Race and statewide office

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There are currently as many elected African American governors as Indian American governors: one. For those of you that stopped reading Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com the day after the election, you are missing out. Today he had a wonderfully geeky post about why there are so few African American Senators (none actually unless you count Burris) and Governors. His analysis also offers some insight that might be of interest to the South Asian American community:

When the House of Representatives convenes tomorrow, it will contain 39 African-American members, not including non-voting delegates in places like the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. This number, representing about 9 percent of the Congress, falls somewhat short of the fraction of African-Americans in the population as a whole — a truly representative House would have about 55 black members — but perhaps not dramatically so. The situation at first glance would appear to be much better than it was prior to 1990, when there were generally only about 20 black members in the House at any given time.

The districts these 39 Congressmen serve, however, are not very representative at all. All 39 contain a higher percentage of African-Americans than the population as a whole, ranging from Keith Ellison’s district in Minneapolis, which is just barely more black than the national average, to Jesse Jackson Jr.’s on the South Side of Chicago, which is 68 percent African-American. About 64 percent of the members — 25 of 39 — come from districts that contain an outright black majority. The districts are also much more Democratic than the country as a whole, with an average PVI of D +25; only Sanford Bishop’s district in Georgia, which has a PVI of D+2, is anywhere close to the national average. [Link]

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So here it is in a nutshell. Assuming that experienced African American representatives (a reasonable number of which there are) would make suitable candidates to run for the U.S. Senate, why aren’t there more black Senators or Governors? The answer is that because the base of these potential candidates is largely African American, many of them never develop messages targeted to an audience any wider than this base. Doing so might cause them to lose some “cred” with that base. Thus, forced to compete statewide with this self-inflicted handicap, their campaigns never get off the ground. Obama was a rare exception because he realized intuitively what the data shows and made sure to appeal to all demographics and not just his perceived base, even if it meant being called “not black enough.” To the vast majority of South Asian American candidates the above is so obvious it doesn’t need mentioning. Our ethnic base is so small it would never be enough to solely rely on (except maybe in Jersey or Fremont). From the beginning, desi candidates have to work hard to appeal to all groups and their issues. Despite hard-to-pronounce names and brown skin this “tactic” helps us beat the odds that seem to stymie African American candidates.

Silver goes on to show that if you combine the two most prominent factors, the size of the African American population and the propensity of a state to vote for a particular party, the five most likely states to see an African American Senator or Governor are:

State Black PVI Prob

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p>Maryland 28.9 D+9 15.2%

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p>Mississippi 37.4 R+8 9.0%

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p>Louisiana 31.6 R+6 5.6%

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p>Georgia 29.8 R+6 4.3%

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p>Delaware 20.7 D+7 4.3%

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p>So Maryland has the greatest chance but it is still just ~15%.

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p>Now lets take a look at the states with the largest Asian population (including desis):

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Asian population by state

Probability dictates that Bobby Jindal (a desi that represents his/her whole state) should have come from California, Illinois, or New York. Instead he came from Louisiana, about the most unlikely of places for a desi to be elected Governor based on race being an overriding factor. Right from the beginning Jindal downplayed his ties to his race in order to be seen as an everyman. Ashwin Madia almost won his district in Minnesota back in November. Granted, that wasn’t a seat that represented the whole state but he came really close despite a miniscule Asian American population in that state. His campaign focused heavily on his military and all-American background. My point? Don’t be surprised or turned off if future desi politicians downplay their “desiness” to get elected. In realpolitik appealing to other ethnic groups sometimes goes hand in hand with distancing yourself from your own in both obvious and subtle ways (including modifying your name). The real trick seems to be obtaining donations from wealthy Uncles and Aunties while simultaneously downplaying your culture as much as possible.

60 thoughts on “Race and statewide office”

  1. while simultaneously downplaying your culture as much as possible

    Doesn’t Jindal benefit from his “technocratic” image? And isn’t that related to his being a desi? Or did Vijay Prashad tell us to run away from that image?

  2. Doesn’t Jindal benefit from his “technocratic” image

    Sure but technocrats are more likely seen as a-racial. Data rules all. Jindal’s problem is that in addition to his technocrat creds he’s got a lot of ideological baggage (e.g., the whole exorcism thing).

  5. my observation is that the fobs are more likely to change their name than the abcds, especially the working class desis (well small biz owners). i met a steve, jimmy, wally, and fred recently–names i don’t recall desis adopting before. they were liquor/yogurt/limo/7-11 store owners/workers respectively.

    i accuse the name keepers of being sell-outs to the pseudo-secular elitist western progressive establishment.

  6. also, i don’t think we can reduce obama to trying to appeal to all demographics. i think, by in large, that’s just the way his personality is. and that’s part of the beauty of this presidency. if anything, he actively sought out black culture (not white) and adopted it, going as far a picking up a slight mlk affectation in his cadence, which ,imo is perfectly legitimate for a self-created man. what’s amazing is that he used this in his presidential bid, playing up his fake accent rather than playing it down. oprah does this back and forth too.

  7. Obama isn’t really African-American. He’s Kenyan-American and biracial. So it was easy for him to appeal to a wider demographic, while still being true to himself.

  8. Abhi, Why do you think that believing in exorcism is crazy? Are you just taking your talking points from the American left? Or do you have a criticism of this aspect of Hinduism? Sorry, but this really troubles me to see someone like you (i.e., fellow ABD, well-educated) throw around being involved with exorcism as if it’s crazy, given that it’s a part of Hinduism.

    Your friend, rob

  9. Abhi: Good to see you again – back in the real world. The issues of race, religion, beliefs, and ethnic background are getting more and more complex everyday with “world without any borders” concept. Yet when the chips are down most folks have, and historically will fall back to their “own kind”, if not for financial, but for moral support. One can change the name, looks, country club, and demeanor, but what is difficult to change is the hard-wired prejudices – which ususally goes into grave for majority of us.(Or in case of practicing Hindus – are morphed into ashes). Facts of Life !

  10. Why do you think that believing in exorcism is crazy?

    Because first and foremost I am a scientist. I don’t support the fantasy of a “demon haunted world.”

  12. There is a question I have been meaning to ask SM bloggers in general Why do you interpret everything through the prism of race/ethnicity. Just curious that’s all and no offense meant.

  13. Jindal hasn’t played down his race as much as he has played up his religion, and his religious conversion. He has made it very clear – so forcefully that he doesn’t need to do it again – that he has abandoned an inferior and debased tradition – Hinduism – to embrace the one true religion, that of the “orthodox” Catholic Church. Jindal sways millions in a deeply religious state – Louisiana, a state that calls its counties, parishes. Jindal also reassures the many Americans who don’t wear religion on their sleeve (but still wear some) that he has bought into the light of the West coming from a land – India – that needed colonizers to civilize it at one time – and thereafter needed a constant stream of White Christians – Agnes Boiaxhu notably – to help it get its act together – never mind the shocking truth exposed by Chris Hitchens and Aroup Chatterjee. Something of the same sort happens with the likes of African-Americans who completely identify with the Puritan/”orthodox” Catholic line of the ultra-extreme-GOP. Ken Blackwell in Ohio, is a notable success story of this line of identification. Jindal also presents a dilemma for self-appointed (blowhard) spokespersons within the IA commentariat mostly humanities professoriat typified by a professor from Connecticut, who wield great influence vastly out of proportion to their intellectual abilities. For this group of IAs, Hinduism and Hindus are the target, and the root of just about everything bad in India and the most serious threat to the welfare of the IA community in the US. But then Jindal although he pursues the cynical and ruthless policies of the worst of post-Reagan, pre-Depression, conservatism (blessed if you are wealthy, and poor because you have sinned), has abandoned something they hate even more than neo-liberalism – Hinduism. How could they attack him without offending the many non-Hindus and Hinduphobes they work with?

  14. Why do you interpret everything through the prism of race/ethnicity.

    The same reason matrimonial ads look for wheatish/fair.

  15. Thus, forced to compete statewide with this self-inflicted handicap, their campaigns never get off the ground. Obama was a rare exception because he realized intuitively what the data shows and made sure to appeal to all demographics and not just his perceived base, even if it meant being called “not black enough.”

    Obama was part of a district that was both elite liberal and working class Black (to overgeneralize) from what I remember- so I don’t know if it’s ‘intuitively realizing’ as much as having the right person (U Chicago professor upper middle class mixed race Black liberal) in the right district to learn the right lessons to win statewide office. the Ryan Lizza story on him in the New Yorker is good on detailing how he was already straddling (or attempting to) the line you point to.

    Plus he’s a damn good speaker. 🙂

  16. So here it is in a nutshell. Assuming that experienced African American representatives (a reasonable number of which there are) would make suitable candidates to run for the U.S. Senate, why aren’t there more black Senators or Governors? The answer is that because the base of these potential candidates is largely African American, many of them never develop messages targeted to an audience any wider than this base. Doing so might cause them to lose some “cred” with that base. Thus, forced to compete statewide with this self-inflicted handicap, their campaigns never get off the ground.

    Self-inflicted my ass. Haven’t you ever heard of gerrymandering? De facto segregation? Etc? Or I’ll put it to you this way – if there are so few elected Black reps and their districts are so concentratedly Black, then how can they be held responsible moreso than those with more power over redistricting on a statewide basis? Self-interest is obviously part of it, but if individual Black reps are not the ones in control of the redistricting process – they can only get some sops here and there most of the time, I would imagine, then how can it be “self-inflicted”?. i would guess this is probably even more true the more racist the political elite of the state you’re talking about.

    And the people who suffer in the end are…yup, ordinary folks.

  17. 8 · rob said

    Why do you think that believing in exorcism is crazy?

    Because the puny Jindal hurts our fondly held memories of the vital Max Van Sydow.

    Seriously, though, Jindal, like a good conservatives, used the year of surplus to put in a bunch of tax reduction programs, and did not invest in any of the infrastructure of education, and job creation – metrics that Louisiana sorely lags in. So, now that the economic apocalypse is hitting Louisiana too, it is in really bad shape because the deficit is up the wazoo due to the gaping tax hole, and there is no state support net for the already poor people. So, this might really bust the myth of Jindal’s honeymoon period. He really needs to hope for some divine intervention to rid Louisiana of this evil. Although, the last time the gods sprinkled some water on LA, the results weren’t exactly salubrious…

  18. For those of you that stopped reading Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com the day after the election, you are missing out.

    I still read his blog, because he has interesting nuggets, but I think it has replaced what was its strength – solid statistical analysis and not too much data-free talking head editorializing, with a much larger amount of opinions in search of data. I guess this had to be, because the volume of interesting new numbers has slowed, but I would rather the site retained a high quality of number crunching than play in the wider cesspool of political punditry.

  19. Because the puny Jindal hurts our fondly held memories of the vital Max Van Sydow.

    Tsk, tsk, Rahul–get your aristocratic names correct–c’est Max Von Sydow. 😉

  21. Because first and foremost I am a scientist.

    Come on, Abhi – don’t you know that exorcism is one of the earliest forms to detox the body? Surely, that is scientific enough 😉

  22. 21 · ak said

    don’t you know that exorcism is one of the earliest forms to detox the body?

    I always thought that hair of the dog was the best way to rid the body of the ill effects of spirits.

  23. 13 · jyotsana said

    Jindal hasn’t played down his race as much as he has played up his religion, and his religious conversion. He has made it very clear – so forcefully that he doesn’t need to do it again – that he has abandoned an inferior and debased tradition – Hinduism – to embrace the one true religion, that of the “orthodox” Catholic Church. Jindal sways millions in a deeply religious state – Louisiana, a state that calls its counties, parishes. Jindal also reassures the many Americans who don’t wear religion on their sleeve (but still wear some) that he has bought into the light of the West coming from a land – India – that needed colonizers to civilize it at one time – and thereafter needed a constant stream of White Christians – Agnes Boiaxhu notably – to help it get its act together – never mind the shocking truth exposed by Chris Hitchens and Aroup Chatterjee. Something of the same sort happens with the likes of African-Americans who completely identify with the Puritan/”orthodox” Catholic line of the ultra-extreme-GOP. Ken Blackwell in Ohio, is a notable success story of this line of identification. Jindal also presents a dilemma for self-appointed (blowhard) spokespersons within the IA commentariat mostly humanities professoriat typified by a professor from Connecticut, who wield great influence vastly out of proportion to their intellectual abilities. For this group of IAs, Hinduism and Hindus are the target, and the root of just about everything bad in India and the most serious threat to the welfare of the IA community in the US. But then Jindal although he pursues the cynical and ruthless policies of the worst of post-Reagan, pre-Depression, conservatism (blessed if you are wealthy, and poor because you have sinned), has abandoned something they hate even more than neo-liberalism – Hinduism. How could they attack him without offending the many non-Hindus and Hinduphobes they work with?

    a lot of the people who agree with the desi dude from connecticut, are also not Hindu, ie the prof from Rider University in NJ, so as far to the left as they may be, their latent religious convictions may be preventing them from going after jindal. It’s going to be real interesting how these people react when Jindal goes national.

  24. Probability dictates that Bobby Jindal (a desi that represents his/her whole state) should have come from California, Illinois, or New York. Instead he came from Louisiana, about the most unlikely of places for a desi to be elected Governor based on race being an overriding factor.

    .

    Yeah, and probability indicates that half of the senate (+ 1) should be women. So much for probability.

  25. 23 · anthroguy said

    a lot of the people who agree with the desi dude from connecticut, are also not Hindu, ie the prof from Rider University in NJ, so as far to the left as they may be, their latent religious convictions may be preventing them from going after jindal. It’s going to be real interesting how these people react when Jindal goes national.

    What you mean like here in 2003, or here in 2007 in the New York Times?

    Google + five minutes of free time is your best friend. But hey – why talk about anything interesting when we can wax on and on about Vijay Prashad and Biju Mathew? I mean it’s not like there are any South Asian American commentators who have forcefully rejected Hindutva and Jindal 😉

  26. 25 · Dr Amonymous said

    Google + five minutes of free time is your best friend. But hey – why talk about anything interesting when we can wax on and on about Vijay Prashad and Biju Mathew? I mean it’s not like there are any South Asian American commentators who have forcefully rejected Hindutva and Jindal 😉

    Weak and small, as in beer, because it ignores the religious basis for the guy’s actions, while freely buying into the nonsense spewed by the tenured prof from Con. re “religion” – also printed on the same website you link to.

  28. 27 · P.Koschei said

    FYI, Obama is quite possibly nominating Sanjay Gupta (Of CNN and Michael Moore fame) for the office of Surgeon General.

    whoa! blockbuster! never saw that coming.

  30. i’ve been mulling over who should be the official leader of desi people. jindal has proven himself too divisive and has authenticity problems. gwen stafani has none of that but is too wheatish.

    but this settles it. gupta is our leader. and he belongs to the highest caste: neurosurgeon.

  32. Obama has also appointed Bill Clinton’s butler as the head of the Food and Drug Administation.

  33. I also vote for Goop-tah (to use Micheal Moore’s language) as leader of all Desis. His mother was born in pre-partition Pakistan, straddling the political divide. His parents are engineers, he is a doctor, his (gori) wife is a lawyer — all professions covered. He’s Hindu, but not too Hindu (i.e. VHPish). He is a little wheatish, his children are even more wheatish — generational improvement.

    Now, can Ali Velshi be appointed Secretary of Commerce?

  34. I always thought that hair of the dog was the best way to rid the body of the ill effects of spirits.

    yes, it’s highly effective when exorcising mass amounts of g&t 😉

  35. but not too Hindu (i.e. VHPish)

    Have you checked the rolls? Or are you just spouting off? More of us are in than you dream of!
    Paging Vijay Prashad. . . .

  36. Have you checked the rolls? Or are you just spouting off? More of us are in than you dream of! Paging Vijay Prashad. . . .

    Yep. We’re keeping a list, checking it twice. We know that you’re naughty, but Sanjay Gupta is nice.

    Any other questions?

  37. Yep. We’re keeping a list, checking it twice. We know that you’re naughty, but Sanjay Gupta is nice.

    OK, points for humor!!

  38. 33 · Ikram said

    his (gori) wife is a lawyer

    oh, i did not know this. could be problematic. one thing i learned from obamamania is do not underestimate the appeal of michelle. the msm thinks she (mildly) hurt him but they don’t understand the goodwill she brought him among his base and subbase of sistergirls. once michelle was rolled out the sistafirls practically fell off thier chair ensuring him protection from the authenticity police. the hapless harold ford dosn’t understand this. and don’t even try this with beyonce.

    but will desichicks dethrone our new leader? hard to say. jindals wife did nothing to protect him from a spanking. plus desichicks date white a lot (according to hmf) so maybe they don’t care.

    hopefully she’s not blonde. if she’s italian maybe we can try to pass her off. pull a sonia gandhi or something.

  42. 40 · Ikram said

    Sorry Manju, Sanjay Gupta and Rebecca Olson’s wedding made the pages of InStyle magazine. The photo is black and white — one head black, the other white.

    o crap. chicks hate blondes. after all, when was the last time tiger got any love? best strategy i can think of now is slap a bindi on her and try to pass her off as gwen stefani.

  44. 7 · Seahawks fan said

    Obama isn’t really African-American. He’s Kenyan-American and biracial. So it was easy for him to appeal to a wider demographic, while still being true to himself.

    Yeah, but in America, half-black is “black enough.” Bigots can’t hate in fractions. Besides, someone calling herself part-black, is like saying she’s “part pregnant.”

  45. Please stay on topic. If you want to tip off SM then use the tipline or our news tab. And we heard about this before you anyways so nah nah nah. 🙂

  46. “The Democrats are the racist ones. They clearly endorsed Barack Obama for president just so the could get the black man out of their all White Senate! By giving him a SEPARATE but EQUAL branch of government!”

    • Stephen Colbert

  47. 34 · ak said

    yes, it’s highly effective when exorcising mass amounts of g&t 😉

    You really should try gimlets then!

  48. 8 · rob said

    Why do you think that believing in exorcism is crazy?

    wow, rob…i think you should be the recipient of the annual HMF memorial “keeping it real” award.

    though we believe in exorcism too, no?

    there is no hindu pope. it may be news to you, but there is hardly any practice “we” all ascribe to, or any set of beliefs or scriptures that “we” all endorse and obey. why do a majority of VHP members have an uncontrollable and under-medicated tendency to make idiotic generalizations about all hindus? do they make you carry a magical brain-washing brick for hazing week? naah, they must have exorcised you.

  49. 48 · got (functioning) neurons? said

    why do a majority of VHP members have an uncontrollable and under-medicated tendency to make idiotic generalizations about all hindus? do they make you carry a magical brain-washing brick for hazing week? naah, they must have exorcised you.

    We should be friends 🙂

  50. Because first and foremost I am a scientist.

    you are a scientist – please…. You are a bureaucrat in a scientific organization. Dont besmirch the names of real scientists. a scientist does science – not play with fonts in powerpoint deck. Demons exist – whether they are in our own minds or in the minds of others.