Us Politics - Racial And Ethnic Politics

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Changes in the US population 1

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. In the beginning, the USA was a creation of white European Protestants - Black people were, in most cases, slaves; Native Americans were nto regarded as citizens either

. The end of the Civil War (1865) brought the emancipation of the slaves

. Immigration through the 19th and 20th centuries brought a flood of new settles - Irish Catholics; European Jews; Hispanics from Mexico and other Central American countires; refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Asia

. During the 1990s, the combined population of African-Americans, Native Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders and Hispanic/Lationos grew at 13 times the rate of the non-Hispanic white population

. The 2010 census showed Hisapnics (16.3%) as the larger proportion of the US population than African-Americans (12.3%)

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Changes in the US population 2

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. But racial and ethnic diversity varies hugely from state to state

. Vermont is 95% white, while Hawaii is just 24% white; Mississippi is 37% black, while Montana is just 0.4% black;New Mexico is 46% Hispanic, while West Virginia is just 1.2% Hispanic

. The Hispanic population grew by 43% between 2000 and 2010 - the African-American population grew by just 12% during the same period

. Four states - New Mexico, Texas, California and Hawaii, are majority-minority states in which minorities make up a majority of the state's population

. It is estimated that by 2025 the Hispanic and Asian communities will make up more than 25% of the US population

. All this has had and will have great significance for government and politics in the USA

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Civil Rights 1

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. The civil rights movement grew out of the 1950s

. The post-Civil War period had seen the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments guaranteeing rights for African-Americans, but laws in many states (especially in the Deep South) meant that these rights were not a reality for most blacks

. Whether in schools, housing, job recruitment, public transport or leisure facilities, blacks were still 'separate but equal' at best - a discriminated against and persecuted minority at worst

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Civil rights 2

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. The civil rights movement was initially characterised by epaceful protest against government-sponsored segregation and was played out on the streets and in the court rooms, rather than in the debating chambers of Congress or the federal offices of Washington DC

. But during the latter half of the 20th century the movement came to be divided int a number of differing factions, some peaceful, some violent, each with its own leaders, including:

. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

. Malcom X and (later) Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam movement

. Jesse Jackson and the National Rainbow Coalition

. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

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Affirmative action - overview

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. The debate centres on whether society should be aiming for equality of opportunity or equality of results

. From the mid-20th century, many civil rights advocates came to believe that equality of opportunity would not in itself guarantee equality for minority groups - They would have rights only in theory, not in practice

. Only equality of results would truly deliver equality for racial and ethnic minorities

. Hence the movement towards what would become known as affirmative action programmes

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Affirmative action 1

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. In March 1961, President Kennedy created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

. He ordered that projects financed wth federal funds 'take affirmative action' to ensure that hiring and employment practices would be free from racial bias - President Johnson used the same phrase in 1965 regarding federal government contractors

. But affirmative action soon attracted its critics - Many regarded 'set asides' and 'quotas' as unfair to those of the majority group (whites) and patronising to thsoe of the minority

. Some used the term reverse discrimination - a term closely asssociated with the 1978 Supreme Court case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which concerned a white medical studfent, Allan Bakke, who had been denied a place at the University of California's Medical School, despite the fact that lesser-qualified minority students were admitted

. Other landmark Supreme Court cases on affirmative action include:

. Gratz v. Bollinger (2003); Parents Involved in Community Schools Inc. v. Seattele School District No. 1 (2007); Fisher v. University of Texas (2013)

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Affirmative action 2

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. The position of affirmative action is as follows:

. The courts will subject any quota system created by state or local governments to 'strict scrutiny' and will be looking for a 'compelling' justification for it

. Quotas or preference systems cannot be used by state or local governments without first showing that such rules are needed to correct an actual past or present pattern of discrimination

. In proving that there has been discrimination, it is not enough to show that racial or ethnic minorities are statistically under-represented among employees

. Quotas or preference systems that are created by federal, rather than state, law will be given greater deference

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Arguments for affirmative action

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. It leads to greater levels of diversity and multicultralism

. It rights previous wrongs - the previously disadvantaged are now advantaged

. It opens up areas of education and employment that minorities would not otherwise have considered

. It creates a diverse student body in educational establishments that promotes racial tolerance

. It is the most effective way of delivering equality of opportunity

. It works - e.g. between 1960-95, the percentage of black people aged 25-29 who graduated from university rose from 5% to 15%

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Arguments against affirmative action

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. Advantage of preference for one group leads inevitably to disadvantage for another grup - the issue of 'reverse discrimination'

. Affirmative action can lead to minorities beign admitted to courses/jobs for which they are ill-equipped to cope

. Such programmes can be condescending to minorities, impying that they need extra help to succeed, thereby demeaning their achievements

. Affirmative action perpetuates a society based on colour and race, thereby encouraging prejudice

. It is no more than a quota system under another name

. It focuses on groups rather than individuals

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Has affirmative action been a success? 1

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. In 1995, President Clinton declared that 'affirmative action has been good for Amerfica'

. Affirmative action was meant to move society towards a time when previously disadvantaged groups would no longer be disadvantaged and therefore such programmes would no longer be required

. Affirmative action programmes are therefore best seen as a merans to an end, nto as an end in themselves

. Some argue that affirmative action programmes have failed because a programme that is based on race is unlikely to mvoe society to a point where race no longer counts

. But others argue that by promoting diversity, the racial tolerance has been enhanced and old prejudices are slowly dying

. The election of Barack Obama as president of the USA would doubtless be presented as evidence that society is moving on from its once ingrained prejudices

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Has affirmative action been a success? 2

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. One must also bear in mind whether the costs of affirmative action programmes outweigh their benefits

. If, after all, under-prepared blacks or Hispanics are put into academic institutions or jobs where they do not suceed, then the cost may be too high and the programme seen as a failure

. If many Americans refuse to visit a black doctor or dentist because they assume that he or she was admitted to medical school and to the position they now hold through quotas rather than qualification, then the cost may be again too high

. Furthermore, affirmative action can be something of a blunt instrument - one that is too undiscriminating

. In the 2003 Bollinger decisions, the Supreme Court suggested that affirmative action programmes ought to have a shelf life of a further 25 years

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Minorities in Congress

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. In 1984, there were 21 African-Americans in Congress - all in the House of Representatives

. By 2013, there were 41 African-American members in the House of Representatives and 1 in the Senate

. The rise in African-American members of the House was brought about largely by the creation in some states of majority-minority districts in the early 1990s

. In 2013, there were also 34 Hispanics in Congress, 31 in the House and 3 in the Senate, compared with just 10 (all in House) in 1984

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Minorities and presidential elections 1

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. The last 40 yars have witnessed the following milestones for African-Americans runnign for the presidency:

. In 1972, Representative Shirley Chisholm (D) became the first major-party African-American candidate for the presidency - she won 152 delegates at her party's National Convention

. In 1984, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson (D) won over 3 million votes in the Democrat primaries, finishing third in the number of votes cast - Jackson became the first African-American candidate to win a major-party presidential primary, winning contests in four states plus the District of Columbia

. In 1988, Jackson ran again for the Democratic nomination, winning contests in 10 states plus Washington DC

. In 2008, Senator Barack Obama (D) became the first black major-party presidential candidate and went on to defeat Republican John McCain to win the presidency - he was re-elected in 2012

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Minorities and presidential elections 2

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. Between 1992 and 2012, African-American voters gave at least 83% of their votes to the Democratic presidential candidate, rising to 95% in 2008

. During the same period, Hispanic voters gave at least 62% of their votes to the Democratic presidential candidate in five of the six elections held in those 20 years

. The only election in which the Hisapnic vote for the Democrats fell belwo that figure was 2004, when John Kerry attracted only 57% of the Hispanic vote, with Republican President George W. Bush capturing 43%

. But that figure fell back to 31% for John McCain in 2008 and to just 27% for Mitt Romney in 2012

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Minorities in the executive branch

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. Minority representation in the president's cabinet first became an issue in modern times when President Lyndon Johnson appointed African-American Robert Weaver as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1966

. Between 1966 and 2013, 17 other African-Americans were appointed to head executive departments, including two consecutive secretaries of state - Colin Powell (2001-05) and Condoleezza Rice (2005-09)

. Barack Obama appointed African-American Eric Holder as Attorney General at the start of his first term in 2009, and Anthony Foxx as Secretary of Transportation at the start of his second term in 2013

. Obama's first-temr cabinet in January 2009 was the most racially diverse of any administration, with heads of 7 of the 15 executive departments being from racial minorities

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Minorities in the judiciary

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. Not only did President Lyndon Johnson appoint the first African-American to the cabinet, but in 1967 he also appointed the first African-American to the Supreme Court - Thurgood Marshall

. Upon Marshall's retirement in 1991, President Geroge H. W. Bush replaced him with another African-American, Clarence Thomas

. In 1986, President Reagan had appointed the first Italian-American to the Supreme Court- Antonin Scalia

. During President Reagan's 8 years in office (1981-89), less than 5% of his appointees to the federal judiciary were from racial minorities - But during Clinton's 8 years (1993-2001), over 23% of federal judiciary appointees were from racial minorities

. 9% of President George W. Bush's federal judicial appointees were Hispanics, and during his first 2 years, Obama's judicial appointees were 27.5% African-American and 7.1% Hispanic