Skip to main content

On African-Americans and Progessivism

This is probably the most controversial piece I have written here to date. My observation is that African-Americans, despite being victims of racism and bigotry throughout their history, have shown to have views that promote social injustice in recent memory. Cases in point - racial profiling in post-9/11 world and their support for Proposition-8 in California.

Racial Profiling in Post-2001 world:
Right after the 9/11 tragedy, the U.S. as a whole was very fearful of all Arabs and Muslims. Ordinary Arab-Americans were being arrested and subject to detention and interrogation due to the suspicion that they may have links to terrorist organizations. The U.S. population was split on the legality and morality of the blatant racial profiling against Arab-Americans in the U.S. "According to a Gallup poll conducted shortly after 9/11, 71 percent of blacks, and 57 percent of whites, supported racial profiling of Arabs and South Asians at airport security checkpoints." [3] Considering African-Americans are victims of racial profiling, I would think they would take the more progressive stance of opposing racial profiling. There might be a more nuanced explanation for African-Americans support for racial profiling of Arabs, but on the surface, I see a contradiction.

Fast forward some 6-7 years and look at exit polls from California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in the state.
Support for Proposition-8 in California:
I am intellectually in support of gay marriage , but the whole idea of giving gay couple the right to adopt a baby makes me cringe. Consider two gay men raising a baby? I think women are especially equipped to raise children and it would not worry me as much if a lesbian couple were to adopt a baby. But, gay men ... that concerns me. A child needs a mother more than anything else.
My views on the matter aside, the relevant point here is that California's Proposition 8 passed, meaning the state's legalization of gay marriage after a court ruling months earlier was overturned by the people's referendum. The vote was close; some 47% for legalizing and 52% banning gay marriage. Apparently, Caucasians were split right in the middle, but some 70% of African-Americans and a similar number of Latinos voted in favor of banning gay marriage. Gay marriage is somewhat a question of social justice and equality. It is a cause people who suffered discrimination should ideally rally for. Once again, there is probably a more nuanced explanation why the difference races voted as they did on this issue. I can rattle of a few off the top of my head, but I will pass because I got better things to do.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Obama, McCain and Campaign Financing

Obama and McCain had at one point both agreed to take public financing in September 2007 if they were their respective party's nominee. At the time, they were both long shots to get their party's nomination, but oddly enough they have both made it to the general election. As for their promise to take public financing, McCain decided to keep his promise while Obama opted to finance his campaign through his own fundraising. In doing so, he became the first ever presidential candidate to forego public financing during the general election. In February 2008, McCain started criticizing Obama for not keeping his promise to take public financing. How legitimate are McCain's accusations? That's what I wanted to discuss. According to The New York Times campaign finance page , Obama and McCain raised $401m and ~$150m, respectively, prior to earning their party's nomination. The public financing package is $84m over two months (Sept-Nov). For McCain, whose averaged $7....

Correlation Between Taxes and Social/Economic Programs

I have always wondered if the taxes people pay correlate with the availability of social and economic programs and safety nets, not to mention the military programs that protect them. This idea comes in light of the notion that Europeans are highly taxed compared to their American counterparts, but they seem to have access to free (or almost free) education and health care while the US provides neither. The Europeans live and work at a more leisurely pace than Americans and they have the comfort of knowing that their government has put safety nets in case a disaster. The Europeans do a lot to ensure that all their citizens have comparable opportunities, and thus you are less likely to see a huge gap between the poor and the rich. Perhaps the lack of incentive to excel has stifled entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe to some extent. In fact, Europe has historically high unemployment rates than the US and the size of government there is significantly larger than that of the US....

2001 Recession Deferred for 2008?

Most people remember the Dot-Com bubble of the 1990s that peaked in 2000 before bursting in 2001-2003. Considering how the NASDAQ composite lost more than 60% of its value by 2001 alone, the country was about to go into a recession. The 9/11 attacks made things worse too. As the impact of 9/11 and Dot-Com bust were about to pull the country into a recession, another bubble came to the rescue. It was the housing bubble that deferred a sure recession and kept the US in an era of faux prosperity. It gave Bush a reason to soldier on with flawed economic policies as the housing bubble gave the impression that the good economic progress of the Clinton years were being sustained through Bush's years. This time though, there does not appear to be another bubble ready to bail the US out of the recession it is in. After suffering through the I.T. and housing bubbles in just a decade, I don't think investors and people in general will be adventurous enough to create another bubbl...