Oppressed and Oppressor

Here's an upsetting fact: on the same day that one minority group takes a big step forward, another minority group gets knocked back. More upsetting is the fact that the two may even be related.

Due to the historic nature of this election, as well as the effective Get Out the Vote efforts of the Obama campaign, a record number of black people voted nationwide, oftentimes making up a larger percentage of the electorate than they represent in the general population. That wouldn't be a bad thing, except in California. California was one state that had a ballot initiative to define marriage as between between a man and a woman, effectively making gay marriage illegal in the state where it's been legal for the last 4 months. The irony that a lot of the money used to promote this bigoted agenda came from Mormon groups, who themselves are persecuted for their marriage practices, is not lost on me.

So what does this have to do with black voter turnout? In the state of California, white voters opposed this amendment 55% to 44%, while black voters supported it by a margin of 69% to 31%. This measure barely passed with about 52%. Now it's not as simple as saying that one caused the other, because of course that would avoid the other effect of this election. In addition to record black turnout, there was also record youth and first-time voter turnout, and those two groups voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8, including those first-time black voters. Really, black or white, the two groups that are to blame for Prop 8 being passed are older voters (the only age group that also went overwhelmingly for McCain) and religious bigots, which exist in all races. It's not as simple as a cause-and-effect, but it should give us pause that while people were able to overcome one set of prejudices, they were unable to overcome another. While I'm outraged that so many white people supported Prop 8, it's also upsetting that an even greater percentage of an oft-discriminated against group did as well.

So the empowerment of one group results in the disenfranchisement of another. Sadly, there was a time when there were laws on the books preventing people of different races from marrying, but so often we no longer have a sense of history. What is the cause of this? Is it religious? Is it cultural? Or is it simply that strange phenomenon that is fundamentally American? The Pilgrims left Britain to get away from religious persecution, and when they arrived here, they persecuted those who didn't agree with them. When newer immigrants began to arrive in our nation of immigrants, they were persecuted by the immigrants who arrived before them. African-Americans have suffered a long time in this nation, but this learning curve must be improved. If people who've been discriminated against can't see how wrong it is to discriminate against others, what hope do we have?