Reddest states, whitest states, blackest states, and scapegoats

[carolinayellowdog]

Having found a recent study reported in Politico that defined the 10 reddest and bluest states, I decided to look at the 50 states in terms of largest and smallest black percentages. Here is how the three compare:

Reddest
1. Utah
2. Wyoming
3. Idaho
4. North Dakota
5. Nebraska
6. Kansas
7. Alabama
8. Montana
9. Alaska
10. Oklahoma

Whitest
1. Montana
2. Idaho
3. Maine
4. Vermont
5. North Dakota
6. South Dakota
7. New Hampshire
8. Wyoming
9. Utah
10. Oregon

Blackest
1. Mississippi
2. Louisiana
3. South Carolina
4. Georgia
5. Maryland
6. Alabama
7. North Carolina
8. Virginia
9. Delaware
10. Tennessee

So, let's check the overlap. Half of the reddest are among the 10 whitest: UT, WY, ID, ND, MT. Only one of the reddest is among the blackest: AL. Now which states get routinely blamed for the persistence of redness in US national politics, in regional flamefests? The old confederacy, 8 of whose members are among the 10 blackest. (on edit-- Two of the blackest, Maryland and Delaware, are among the 10 bluest.)

I submit that when a group of people, consistently over many years, chooses to rage against the blackest states for the sins of the whitest, under the guise that they hate the reddest, when the reddest are in fact the whitest, there is some kind of bias involved. As a few southerners have protested largely in vain, "I would love to be in a different country than you" doesn't get directed at cowboys in the Great Plains, but entirely at places full of poor black people, whenever there is a regional flamefest.

Of course they never say "I hate southern blacks just as much as the whites." I could kinda respect the honesty were they to say "my rage against rednecks is so blind that I'm willing to sacrifice millions of poor blacks as collateral damage." But they don't even acknowledge that there are any black people in the south who might be harmed by the redrawing of borders.

[Voice for Peace]

1. big rec!

I'm sure you understand the leftover persistent
bias toward the South -- but these facts are very
helpful, and your OP is valuable.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Source link? nt

[carolinayellowdog]

3. link, sorry

Had posted this in a thread the other day. Did not look much at the bluest but think VT is among the bluest and the whitest.

[cali]

5. Yes, Vermont is blue, but there is no registration by party in Vermont

so I don't know how they determine party affiliation. Further complicated by the fact that we have a viable third party- the Vermont Progressive Party which has representative in both the VT house and senate and then there's the fact that one of our U.S. Senators is an Independent.

Vermont supported Obama by a greater margin in both 2008 and 2012 than any other state bar HI- and D.C.

[cali]

4. not that I don't think you have a point but I've seen different

ratings of reddest states. Furthermore that goes by how people are registered not how they vote.

Anyway, I think these kind of divisions are counterproductive- whether it's slamming the South or the Great Plains states or any other region. Sure there's a lot of frustration about what's coming out of some states, and I share that frustration, and yes, some regions are clearly more progressive and less prone to terrible law making than others. But lots of awful legislation is coming out of states like Michigan and Wisconsin as well as the usual suspects.

[carolinayellowdog]

8. red/blue statistics are a lot iffier than white/black, granted

The Politico study deserves a bigger grain of salt than the Census stats. What most rankles me as a Virginian is that since I joined here in 2002 we've gone twice for Obama and elected two Democratic Senators, the blame-everyone-south-of-the-Potomac mentality seems to persist. Same with Florida for that matter. You were helpful in those regional threads, and a lot of foolish stuff has been said lately about racism and answered very well. But racial bias is something we all have, idiosyncratically and in ways we're not aware of. I guess my OP is a vain attempt to educate some of the people who have piled on about the South whenever "red states" gets waved like a red flag.

[tularetom]

6. I get your point and there is some validity to it, however

it seems like a lot of the dumbest white politicians come from the blackest states.

And two of the states with the smartest politicians (Vermont, Oregon) are among the whitest.

And Texas doesn't appear on any of the list and probably has the dumbest group of politicians of them all.

[LonePirate]

9. You ignore the problem that the blackest states are not represented according to their population.

Almost all of the blackest states have populations which are much larger than almost all of the reddest states. As such, there is only one reddest state with more than eight electoral votes whereas eight of the blackest states have eight or more electoral votes. Also, more states listed in the whitest category have Dem (or Dem aligned) US Senators than states in the blackest list.

I'm not shouting for the South to split off from the rest of the progressive parts of the country; but that region is the focus of the power of the regressive Republican party in both Congress and in the state capitals in this country. If the South voted according to their population, this country wouldn't be as screwed up as it is. I say this as a resident of one of those reddest states outside of the South which can be just as fucked up and worthy of scorn as the Republican's power base states in the South.

[carolinayellowdog]

11. a lot of variables went unmentioned but I wasn't quite ignoring them

the Civil War being the pretext for almost all the regional divisiveness even now. What's most scary to me at this point isn't that Republicans can reclaim the Senate, or an electoral advantage in presidential elections, but that redistricting gave them a solid lock on the house and now they're doing crazy things in state legislatures. And there the redness of the heartland is very worrisome.
The recent awful news from Raleigh may not scare people all across the country, but when Lansing, Des Moines, Harrisburg, and Madison of all places are sites of major Republican mischief, who anywhere can feel safe?

[dsc]

10. I have some pretty large problems with methodology here

In many southern states there is still a significant percentage of voters who ID as Democrat but rarely vote that way and don't believe in Democratic ideals. Any list of reddest states which includes Montana and North Dakota where we have two Democratic senators and in Montana a Democratic governor but excludes states such as MS, SC, and TX where we can't win statewide elections to save our souls, strikes me as rather suspect.

[carolinayellowdog]

12. looking for the 2012 presidential vote rankings but here is a link about most and least educated

No real surprises here. So we could say the bias expressed in regionalism is in part the disdain of the more educated for the less educated. Which leaves a Virginian feeling, "if seventh best educated and fifth wealthiest etc. etc. and first elected black governor of the 20th century doesn't take us off your shitlist, what will?"

[dsc]

13. well you could try not having the most anti gay laws and officials you can find

that might help. I think VA has gone a long way and this election will tell just how far. If the current GOP ticket gets a majority of the vote, then frankly VA will have a lot of explaining to do.

[carolinayellowdog]

15. one thing people may not realize about McDonnell

I am almost sixty and in a NC media market and know that Democrats and Republicans alike have been constantly getting into legal and financial scandals for many years in that state. But as a lifelong Virginia voter, have never heard one whisper, one hint of financial impropriety about any governor of either party -- and now this McDonnell crap just gets deeper and deeper, making us a national laughingstock. Can't believe Cuccinelli can prevail after the Republicans have so humiliated the state on the national stage.

[carolinayellowdog]

14. margin of Obama victory by state, 2012 and 2008

agreeing that we need alternative ways of looking at "reddest" and "bluest" states, I think this site gives a good visual. Scroll down to margin of victory by state in 2012 and 2008. By this measure reddest in 2012 weree
1. Utah
2. Wyoming
3. Oklahoma
4. Idaho
5. West Virginia
6. Arkansas
7. Nebraska
8. Kentucky
9. Alabama
10. Kansas

with bluest being
1. Hawaii
2. Vermont
3. Rhode Island
4. New York
5. Maryland
6. Massachusetts
7. California
8. Delaware
9. Connecticut
10. New Jersey

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. What a revelation!

I like the way to you imply that southern blacks are included in the big happy family of the south. Some of us have real experience and recognize the BS you are attempting to pass off.

Some of us know that the racism found in such Democratic bastions as Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, etc., is at least as virulent and pervasive, if not more so, as than that found in the south.

And a few of us are "self-hating race traitors" that would prefer to live in a southern black community than among the tight-assed, thin-lipped, hypocritical, back-stabbing pieces of all-too-pale excrement that smile in your face and vote for the candidate that promises to keep things as they are in the privacy of the voting booth.

[Jamastiene]

17. I have noticed that before, especially when looking at a population map of the entire country.

There is a large AA population in the south. The thing is, the people who hate white southerners and the south, in general, don't want to hear it, don't care, and will not quit hating us even if that is pointed out. They have a preconceived notion that all white southerners are sitting around looking into the sun, playing dueling banjos, having sex with our brothers or sisters, sewing new white sheets, building burnable crosses, plotting the next major civil war for America, and wishing we could have a couple dozen slaves and that's all she wrote. Nice try, but we can't win. They will always hate us and blame us for everything that is wrong with the country. Never mind the fact that some of the reddest states in the country are not even in the south. It's still all our fault. We are shit in their eyes and there is nothing that can change that. Never mind how fucking hard it is to be a Democrat in the southeast. Never mind how hard it is for us to get Democrats elected in southern states, because the Republicans are notorious for gerrymandering the districts to their advantage (like my district that was majority Democratic Party but now has been redistricted to be mostly Republican).

They are going to hate us no matter what you bring up. Nice try though.

[Behind the Aegis]

21. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

[cordelia]

34. Yep.

But I do appreciate the attempt.

[rrneck]

18. This is an interesting sentence.

I submit that when a group of people, consistently over many years, chooses to rage against the blackest states for the sins of the whitest, under the guise that they hate the reddest, when the reddest are in fact the whitest, there is some kind of bias involved.

I think you might be confusing correlation with causation. Check out this map.



Check out the exurbs around major population centers. There's your conflict.

Nobody ever called me a statistician, and if they did I might even take offense. But I wonder how many people in those exhurbs qualify for the title petite bourgeois? The real money is still on the east and west coast, but the pretenders to the throne have their fiefdoms surrounding clusters of poor. Most don't know it yet, but they are in the process of getting screwed by the royalty on the coasts, but in the meantime the culture wars pitting red against blue and white against black diverts attention from the only color that matters: green.

[carolinayellowdog]

19. Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, Philadelphia even

have major red rings around them. Red exurbia vs. blue inner city is really striking-- I'd have assumed the Republican voters in Wisconsin were in the rural western and northern parts but it's clearly Milwaukee suburbia/exurbia that's the stronghold. This is a national pattern; thanks for pointing it out so vividly.

[HiPointDem]

20. I notice you didn't put the 'bluest' states in your list -- because that would undermine your

hypothesis.

Bluest:

[carolinayellowdog]

24. Your list came up blank but I already mentioned two of these and gave another "bluest" list (#14)

my hypothesis was entirely about who gets blamed for redness, to which the bluest list was not directly relevant but here goes:
1. DC
2. Hawaii
3. Maryland
4. Rhode Island
5. New York
6. Massachusetts
7. Connecticut
8. Vermont
9. Illinois
10. Delaware

not reacting to your accusation of intellectual dishonesty other than to note I felt it

[HiPointDem]

25. i can see the list perfectly well in the post.

[carolinayellowdog]

26. all I see is the word "bluest"-- strange

Last edited Sat Jun 22, 2013, 05:42 PM - Edit history (1)

stranger yet, now it's there-- anyhow I was certainly not trying to hide anything, linked to two sets of red/blue stats, typed out three of the four, plus the white/black lists, done a lot of typing in this thread

[Heddi]

31. it doesn't show up for me, either

I even tried highlighting to make sure it wasn't a text color error, but all I see is "bluest" and then a big wall of blank...??

[Eleanors38]

35. Found big blanks in Gallup surveys as well...

Not just in this instance, but in other polls where graphs & trend lines should be there are only big white blanks.

[ZombieHorde]

22. I live in Montana. There aren't many black people in this region.

I don't know very much about "race" relations and racism because it's not really discussed here. Racists have little reason to expose themselves. I didn't even know about the watermelon stereotype thing until Obama was elected President, and I saw a picture of watermelons being grown in the White House lawn. I didn't get it at all, and the picture had to be explained to me by my fellow DUers.

The only things I really know about race in the US comes from DU, the writings of MLK, and the book "Black Power."

[SoCalDem]

23. Percentages vs total population

Last edited Sun Jun 23, 2013, 01:29 PM - Edit history (2)

All of the "reddest-whitest" by population

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/state-census-population-migration-births-deaths-estimates.html

2855287
576412
1595728
699628
1855525
2885905
4822023
1004141
731449
3814820
total................20,841,918....total Electoral college totals.........................49

1005141
1595728
1329192
626011
699628
833354
1320718
576412
2855287
3899353
total..................14,740,824...total Electoral college totals.........................40



http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html
Los Angeles, CA.......................3,857,799
San Diego, CA............................1,338,348
San Francisco, CA.......................825,863
New York City, NY.....................8,336,697
Philadelphia, PA..........................1,547,607
Chicago, IL..................................2,714,856
San Jose, CA.................................982,765
Austin TX........................................842,592
total.....................................................................20,446,527....8 CITIES...5 states (4 blue/1 red)

Between the two red/white , lists there are 15 unique states with total EC votes of....63

30 totals Senators from both lists total...................How many DEMS? ... a pitiful few

and the gerrymandering in those states add a significant number of tea-party/republican obstructionists to the house..

[Jarla]

27. Does religion possibly play a role in this regional divisiveness?

There's a Gallup poll from 2008 that suggests that the states with the highest percentages of residents who are religious are mostly in the South, the so-called Bible Belt.

And my impression is that people who aren't especially religious sometimes really dislike people who are, or at least they're not particularly fond of Christian conservatives.

[carolinayellowdog]

30. even though Mormons are just as conservative as Southern Baptists

I will grant you that Virginia evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have done more to make people hate the Christian Right than anyone out West; especially awful that Robertson's the son of a US senator.

South Louisiana, I think, deserves and gets some slack for its sinfulness and Catholicism contrasted to the Bible Belt that surrounds them.

[DirkGently]

28. Interesting. Undermines the bizarre rage against "the South" quite a bit.

[carolinayellowdog]

29. The great remigration has already done a lot for VA,FL,NC and can help turn GA,SC, TX blue

This article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gives us all cause for hope for the future of southern states now red turning blue, yes, even Texas, although one wonders if Michigan has been rendered more vulnerable to Republicans by the same migration patterns:

This reversal fits within a larger demographic shift among Americans in general, who are moving from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. But the new black migration is nevertheless significant: Not only could it portend major changes to the nation's politics; it also testifies to the liberal North's failure to integrate African-Americans into the mainstream. As historian Walter Russell Mead has observed, that failure is "the most devastating possible indictment of the 20th century liberal enterprise in the United States."
The New York Times noticed in the early 1970s that, for the first time, more blacks were moving from the North to the South than vice versa. Last year, the Times described the South's share of black population growth as "about half the country's total in the 1970s, two-thirds in the 1990s and three-quarters in the decade that just ended."
Many of the migrants are "buppies" -- young, college-educated, upwardly mobile black professionals -- and older retirees. Over the last two decades, according to the Census, the states with the biggest gains in black population have been Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Texas and Florida. New York, Illinois and Michigan have seen the greatest losses. Today, 57 percent of American blacks live in the South -- the highest percentage in a half-century.
Much of the migration has been urban-to-urban. During the first decade of this century, according to Brookings Institution demographer Bill Frey, the cities making the biggest gains in black population were Atlanta, Dallas and Houston. Meanwhile, New York City's black population fell by 67,709, Chicago's by 58,225, Detroit's by 37,603.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/the-great-reverse-migration-african-americans-are-abandoning-the-northern-cities-that-have-failed-them-655514/#ixzz2Wz2N2te0

[Bluenorthwest]

32. Reddest States, Straightest States....I see the nation as two sets of States, good and bad.

The 29 States that allow open discrimination against LGBT people. And the good States.
While not all of the anti gay States are in the South, there is not one Southern State that is not among those 29. There are maps at this link.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/10/18/1042061/less-than-half-of-us-workers-are-protected-from-anti-lgbt-discrimination-under-state-law/

[carolinayellowdog]

33. which of those "reds" is a possible win for anti-discrimination, to become a good state?

I look at the red states by that definition and see a brick wall in terms of "who's next?" Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan? They're less dominated by religion than most of the others, as noted in a link somewhere upthread, but their state politics don't seem promising.

Maryland and Delaware are exemplary in ways I didn't realize until seeing how they come out in various rankings, and it was true again with your link.