
Nate Silver: Does race affect votes? - rms
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/nate_silver_on_race_and_politics.html
======
amichail
Why is it ok for black people to vote for Obama because he is black? Isn't
that equally racist?

~~~
sachinag
You know that the Democratic party lost the south because of race? I mean,
Strom Thurmond, of all people, used to be a Democrat.

And Obama didn't lock up the black vote until white Iowans voted for him.
Hillary was winning the national black vote 2-1 until after he won the
caucuses. The evidence is pretty clear that black people don't just blindly
vote for other black people - they vote in their self-interest, and until
Obama seemed credible, their self-interest was to vote for Hillary.

~~~
omnivore
The parties flipped. Blacks were heavy Republican voters due to Lincoln until
the 1950s when it started to shift. Edward Brooke, the first black US Senator
since Reconstruction was a Massachusetts Republican.

Things didn't really shift until the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s were
passed, coupled with Great Society programs of Johnson, that put blacks in the
Democratic camp for good and sent Dixiecrats to the GOP.

~~~
aswanson
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy>

------
tokenadult
I guess I'll tell a story about what I had hoped would be the condition of the
world today. I'm a baby boomer, which is another way of saying that I'm a good
bit older than most people who post on Hacker News. I distinctly remember the
day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated--the most memorable day of
early childhood for many people in my generation--and I remember the "long hot
summer" and other events of the 1960s civil rights movement.

One early memory I have is of a second grade classmate (I still remember his
name, which alas is just common enough that it is hard to Google him up) who
moved back to Minnesota with his northern "white" parents after spending his
early years in Alabama. He told me frightening stories about Ku Klux Klan
violence to black people (the polite term in those days was "Negroes"),
including killing babies, and I was very upset to hear about that kind of
terrorism happening in the United States. He made me aware of a society in
which people didn't all treat one another with decency and human compassion,
unlike the only kind of society I was initially aware of from growing up where
I did. So I followed subsequent news about the civil rights movement,
including the activities of Martin Luther King, Jr. up to his assassination,
with great interest.

It happens that I had a fifth-grade teacher, a typically pale, tall, and
blonde Norwegian-American, who was a civil rights activist and who spent her
summers in the south as a freedom rider. She used to tell our class about how
she had to modify her car (by removing the dome light and adding a locking gas
cap) so that Klan snipers couldn't shoot her as she opened her car door at
night or put foreign substances into her gas tank. She has been a civil rights
activist all her life, and when I Googled her a few years ago and regained
acquaintance with her, I was not at all surprised to find that she is a member
of the civil rights commission of the town where I grew up.

One day in fifth grade we had a guest speaker in our class, a young man who
was then studying at St. Olaf College through the A Better Chance (ABC)
affirmative action program. (To me, the term "affirmative action" still means
active recruitment of underrepresented minority students, as it did in those
days, and I have always thought that such programs are a very good idea, as
some people have family connections to selective colleges, but many other
people don't.) During that school year (1968-1969), there was a current
controversy in the United States about whether the term "Negro" or "Afro-
American" or "black" was most polite. So a girl in my class asked our visitor,
"What do you want to be called, 'black' or 'Afro-American'?" His answer was,
"I'd rather be called Henry." Henry's answer to my classmate's innocent
question really got me thinking.

It's quite disappointing to me that there are still as many Americans as there
are who classify their fellow human beings into Procrustean beds of "race"
categories, especially now that it is known that human races have essentially
nil biological significance. But it is progress that the United States has
elected a President who has traceable African ancestry and "black" appearance.
My late father said back in the 1990s, when Colin Powell was mulling a run for
President, that it would be a good idea for America to elect a black president
to begin to get over this issue. Even after Obama's election, I still saw
ridiculous commentary such as the statement that Obama is the first President
not of northern European ancestry--completely neglecting his ancestry through
his mother, Ann Dunham. Maybe someday we will get used to the idea of viewing
our fellow human beings as our fellow human beings, period, but I'm appalled
that it is taking so long.

~~~
space_cowboy
>"especially now that it is known that human races have essentially nil
biological significance"

Citation? Your doctor isn't going to screen you for sickle cell if you're
white.

As far as I know, race correlates with genetic isolation of ancestral groups,
and there are differences between races.

Researchers looking for genetic diseases are careful to choose a mixture of
races in their control sample.

I agree that people shouldn't be treated differently in civil society based on
their race, and who doesn't? But they should certainly be treated differently
based on their race by their doctors.

Race may become less significant in the future if more genetic mixture occurs
with globalization. But for now, to say it has no biological significance
sounds like wishful thinking.

Edit: I make some stronger claims here than I was ready to defend specifically
with citations and literature. I overstate my case. However, to the extent of
my current knowledge, you can tell where someone's ancestors came from solely
by looking at their DNA, and I know that some diseases are more prevalent in
people with certain ancestry. That suggests to me that there are distinct
genetic lineages in the human population. As far as I know, "race is
biologically meaningless" is a stretch.

However, it is true that the popular social conception of race is very
different from any biologically defensible conception thereof. For example, a
person with significant African ancestry in America is considered "black",
even if that person also has significant ancestry from other places.

Saying that race is meaningless sounds to me like saying "there are no large
phenotypically distinct subgroups in the human population". I think that is
simply wrong.

Since "race" is such a socially charged word, perhaps it should be dropped and
replaced with another word.

~~~
tokenadult
_Your doctor isn't going to screen you for sickle cell if you're white._

Another reply has already shown the error of thinking that the sickle cell
trait is confined to populations identified as "white." It is not. What is
your proposed definition of races on biological grounds, and what is your
citation for a scientific consensus on that?

See

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Fruit-Sides-Wrong-
Debate/dp/...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strange-Fruit-Sides-Wrong-
Debate/dp/185168588X)

for citations to recent primary research literature backing up the statement
that "race" as now construed in society has very little medical usefulness.
The author is a neurobiologist.

~~~
space_cowboy
I agree that race is a social construct to some degree. For example, in
America a person is considered "black" if he has one parent of African
ancestry and one parent of European ancestry. However, I am not sure that the
idea that "race is biologically meaningless" is defensible. I hope it is. But
I wonder what we tell ourselves if the evidence says that it's not.

I know you can tell where a person's ancestors recently came from based on
their DNA, and that there are certainly distinct genetic lineages in the human
population.

I am open to reading more literature and articles on the subject. I am merely
stating that according to the extent of my current knowledge, the idea that
"race is meaningless" is suspect.

------
occam
Wrong. The most rural and white states in the country voted more for Obama
than Kerry. Look at Montana, the Dakotas, Vermont, etc.

The people of Appalachia voted for McCain for the same reason blacks voted so
heavily for Obama. He is one of their own in a way that Kerry was not. McCain
is beligerent two fisted Scots Irish.
[http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/11/mccain-scots-irish-
champi...](http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/11/mccain-scots-irish-
champion.html)

~~~
rsheridan6
He was also using 1996 as his reference year. Clinton was also one of
Appalachia/Ozarkia's own in a way that neither Obama nor Kerry were.

~~~
occam
Yes, why did he choose 1996? 2004 is the more obvious choice.

~~~
rsheridan6
Because it fit his hypothesis better?

