Why does the Republicans Party have More Black Than DK Does?
Very, very few Blacks are members of the Republican PARTY, but even fewer are participants at DailyKos. Ironically, if Black people want to be in the company of other Blacks, regardless of ideology, we are more likely to find other Blacks in the Republican Party than among the authors of DailyKos stories, diaries and comments. Here we compare the poor relationship between Blacks and the Republican Party to the even poorer relationship between Blacks and DailyKos and we ask the obvious question: "Why?"
According to David Botsitis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 9.5 percent of Black solidly identify with the Republicans Party. FIVE TIMES MORE BLACK PARTICIPATION IN REPUBLICAN PARTY THAN AT DAILYKOS But this is still roughly four times the percentage of Black participants at DailyKos. The obvious question is, "Why is this so and what can be done about it?"
According to DrSteveB at DailyKos, who has conducted censuses of the DK community,
Only 4.2% reported that they are Black including all categories compared to about 13% in Census 2000 DrSteveB's DK CENSUS
Another DrSteveB poll of users indicated that only 2.5% of users where Black. SECOND DrSteveB DK POLL
This remains so at DailyKos even as the number of Black using the Internet increases dramatically.
According to a Pew national survey of people 18 and older, completed in February, 74 percent of whites go online, 61 percent of African-Americans do and 80 percent of English-speaking Hispanic-Americans report using the Internet. The survey did not look at non-English-speaking Hispanics, who some experts believe are not gaining access to the Internet in large numbers.
In a similar Pew survey in 1998, just 42 percent of white American adults said they used the Internet while only 23 percent of African-American adults did so. Forty percent of English-speaking Hispanic-Americans said they used the Internet. BLACKS AND THE INTERNET
The demographic profile of computer and Internet users . . . reveals that growth in computer and Internet use is broadly based. In every income bracket, at every level of education, in every age group, for people of every race and among people of Hispanic origin, among both men and women, many more people use computers and the Internet now than did so in the recent past. BLACKWELL SYNERGY
While the digital divide remains a reality in America at large, the gap continues to narrow.
US households have experienced a rapid gain in computer and internet access, with two million new internet users per month. In September 2001, 143 million Americans (54%) of the 174 million Americans (66%) using computers were using the internet (U.S. Department of Commerce, 2002). The gains are largest for low-income families (those earning less than $15 000 per year increased at a 25% annual growth rate vs. 11% for households earning $75 000 and above), and under-represented ethnic and racial minorities (33% for blacks, 30% for Hispanics, 20% for whites and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders). DIGITAL DIVIDE STATISTICS
So why does DailyKos still have only half the Black Participation that the Republican Party has achieved? It seems likely that the same factors that limit participation of Blacks in the Republican Party are limiting participation here, only to a much greater degree. Maybe, Black resist participating at DailyKos for some of the same reasons they resist joining the Republican Party:
In the Joint Center’s newly released "Blacks and the 2004 Republican National Convention," [David] Bositis argues that young Blacks who identify somewhat with Republican policies don’t fully join the party because GOP blunders drive them away.
He explains, "What is happening is that some younger African Americans begin to identify with the GOP—what pollsters refer to as ‘weak identifiers’—and then the GOP leadership adopts some policy position (e.g., opposition to affirmative action) or subsequently commits some gaffe (such as the South Carolina confederate flag or Trent Lott episodes), and the weak identifiers cease identifying with the Republican Party." GAFFES ALIENATE BLACKS
<African-American voters have not given much support to Republican Presidential candidates since 1960. In 2000, George W. Bush received a lower percentage of the African-American vote than any Republican since Barry Goldwater in 1964 . . . Nonetheless, the level of Black turnout and even a minor shift in allegiances of Black voters could determine the outcome of the Presidential vote in several key STATES. <a href="http://www.jointcenter.org/election-2004/rnc-2004-analysis.pdf">BLACK VOTING ESSENTIAL TO DEMOCRATIC VICTORIES
This morning, while reviewing comments to the DailyKos diary I submitted yesterday and preparing to submit another, I looked at yesterdays diary, which DailyKos readers tipped 25 times, and which was recommended 18 times, and I was shocked. The entire body of the diary has now gone missing. It has simply disappeared with no obvious explanation why. The diary was entitled Ending the White Male Monopoly of the Presidency.
Immediately, commenters began to criticize the diary as unacceptably short. And it IS unacceptably short now that everything below the fold has gone missing.
This is what DK user Annalize5 said about that.
I know, Francis... (0 / 0)
It was about 1,200 - 1,500 words long. I don't know where it all went, but I think you can see from the comments that people are commenting on stuff that's no longer visible. Everything after the break has disappeared!
Somebody is having fun with it would be my guess. :(
I'd advise you to take a screenshot of your work from now on.
Did you draft it in Word? If you did, edit it back in.
This is just too, too much.
by Annalize5 on Thu Dec 07, 2006 at 08:36:37 PM PSTAnnalyze5
Maybe I accidentally deleted my diary myself, although that has never happened before in over 50 diaries submitted. Was the deletion of the text of my diary perhaps intentionally done by the same DK users who have called me a "monkey" in recent comments? "MONKEY" EPITHET INCIDENTS AT DK MORE MORE ELEVEN DK READERS TIP "MONKEY" EPITHET IN A COMMENT
I have no proof that the disappearance of most of this is an act of digital terrorism, perpetrated by anonymous nightriders of the DK. But the fact that Trusted Users at DailyKos intentionally and perpetually delete all the tags to my diaries, and replace the tags with NAME-CALLING, does lead me to suspect them, at least a little bit, in this latest mystery.
That, in turn, becomes a very serious problem for the efforts of DailyKos to increase its readership and win the allegiance of Black voters for progressive ideas and progressive Democratic candidates. If the first Blacks at DailyKos become victims of digital terrorism, it becomes less likely that others will follow.
DailyKos is an anomaly within the Democratic Party in this respect, since the Party as a whole does quite well attracting Black voters:
While blacks made up 12 percent of the electorate in 2000, they voted nine to one in favor of Democratic candidate Al Gore . . . Democrats say that Bush has not only ignored African-American issues, but has actively hurt the advancements the community has made over the last three decades.
By most accounts, the bond between the Democratic Party and black voters dates to the civil rights era and the decade the followed, when blacks were drawn to the Democratic Party by Lyndon Johnson's push for the Voting Rights Act--and were pushed away from the Republicans by Richard Nixon's embrace of the Southern Strategy. But the romance between blacks and Democrats actually starts a generation earlier, in the 1920s and 1930s. In an attempt to shore up Republican support in the traditionally Democratic South, Herbert Hoover ran a campaign that promoted all-white Southern state committees--a tactic that eventually led to NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White calling him, in a memorable phrase, the "man in the lily-white House." But the GOP never looked back: The 1932 Republican National Convention had a smaller percentage of black attendees than any other in the twentieth century. By 1936, blacks were squarely in the Roosevelt camp. DEMS OVERALL SUCCEED W/BLACKS
Black Democrats are extremely loyal to the Democratic Party and are essential to Democratic victories.
By most accounts, the bond between the Democratic Party and black voters dates to the civil rights era and the decade the followed, when blacks were drawn to the Democratic Party by Lyndon Johnson's push for the Voting Rights Act--and were pushed away from the Republicans by Richard Nixon's embrace of the Southern Strategy. But the romance between blacks and Democrats actually starts a generation earlier, in the 1920s and 1930s. In an attempt to shore up Republican support in the traditionally Democratic South, Herbert Hoover ran a campaign that promoted all-white Southern state committees--a tactic that eventually led to NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White calling him, in a memorable phrase, the "man in the lily-white House." But the GOP never looked back: The 1932 Republican National Convention had a smaller percentage of black attendees than any other in the twentieth century. By 1936, blacks were squarely in the Roosevelt camp.
But blacks didn't make the switch because the Democrats were great on race--they did so because Roosevelt's social policies actually helped them. Individually, the new benefits might have aided them less than whites (New Deal programs were rife with institutionalized discrimination), but blacks also had more to gain: The Great Depression was so devastating that, to take one example, blacks were 17 percent of Baltimore's population in 1931, but they filled 31.5 percent of the city's unemployment rolls. "The simple reality that blacks were not excluded from the economic benefits of the New Deal," writes Princeton's Nancy Weiss in Farewell to the Party of Lincoln, "was a sufficient departure from past practice to make Roosevelt look like a benefactor of the race." The economic ties between blacks and the Democratic Party continued with the Great Society initiatives and, importantly, the prosperity of the Clinton years: for much of the 90s, blacks' incomes rose faster than whites'. CLINTONS HELPED BLACKS SUCCEED FINANCIALLY
But with the margin of victory so small in many races (e.g. Gore 2000), it is essential that Black participation in the party remain enthusiastic and robust.
The challenge for the Democratic Party will be to make sure that remains the case--that a slide to the GOP does not occur. And, while so doing, it should take notice of a different trend: In contrast to almost every other demographic group, wealthy blacks are more likely to identify as Democrats than impoverished ones. This means that appealing to blacks with big government social policy is win-win: By improving public education, economic well-being, and social mobility--and helping blacks into the middle class--Democrats can increase the likelihood that blacks will join their party. And these policies still appeal to the self-interest of blacks who don't make it up the income ladder. CLINTONS HELPED BLACKS SUCCEED FINANCIALLY
Assuring that economic issues are a priority within the Democratic message and candidate selection will create some stresses between DK and the Democratic Party as they each seek to develop their respective messages. According to one DK poll by MTmofo, 57% of DailyKos readers earned more than $50,000 per year in 2006. DK INCOME STRATA In that respect, DailyKos certainly cannot be said to be representative of the Democratic Party as a whole, and even less so of Black Democrats. In fact, one significant difference between wealthy white leftward Democrats and the Party as a whole is that the Party understand that when the US economy goes downhill, Blacks are the first to suffer. So a fundamental key to maintaining the allegiance of Black people is maintaining the primacy of a good economy within the Democratic message.
My personal experience at DailyKos over the last year has been that, in spite of the work of Bonddad, the economy is not the most important issue to DailyKos members; Iraq is. Therefor, DailyKos members constantly criticize the same Clinton economy that made the Clinton popular within the Black community. Meanwhile, they use the issue of Iraq as a litmus test for 2008 candidates, and seeking to exclude the Clinton candidate from the 2008 Democratic pack. This alone might be sufficient to dissuade Blacks from reading DailyKos and diminish their regard for wealthy white progressives and their issue advocacy.
A number of fundamental questions arise that cannot be addressed in one diary or by one person:
- Does animus at DailyKos and antipathy toward Black views and Black-favored candidates create a hostile environment for Black people at DailyKos?
- Do actual acts of blatant discrimination and digital terrorism (tag removal, story removal, troll-rating of unpopular minority opinions) create a hostile environment for Blacks at DailyKos?
- Have continuous assaults by DK upon Hillary Clinton and the Clinton legacy dissuaded Blacks from reading and participating at DailyKos? ANOTHER KOS STORY CRITICIZES SENATOR CLINTON
- If DailyKos and the gate crashers within the Democratic Party succeed in limiting the influence of the Clintons and other politicians favored by Blacks, will Black turn out to vote for the alternative selected by the gate crashers?
- Will the Democratic Party have any chance at all of succeeding electorally if groups as exclusive of Black as DailyKos grow in influence within the Democratic Party?
- If the Democratic Party becomes more like DailyKos demographically, will it ever be possible for Democrats to win another national election?