prop 8 and race: dissecting the lies

I took this photo tonight at the Prop 8 protest. The other side of the woman's sign says "Prop 8 = Jim Crow."

In the past few days, a disturbing allegation has appeared on the Internet and even in the LA Times: that a high turnout of Black voters gave Prop 8 the margin of victory on election day.

In almost all cases, the statistical evidence for this argument is a CNN exit poll that showed 70% of Blacks voting for Prop 8. But as Shanikka on the Daily Kos points out, there is some extremely shady demography at work in this poll. It's really worth reading her entire post on the subject, which is long and math-filled, but shows how it's basically COMPLETELY STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE to make the claim that Black people are to blame for the passage of Prop 8.

I started hearing this argument the day after the election, and it's unfounded, damaging, and frankly, just plain racist. Anyone who tries to blame another minority for our rights being taken away is only hurting our movement. There are so many wrong assumptions behind this theory--from the unstated implication that "gay" and "Black" are mutually exclusive categories, to the idea that Black people somehow "owe us one" for helping put "their guy" in office.

If you want to blame someone here, blame the Yes on 8 folks, who ran a campaign of misinformation, confusion and lies, and cynically targeted Black households with a mailer claiming Barack Obama supported Prop 8 (not true) mere days before the election. Or, blame the Mormon Church, whose members contributed anywhere from 45% to 70% of the funding for the Yes on 8 campaign.

The good folks at Racialicious have plenty to say on this more eloquent that I, including an excellent roundtable on the subject.