29 Responses

  1. What’s wrong with white people? Were it not for Anglo-Celtic Protestants, we would have no country.

    Are you a “self-hating” white man?

    • Anglo-Celtic? 72% of Americans are “white persons”, but 63.7% are “white persons not Hispanic”. So about 27 million people of Hispanic origon call themselves white.

      • Robert: “27 million people of Hispanic origon call themselves white”

        This really speaks to the diversity of the peoples included under the blanket of “Hispanic”, doesn’t it? Speaking locally, in northern New Mexico, folks labelled “Hispanic” think of themselves – and are – “Spanish.” They will tell you how their family goes back 400+ years in the state.

    • Redefining “white people” as “Anglo-Celtic” is such a weird thing to do.

      Does it mean Italians, Russians and many more generally rosy-cheeked folks aren’t really white people anymore?

      Spaniards have already lost their white label somehow, and people that use words like “Anglo-Celtic” typically don’t think Jews are white enough, so how bad can it be to reduce the set even further?

      • In fact, a century ago European “ethnics” like Jews weren’t considered white; they were considered the alien threat that Mexicans are today.

        Yet this is fluid. The first big wave of Jewish immigration seems to have been of highly-Westernized German Jews in the mid 19th century, who encountered rapid success and assimilation. No one thought they weren’t white. But when a bigger wave of Polish and Russian Jews came, everything reversed. Americans like Henry Ford became the leading lights of anti-Semitism.

        “Acting” white, including matters of language, clothing, and entrepreneurship, practically adds up to being white after some period of time. I would consider that third factor to be the elephant in the room: we’ve practically comne to think that we’re better than other countries because we treat “entrepreneurial” Jews well and “lazy” blacks badly, while the others persecute Jews. Master race and master salesman, how much of each makes up whiteness?

    • I’m a half-white man convinced that world history shows some whites are unlikely to give up power peacefully. So I watch the end of white majority sweeping from state to state, and the neo-Jim Crow stratagems enacted solely to forestall this, with great interest.

      Iowa is not as interesting, therefore, than states where non-white turnout must be suppressed, harassed, and degraded in order for one party to survive. Not long ago in this country, innocent black people could be seized off the streets of the South, convicted of vagrancy and literally leased to private businessmen to carry out slave labor. Now we have, especially in the Red States, a growing privatized prison industry supplanting free low-wage labor with convicts, a public that accepts that blacks just happen to be grossly overrepresented in our prisons, and pressure to permanently revoke the right of “felons” to vote. See how those three things come together to make an apartheid future for us all?

      I think Israel’s growing disenfranchisement of its Arab citizens is only the prototype for what Israel’s fondest buddies in America intend to do.

      • Succint comments, except Israel already points to AMERICA’s genocidal “Manifest Destiny” to justify its ethnic cleansing of an occupied land.

  3. So now we know. Iowa is NOT reflective of the USA as a whole. Not even close.

  5. Iowa may not be reflective of America as a whole, but it’s more diverse than the Republican electorate.

  6. While the founding principles of the United States were created and espoused by “White” men who were subjects of the British Crown at the time of the American Revolution, these men were “White, privileged landowners with a great many owning slaves, including Jefferson and Washington. And yet, the declared that “All men are created equal.” Such struggles for equality continue because the laws of the USA are written and put into effect to keep minorities from sharing political and economic power. American laws still favor privileges for “White” Amercians. If not, then why bother having Arizona’s SB1070? Clearly, the law is racist. Unfortunately, we have not developed a vocabulary to distinguish freedom loving “White” Americans who do believe in equality and respect for the rights of minorities from the racist scum of this country who defile it with their filfthy ideologies of whhite superiority. So, yes, if you are a racist, you should be deeply ashamed of yourself and beg God for his mercy and forgiveness upon your hate-filled soul.

  7. Since when is posting pie charts an expression of “hate”? Are the data in question?

  9. I wonder what the distribution of the wealthiest 1% looks like, or the heads of major corporations.

    • Click on the first link and you can see that 0.8% of business firms are black-owned in Iowa. It’s 7.1% in the country as a whole.

  10. I see that the stats back up the “white” assertion but I don’t see how the information provided supports the “conservative” assertion. Not that I disagree mind you, but the data aren’t presented, unless you mean Republican primary, ergo conservative. Note that according to the 2010 census, New Hampshire is even less representative than Iowa, and they are the next big contest.

    Do you have data on conservatism in Iowa vs. the US as a whole, or among whites vs. the US as a whole? Just curious, keep up the great work!

    • Agreed with David. Iowa Democrats are actually pretty liberal, and the state as a whole last went for the GOP in 1984, 28 years ago. The Iowa GOP is conservative, to be sure, and that’s who’s voting (or who’s voting that matters) this time, but to assert that Iowans are conservative based on those demographics is a little lazy and probably inaccurate. Parting shot: Gay marriage is legal in only one non-costal state, and it’s where the tall corn grows.

      • I agree with Ian and WillS. Iowa may have relatively low percentages of black and hispanic voters. But on the liberal/conservative spectrum it’s actually a mixed bag. Just remember that in the close elections in 2000 and 2004 it was one of the last states to declare.

        Of course, from the mainstream media coverage which is focusing on the Republicans you would think that Iowans are 100% extreme right wing. But, then I expect such sloppiness from the mainstream media, not from Juan Cole.

  11. Your pie chart would be more illuminating if it showed how many of those white Iowans are the conservative ones you mention in your headline. Iowa is a Democrat-leaning blue state with an activist evangelical minority that dominates its Republican primary. This headline/pie chart display gives the impression that the whole state is redder then Oklahoma, which a majority of Iowans would probably find offensive. Texas and the states of the Old South, all of them with diverse racial piecharts, are conservative mainstays. Is there any evidence of a connection between a state’s racial composition and its political leanings?

  12. Here’s the thing. White working class voters feel increasingly isolated from the Democratic party because they are largely socially conservative. Astute critics such as Christopher Lasch have noted this. How to get them back into the fold is an important question.

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