No Mandate from Women of Color

[Carolab]

No Mandate from Women of Color
>
> By Linda Burnham
>
> January 8, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0108-27.htm
>
> Millions of people worked as hard as they possibly could to
> turn the country onto a different path and still the village
> idiot was elected.
>
> What to make of such an outcome? What do we know about the
> participation of women of color at the polls? Did women of
> color and White women move in the same political direction?
> And how do the results inform women's rights and racial
> justice activists about the critical tasks ahead?
>
> It's an exceptionally bitter pill, but we must swallow it
> whole. The November balloting, a referendum on an
> aggressively militaristic foreign policy, defiant of the most
> basic human rights norms, was a stunning setback for peace
> and progress. No real alternative course of action was
> offered by a cowed and strategically bankrupt opposition
> party. But it is still the case that, given the choice
> between delusional, reckless empire building and the faint
> possibility of a more measured approach to world affairs a
> majority of the electorate chose the former. They also chose
> to reinstate an administration that promotes massive
> disinvestment from communities of color, a bold assertion of
> patriarchal values in public policy, and privatization of
> every last scrap of social capital.
>
> There are nearly as many theories about how we arrived at
> this outcome as there are voters. But we can be clear about
> at least one thing. Had it been up to women-of-color voters,
> the current resident of the White House would be packing his
> bags and heading back to Texas.
>
> According to CNN exit polls based on over 13,000 respondents,
> Bush received 62 percent and Kerry 37 percent of the vote
> from White men. Fifty-five percent of White women voted for
> Bush, while 44 percent voted for Kerry. Only thirty percent
> of men of color voted for Bush, while 67 percent of them
> voted for Kerry. Most significantly, 75 percent of women of
> color voted for Kerry, which means less than one-quarter of
> women of color supported the current administration's
> policies.
>
> The voting patterns of women of color led the trends in our
> communities, which voted heavily Democratic. Bush received
> only 11 percent of Black votes. Unsettled controversies
> remain regarding the Asian American and Latina/o vote, but
> Bush received a decided minority of votes in these
> communities as well. An estimated 24- 34 percent of Asian
> American voters and 33 percent - 40 percent of Latina/o
> voters supported Bush.* A substantial majority of Arab
> American voters also cast their ballots for change. Native
> American figures are not available.
>
> Much has been made of the gender gap in US elections.
> Organizations stake their political strategies and their
> income streams on the margins between male and female voters.
> The gender gap refers to the difference in the percentage of
> women and men who vote for a given candidate, and to the
> tendency of women to vote more heavily Democratic than men.
> On November 2, 48 percent of women versus 55 percent of men
> voted to re-elect Bush. However, despite the administration's
> record, Bush gained 5 percentage points among women from 2000
> to 2004. The Republican victory can be attributed, in no
> small part, to an increase in women's support. Where did this
> support come from?
>
> While some statistics talk to us, others virtually scream out
> for interpretation. Let's contemplate, for a moment, the
> Mississippi vote, where White women and non-White** women
> voted in an exact mirror image of each other. A jaw-dropping
> 89 percent of White women in the state voted for Dubya, while
> 89 percent of Black women voted for Kerry. This margin of
> difference along racial lines was widest in Mississippi, but
> gaps of 50-60 percentage points were common in the Southern
> states, and the national divergence between White women and
> women of color settled in at 31 percentage points: 55 percent
> of White women voted for Bush while 24 percent of women of
> color did. A single-minded focus on the gender gap sidesteps
> this troubling reality.
>
> Does it make sense for feminists to give their entire
> attention on the 5-10 percent electoral gap between women and
> men and none to the 30-80 percent gap between women of color
> and white women? What are the strategic consequences of that
> focus?
>
> If we are striving for reality-based politics, and we
> certainly cannot afford to do otherwise at this moment in
> history, we will conduct a deep inquiry into why and how
> women's political thinking diverges so profoundly along the
> colorline. What motivated a majority of White women,
> especially in the South, to identify their interests so
> thoroughly with those of the Republican Party? How we can
> begin to bridge the racial chasm in US politics to further a
> progressive agenda?
>
> There are no ready answers to these lines of inquiry. But
> perhaps pursuing them honestly will jog us out of denial for
> long enough to think creatively about how to approach the
> bleak four years ahead.
>
> Figures for Black vote from CNN exit polls. Latina/o vote
> from the Willie C. Velasquez Institute and NBC. Asian
> American vote from Asian American Legal Defense and Education
> Fund and APIAVote. Arab American vote from Arab American
> Institute.
>
> Census figures categorize 61% of Mississippi women as White
> and 37% as Black.
> http://www.census.gov/popest/states/asrh/tables/SC-EST2003-03/SC-EST2003-03-28.pdf
>
> > Resource Center in Oakland, CA. She helped coordinate the
> Count Every Vote initiative in the South.]
>
>
> _______________________________________________________
>
>

[tavalon]

1. Elected by the electors

probably not by the voters. But, hell, they stole it fair and square.