Pols 306- Politics of Race & Ethnicity midterm pt1

Posted On 2021-04-17

Ah, the good stuff. Race & ethnicity. And you thought perhaps I sounded condescending before, the guy commenting on rape culture? Ha. There are few things in this world more ridiculous than a white guy talking about racial issues. Tall people, perhaps- they’re pretty bonkers. But this was the second class with the essay-heavy professor, so there’s a LOT of whitesplaining going on. Also more than a fair share of typos. Only a handful of clarity revisions in these first two answers, lots of simple butterfingers…

1. Discuss the similarities and differences among the minority groups we have examined (African-American, Native American, Latino-American, Asian-American) in terms of partisanship, ideology, and perceptions of discrimination. Explain how understanding the differences and similarities in these three political dimensions gives insight into their voting behaviors.

All of America’s most numerous minorities have experienced roadblocks as a people in achieving their respective present status. African Americans and Native Americans were present first as less than people; either servant labor or noble savage. Absent citizenship, their civil rights were precluded in plain legislative text written by the White majority to protect their own prospects. Later with paths to citizenship in hand, Jim Crow-minded laws would marginalize them and Mexican Americans as well. Property would come at unobtainable cost, leaving wealth beyond reach. Progress would come only in steps- the 14^th Amendment (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 143) here, Worcester v Georgia (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 50) there. With the global change of World War, Asian Americans would come to experience the political bent towards imminent domain. After their laborers helped to build the West, the first full generation of immigrants was caught up in a jingoistic fervor and saw thousands of families corralled around at the government’s will. 

Coming into each set of circumstances in their own way has shaped their impressions of America’s democracy and their relationship to it. The experience of Native Americans goes as far back as that of Black Americans, but their status as a largely frontier “Other” allowed their society to be acted upon more indiscriminately for a greater length of time. Setting aside the quality of experiences, Blacks have grown in number and influence while Natives occupy the margins of a nation they once “owned”.  Unable to speak with as loud a political voice, as of 2010 they held only 77 elected seats nationwide, to 17,242 held by Black, Latino, or Asian officials (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 247). The dissatisfaction of Black Americans on the other hand is clear in the public consciousness with the social media immediacy of the Black Lives Matter movement (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 288). Effectively muted by quantitative measures of population and income but cautioned by centuries of stalemate, Natives lack both enthusiasm for the socially-reforming Democrats, and disdain for the property-respecting Republicans. As of 2012, only 28% of Native Americans identified as conservative-leaning, but only 19% identified as liberal (McClain & Carew, 2018, pg. 90).

Mexican Americans were granted citizenship by treaty (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 131), so as a community they never had to face the weight of a nation insisting they didn’t belong. Their presence in America was as an unwelcome younger brother, and so bigger and stronger White America gladly took their stuff (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 132). This economic barrier would come to inform their felt sense of discrimination. As citizens, Mexican Americans had a privilege to protect and would develop a more conservative-leaning ideology. As of 2006, 35.4% of Mexican Americans identified as conservative, and only 23.3% identified as liberal (McClain & Carew, 2018, pg. 87).  

These circumstances are not necessarily causative Point A-to-Point B determinations, but notable connections. Ideologies do not necessarily translate cleanly into voting practices. Black voters supported Barack Obama more strongly in 2008 than they did Hillary Clinton in 2016 despite near-identical platforms (McClain & Carew, 2018, pg. 141). This difference may have been a function of some other attribute of the candidates, or it may have been due to Obama’s 8 years in office dampening the passion of their discontent. Alternately, while only 23.3% of Mexican Americans identified as liberal, 55.7% identified as members of the Democratic Party. (McClain & Carew, 2018, pg. 98)

The predictive nature of any correlations is limited by these complexities. What does appear predictable is that disadvantaged minorities will work towards parity with the resources and opportunities available to Whites. That socioeconomic pursuit, common to Black, Asian, and Native Americans, is a trend that may not be universally predictive for all disadvantaged groups.

By way of an example, the economic status of Asian Americans sets them apart as an outlier. Their perceptions of discrimination are fixed to within a short span of time, compared to the many generations of discrimination experienced by others. Immigration law effectively barred their migration, and the grievous injury of Executive Order 9066 (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 179) was within the first full wave’s lifetimes. Culturally, these obstacles did not become formative to the experience of Asian Americans as slavery had to Blacks. The wealth of this group sets them apart from all groups with respect to comparison. As the only group that exceeds the income of Whites, minus a foundational grievance their views are being formed independent of economic White pursuit or White protectionism. To our insight, economic goals cleared would suggest a demographic in a position to prioritize their support for ideologies promising their own preferred social outcomes. Without supposing any specific causation, the data does not rule out the possibility. Per the voting data provided by Shaw et al., Presidential election votes by Asian Americans as recent as 1992 supported the economy-associated Republican candidate, 55% to the social-associated Democrat, 31%. By 2016, 65% of Asian Americans would support the Democratic candidate, to 28% support for the Republican (2019, pg. 118). To be sure, 2016 was an unconventional election and any number of factors may have swayed the preference of Asian Americans. But the question is instructive. Is it possible for the White electorate to possess the wherewithal to understand something that isn’t chasing them?

2. Explain vote dilution and discuss how the Voting Rights Act (and its extensions) sought to address the problem of vote dilution of racial and ethnic minority groups. How do we know that the VRA effectively increased the political incorporation of minorities in the American political system?  What impact has the Shelby County v. Holder (2013) decision had in shaping vote dilution? Explain and discuss. 

Vote dilution is the process of amplifying the influence of some votes at the expense of others. In the United States, this process has been applied in multiple ways, generally across racial lines. An early and formative application of vote dilution is the three-fifths compromise in the US Constitution (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 90). While this measure did not materially affect the freedoms of the slaves it was referring to, it did establish a precedent for seeing the value of non-White Americans as being of less import than that of White Americans. With the State having endorsed a singular White archetype, the states of the Union had only to legislate accordingly.

In practice, vote dilution can come through suppression at the ballot box, or strategy by respective State departments. Ballot-box measures include any form of qualifier that would disproportionately affect the group being discriminated against. Methods applied to suppress the Black vote in the South have included reading tests, the limiting of polling places or voting hours, or the requirement for identifying documents not in common circulation. At the district level, the re-drawing of district lines with every census provides opportunities for less-desired votes to be re-grouped in manner that will favor one ideology over another. Minority votes are gerrymandered, or drawn into districts packed with like ideologies, limiting the number of legislative seats available to that ideology. Alternately, voting blocs are cracked apart and distributed amongst other majority districts, a literal dilution of their influence. Taken together, these vote-dilution strategies created significant differences between the racial and ideological makeup of American voters and American legislators. As of 1940, only 3% of Blacks in the South were permitted to register to vote (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 118)

In 1965, the Voting Rights Act sought to address some of the iniquities that were limiting the franchise of minorities. Among its terms was an explicit affirmation of the 15^th Amendment’s protections on the right of citizens to vote regardless of racial background (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 238). Further, the act restricted the use of literacy tests or other discriminatory qualifiers that disproportionately affected Blacks or other minorities. States that had established a statistical record of voter suppression in previous elections would be required to gain approval from the US government before implementing any voter registration or validation laws, to ensure ongoing compliance ahead of potentially suppressive effects.

In the years since, the Act has been re-authorized with additional protections and conditions for equitable suffrage. Residency requirements have been made uniform, the voting age has been lowered to 18, materials have been guaranteed to speakers of many minority languages, and the use of some redistricting tactics to dilute minority votes have been forbidden. Many terms of the Act remain in effect presently, but their effect was measurable almost immediately. Amongst the Southern Black electorates the law had been designed to support, registrations of Black voters rose from 43% in 1964 to 64% by 1970. (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 118). Since 1970, the law has supported broader representation of other minority groups as well. As of 1970, there were 1,469 elected Black officials around the country, but no Latino, Asian, or Native officeholders. By 2010, the number of elected Black officials had grown to 10,500, and they were joined in office by 5,850 Latino, 892 Asian, and 77 Native Americans (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 247).

The passage of the 1965 Act and its reauthorizations represents a sea change in the nature of minority representation in the United States. The requirement for the pre-clearance of potentially competing state measures was a powerful mechanism that precluded the accepted timeline of legal challenge. Southern White elites had built their election laws aligned to the adage “better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission”. This allowed for the widespread dilution of minority votes while legal challenges became mired in the courts after the fact. The Voting Rights Act required those historically repressive states to ask for permission before enacting such questionable policy. As characterized by law professor Nathaniel Persily,

That measure stands alone in American history in its alteration of authority between the federal government and the states and the unique procedures it requires of states and localities that want to change their laws. No other statute applies only to a subset of the country and requires states and localities to get permission from the federal government before implementing a certain type of law. (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 234)

The unique nature of the Act’s provisions created a new precedent that served to expand and protect the rights of millions of minority voters for 38 years. They were themselves provisions based on no prior precedent. In 2013, the singular nature of the law was framed as an existential challenge to the preclearance provisions. During arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts asked “whether the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North?” (Shaw et al. 2019, pg. 252) In its finding against a portion of the terms, the US Supreme Court ruled that districts identified in 1965 were, as of 2013, no longer reflected in the language of the Act. By their ruling, states and districts that had previously required permission from the federal government before implementing new election law no longer had to do so.

In finding against the contemporaneous language of the Voting Rights Act, only the preclearance provisions of the legislation are affected. They are meaningful, however. The barrier for implementing more restrictive voter requirements has been removed and local officials have regained the latitude to legislate electoral majorities. This freedom exists only unless or until Congress can pass a revised law with currently-applicable language, but the divided and partisan nature of modern American politics is a high bar to clear when one of the parties involved has something to lose.