Imagine if Black or Muslim Americans had voted for an equivalently extreme candidate
Image: Jamelle Boule
The South African comedian Trevor Noah, now presenter of The Daily Show in the U.S, used to do a sketch about when he first got to the US.
He remarked how he thought it was funny how Americans were all put into racial groups. That you had ‘Black Americans’, ‘Hispanic Americans’ you even had the native Indian populations called ‘Native Americans’ apart from one: white people — they were lucky enough to be just ‘Americans’.
In the aftermath of this shocking US Presidential Election, we can see the above observation being reflected in how the election result is being reported and explained.
We have heard that the ‘black American’ vote was down, that the ‘Hispanic American’ vote was not solidly for Clinton, but these are ridiculous explanations of the results.
The Black American vote was an incredible 88 per cent behind Clinton and the Hispanic community turned out in record numbers giving Clinton a win in Nevada and coming close to helping her win in victory in Florida, even though in 2000 44 per cent of this group voted Republican.
The next explanation is to segment by wealth, blaming the ‘blue collar American’ for turning to Trump. This analysis works on the basic level that ‘blue collar’ non-college educated white workers did vote more for Trump, but kindly forgets that so did college educated white American and also, neatly forgets the analysis that the average Trump was far richer than the average American.
No, let us be frank:
If we divide America into racial subgroups, only one group voted overwhelmingly for Trump, and that was the ‘White American’ — with a margin of over twenty per cent (58 per cent voting for Trump and only 37 per cent for Clinton). In every other racial grouping, it was the reverse, by at least a ratio of two to one, they voted for Clinton.
Why is it important to state it so frankly? Well, just flip it around. Imagine a black candidate or, even better, a Muslim candidate ran for the Presidency and in the run-up to the vote this candidate stated that white people were rapists and murderers or were all on drugs. Imagine if, after a white supremacist’s mass killing, he said that all white people should be banned from entering the USA indefinitely.
Now, imagine further, when the results came in the analysis found that the Black or Muslim population had overwhelmingly voted for him. Just imagine the outcry, imagine the call for the community to do some ‘soul-searching’ about keeping to the American virtues of tolerance and respect for other communities.
Well, it is only natural to ask the ‘White American’ to spend some time soul searching as to how, as a group, they voted for someone who was so outrageously racist as to be reason enough to disqualify him for inciting racial hatred.
Is there something central to how this group sees themselves as the real ‘Americans’, to return to Trevor Noah’s analogy, that allows someone to offend every other race so badly and still be electable?
Ranjit Sidhu is is the founder of SiD, Statistics into Decisions. Follow him on Twitter.
See also: Angela Merkel shames Theresa May with message for next US president
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22 Responses to “Only one racial sub-group voted for Trump – White Americans must do some soul searching”
Imran Khan
I have had a look at the articles that Ranjit Sidhu has written and they are one long continuous whinge. I would like to assure readers that he is a minority amongst Asians as we generally just get on with life, are grateful for the freedoms this country gives us and wish that more of the world was able to enjoy them.
Ranjit Sidhu
Thank you so much for your comments, they really are informative: I can round up comment 1 to 10 to the argument in the article:
“Why is it important to state it so frankly? Well, just flip it around. Imagine a black candidate or, even better, a Muslim candidate ran for the Presidency and in the run-up to the vote this candidate stated that white people were rapists and murderers or were all on drugs. Imagine if, after a white supremacist’s mass killing, he said that all white people should be banned from entering the USA indefinitely.
Now, imagine further, when the results came in the analysis found that the Black or Muslim population had overwhelmingly voted for him. Just imagine the outcry, imagine the call for the community to do some ‘soul-searching’ about keeping to the American virtues of tolerance and respect for other communities.
Well, it is only natural to ask the ‘White American’ to spend some time soul searching as to how, as a group, they voted for someone who was so outrageously racist as to be reason enough to disqualify him for inciting racial hatred ”
My particular thanks is reserved to Imran Khan for taking the role of talking for “all Asians” ( brilliant, solve a lot of wars that way ! And you were called after a famous cricketer!). I was particularly amazed and in awe of how from my sentencing in the article he picked up I was Asian? Was it the use of pronoun? Or was it my name, hang on though, is it my name? In the same way your name my not be Imran Khan? Thing about the internet, hey, can’t always trust what people call themselves.
Thank Peter Average
Mick
Islamic politicians and rulers HAVE been rapists and stuff. Sharia is the rule of law favouring barbarism which will never be repealed. We DO have rubbish like that.
Even if what the liberals claim of Trump is true – which usually isn’t – he’s still a baby in comparison to what happens in the ME or Africa.
Sorry.
Ranjit Sidhu
Mick , do you like maths?
Do you think algebra did the world any good? Do you think philosophy, the study of medicine was important? I would recommend the “The Silk Road” by Peter Frankopan. I think you would find it interesting.
Thank you for your comment Mick, all the best
Michael WALKER
>Ranjit
“Do you think algebra did the world any good? Do you think philosophy, the study of medicine was important? I would recommend the “The Silk Road” by Peter Frankopan. I think you would find it interesting.
Of course the Muslim world did great things. All centuries ago. The problem is teh concept of merging state and church together just proved over centuries it does not provide stable Government. There has been no Islamic ” Enlightenment”..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
WE could follow your logic as follows:
The German state from 1932 to 1945 brought us modern rocketry, modern advances in jet engines, and huge advances in chemistry. Does that mean that its political philosophy was acceptable? Of course not.