Byron York, who used to write for the National Review, a right-wing opinion magazine, wrote a post the other day called “The Black-White Divide in Obama’s Popularity”. It starts like this:
On his 100th day in office, Barack Obama enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with white Americans than with black Americans, and his sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.
To which Matthew Yglesias said:
Dave Weigel observes that all Democratic politicians are always much more popular among blacks than among whites, so it’s not clear why York would spin this as a unique attribute of Obama’s. But more to the point, what is York talking about here? How does the fact that much of Obama’s support come from African-Americans mean that he’s not “actually” popular?
Steve Benen puts it more plainly:
For crying out loud, what the hell does that mean, exactly? … The problem, of course, is that damn phrase “than they actually are.” York argues that we can see polls gauging public opinion, but if we want to really understand the popularity of the president’s positions, and not be fooled by “appearances,” then we have to exclude black people.
And Andrew Sullivan adds:
I’m with Benen. What can that last phrase possibly mean, except that African-American opinion does not count as much as everyone else’s? Yglesias and Weigel pile one.
Now it gets even worse: York replies. First, he does not take the charge of racism seriously:
I suppose if you haven’t been called a racist by the usual suspects on the left, you haven’t been writing for very long.
Next he misses their point while turning the charge of racism against Sullivan:
… Maybe “across-the-board” would have been better than “overall,” but I doubt that would have kept a left-wing activist like Matthew Yglesias, or Andrew Sullivan, who has himself been accused of racism and, quite recently, anti-Semitism, from branding me a racist.
It was not the word “overall” that made him seem racist, it was “actually” – you know, as if blacks are not “actually” Americans but white people are, as if blacks do not count.
This is an example of white gaze, a white way of looking at the world, which sees:
- People of colour as being at the edges of things.
- White people as important, as having lives that matter.
And the way he replied to Sullivan and Yglesias is also a common ad-hominem way whites have of answering charges of racism:
- The “you always cry racism” argument
- The “you are the racist one” argument
As is completely missing the point. To write for the National Review you have to be good with words and with argument, so I have to assume that York knowingly missed their point.
See also:
- white gaze
- white gaze, part two – that dead chimp cartoon
- How to tell if a commenter is white
Hey, what the heck is going on in the land of the free? As an outside observer with no axe to grind I find it amazing that this type of discussion is even taking place in America. President Obama was elected with an overwhelming majority of votes from Americans, yes “Americans”, not “black Americans” or “white Americans” or any other color Americans. His election was hailed world wide as a quantum shift, not only in American politics but in America as a whole. You may not be generally aware but the rest of the world saw President Obama’s election as a real positive in America’s relationship with the rest of the world. Does that matter to Mr and Mrs “Average American”. You bet it does. It affects how the rest of the world sees America and gives America a new respect in the world. Trying to tear President Obama down by making snide remarks such as by Byron York and a few others serves no good purpose at all. President Obama may only have been in office for a little more than one hundred days but already his Presidency is making history and I am absolutely convinced that he will be one of the great American Presidents. Americans, one all and all, be proud of your President and give him, and thus your country, the support he both needs and deserves.
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To Abagond:
I find this back and forth between pundits to be absolutely tedious. It takes several years generally, to find out how good a President really is. In regards to Byron York’s superfluous comments.. if I were him I would have made this comparison as a defense:
In his second year in office, after 9/11 George Bush enjoys high job approval ratings, no matter what poll you consult. But if a new survey by the New York Times is accurate, the president and some of his policies are significantly less popular with black Americans than with evangelical white Americans, and his sky-high ratings among evangelical white Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are.”
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Right, that is how laughable York’s reasoning is. White evangelicals, just like blacks, have to be a part of any “overall”. That is what “overall” means. It does not mean “just with the people who agree with me”. If polls can be read that way, then why even take them?
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You seem to have missed Milty’s point. I think what he was trying to say is that if a president is extremely popular with a certain group because of his background, they will give him a high job approval rating regardless of his policies. This will make his positions appear more popular than they would if they were examined objectively, without a person’s opinion of the president influencing their opinion on the policies.
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Barack Obama is USA president, by Divine appointment, because if you look at him because he is not several things, he should not be president. It is good to know there is always a higher authority.
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Uncle Milton: Is racerealist right in comment #4 where he said I missed your point?
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gosh this article is so true
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I don’t understand how anyone could defend such a comment. Steve Benen says it for me, so anything i’d say would just echo his comments.
Another point, that York bloke is simply trying to mislead about the statistics part. The percentage of black population in America is 12.9. So if out of 100 all 12.9% of them rate Obama 100 and the rest of the population rate him 0 then his total score would be 12.9 out of 100, anything but popular. If it is a Obama: Yes or No poll, then there is no question of dispersion of data so it would just mean that majority of Americans want him.
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I went through my post above and realised that I lost in my struggle with the english language to express myself properly, so I hope this one will help make it clearer. If in polls which are bi/multiple-choice type and do not involve rating Obama is found to be prefered by many americans, then he IS popular. There is no question of statistical errors in drawing the conclusion. In that case, By saying Obama isn’t as popular as it seems York only showed how racist he is.
However, errors in drawing the conclusion can occur when the polls involve ratings, because in those polls only the central values are taken(like the arithmetic mean etc) and unless accompanied by a graph or more detailed data they are often misleading.
So now consider the survey ‘how americans rate Obama out of 10’. I don’t know whether any such survey has been done though, but let’s just check how the ratings of the black population would affect the outcome. We assume that the entire black population gives Obama 10 on 10. The different outcomes of the survey are on the left and the corresponding ratings by the non-black population are on the right.
1.3 0
2 0.8
3 2
4 3
5 4
6 5
7 6.6
8 7.7
9 8.8
10 10
in order for Obama to be considered popular, he must have a rating of 7 or above, and it can clearly be seen how much difference the black ratings make even when we’re assuming that all blacks give Obama 10 on 10 which is obviously not possible. So in this case, York is a racist and a liar.
As an aside, you may like to do those calculations replacing blacks by whites/native americans etc. The results may interest you.
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