, “I can’t figure out why…”, Clearly, I am out of touch,” and “I have no idea.”
He’s truly made the most persuasive and compelling case. He’s convinced me that he’s clueless.
Being “white” is not an accomplishment–or is it for some people? For me, a close family member’s DNA test proved what I had suspected for some time: although I was raised as “white”, I’m simply one of the lighter-skinned members of a family that includes both European and African ancestors. My dad was one of two lighter-skinned siblings out of four: neither of the two with darker skin and/or features that suggested some African heritage had children. This was never discussed, so I don’t know whether the lack of children by the darker siblings was related to their skin color and other features that could be seen as African heritage. I wish now that I’d had the awareness (and the nerve) to ask more questions; but by the time I figured out that I likely had some African ancestors, my dad and his siblings were no longer living–and I suspect that raising the issue would have been troubling at best to my parents’ generation.
Over and over articles like Mr. Jacobs’s make the false claim that Asheville’s black population is diminishing. Mr. Mills repeats the incorrect assertion by “explaining” it.
Fact is, the percentage of African American people in Asheville has diminished as its overall population has increased, but the total number of black residents has stayed the same. That’s because virtually all the newcomers have been white, either wealthy retirees or young white college grads seeking opportunities in a liberal haven in the South.
Since 2000, the city’s population has increased by 24%. The city’s black population has remained the same, about 10,800, for years. That is now 12% of the total population of 89,000, compared with 15% of the 2000 population of 72,000. It’s a change in percentage, not numbers.
Also, black families have moved outside the city itself over the past 20 years, as the city became less affordable and opportunities to buy in surrounding communities — still in the county — improved.
But African Americans are NOT fleeing Asheville; at worst, they’re being pushed out by financial factors, but the numbers have remained stable.
Triggered! LOLOLOLOL Apparently he hit pretty close to home. Your usual puerile arguments fall on deaf ears! Speaking of dog whistles, your insinuation that African Americans can’t figure out how to vote is condescending and pedantic!
Perhaps I misunderstand your comment. Here is a direct quote from the article regarding African Americans and their voting. “Black people, like the rest of us, vote their self interest.” I am unable to find any other statement in the article relating directly to how African Americans vote and this is certainly not derogatory toward them.
His claim that those mean old republicans tried to make it harder to vote…. Full BS! It’s as i called it. “Once your party controlled the North Carolina legislature, it passed legislation that targeted African-Americans to make voting more difficult.” did you read the whole thing Norma?
Are you denying that the GOP gerrymandered districts to minimize black influence on our state and federal delegations, and that they targeted voting laws that specifically aimed at black voters “with the precision of a scalpel,” as was determined by the state’s Supreme Court?
Yes, I read the entire article. Just answer the question I asked — politely, which is more than you are doing. I see zero connection between the fact of gerrymandering by the GOP legislature, which clearly made voting more difficult for many, and the interpretation you have stated that the article is making. Figuring out how to vote (or who you want to vote for) and having the unfettered opportunity to do so are entirely different actions. Plenty of African Americans knew how to vote for several decades before it was a realistic choice in most parts of the South.
The alleged racial gerrymandering in NC was a result of the federal government and the federal courts interpreting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to require black majority legislative districts. This was the primary reason for racially gerrymandered districts and they were pre-approved by none other than the Obama Justice Department under the leadership of AG Eric Holder.
When liberals and Democrats realized that the requirement for majority minority districts, while assuring that African Americans would be elected to Congress and the NC General Assembly, had the effect of helping the Republican Party win legislative elections in other districts, they sought to reverse this legal strategy. .This is a great example of identify politics backfiring on the Democrats.
The notion that racially gerrymandering legislative districts were the result of Republican attempts to minimize black influence is pure political spin. The GOP drawn districts actually enhanced minority representation, while diluting Democratic voting strength in other districts.
Once Democrats realized that black majority districts have diluted their statewide voting strength, they have turned to liberal-dominated federal circuit courts to amend the majority-minority strategy to enhance Democratic voter strength in districts that don’t have a minority majority..