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If you read both the left and the right blogosphere, as I do, you often experience cognitive dissonance. Take for example, Scott Lemieux's"The Problem with Attracting Conservative Evangelicals," Lawyers, Guns, and Money, 21 August; and Jim Lindgren,"Who are the real Christian Fundamentalists?" Volokh Conspiracy, 21 August. Lemieux argues the folly of Democrats' sacrificing the rights of women, ethnic and gender minorities in order to win over conservative evangelicals. But Lindgren runs the numbers on Lemieux and finds conservative evangelicals already in the camp."... when one thinks of a typical fundamentalist in the United States in the 2000-2006 period, the image that should come to mind is that of a woman or of a Democrat. And if one thinks of which group is disproportionately fundamentalist, the exemplar is African-American females, not Republicans."
Re: Race and Religion (#112553)
by Ralph E. Luker on August 22, 2007 at 11:13 PM
"No. It merely suggests that the samples bandied about in the press are white normative. It's the kind of racism you don't seem to understand."
No, the examples I saw were pointing that discrepancy out.
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8/23/2007
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Ralph E. Luker -
8/23/2007
No. It merely suggests that the samples bandied about in the press are white normative. It's the kind of racism you don't seem to understand.
Barry DeCicco -
8/22/2007
Partially - if the slave population of the South had had more power, then they wouldn't have been slaves.
Also, the classic example bandied about in the press is that religious classifications are rather effective at predicting the partisan affiliation of whites, but not of blacks. This suggests that either there's a different mechanism at work.
James Lindgren -
8/22/2007
If want to see the data SHOWING that even conservative African-Americans vote Democratic, see this post last year at Volokh:
This fact supports my overall point that people need to look at the data because the realities are far more complex than most people realize.
Jim Lindgren
Nathanael D. Robinson -
8/22/2007
I've also heard the rhetoric from Democratic politicians. An opponent of gay rights would not be too uncomfortable with the Democratic Party.
Ralph E. Luker -
8/22/2007
Well, Nathanael, who says that conservatives' "interests and policies have become largely unpopular"? The only organizations that African American women join in overwhelming numbers are a) the church; and b) the Democratic Party. Have you listened to the rhetoric coming from the black churches about gay rights lately?
Ralph E. Luker -
8/22/2007
I'm not sure that I understand the distinction you're trying to make. But, if I do understand it, I think you may be denying the agency and influence of a slave population. Lemieux falls into the trap of speaking as if the African American constituency of the Democratic Party is both assumed and invisible as an active influence.
Barry DeCicco -
8/22/2007
Ralph: "It's about like the old fashioned railings against what "Southerners" thought, said and did, that forgot that, since 1619, a large share of Southerners have been African Americans."
In terms of raw numbers, yes. In terms of running the show, no. That's the key.
Nathanael D. Robinson -
8/22/2007
Ralph,
Doesn't this fit into the current discursive pattern among conservatives: to rebrand themselves in terms of ideals rather than see themselves as whose interests and policies have become largely unpopular. African-American women may be most religiously fundamentalist, but they don't join organizations that are self-described fundamentalist. The same could be made for Latinos or Catholics in general. The definitions used in the political field ought to reflect practices, not ideology (which is increasingly another form of advertising).
Ralph E. Luker -
8/22/2007
I don't think that Lindgren's being naive, Barry. It's just that when folk on the Left start railing about conservative evangelicals, they commonly forget about African Americans are conservative evangelicals. It's about like the old fashioned railings against what "Southerners" thought, said and did, that forgot that, since 1619, a large share of Southerners have been African Americans.
Barry DeCicco -
8/22/2007
"And if one thinks of which group is disproportionately fundamentalist, the exemplar is African-American females, not Republicans."
He's being a bit naive; in anything that I've ever read on race, religion and politics, religion works differently for blacks and whites. Blacks who would be classified as rather right-wing religiously still vote Democratic.
