# Should the USA have black states?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 29, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335 "2015-08-29T21:59:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/101 "2015-08-31T01:01:13Z")
> [@piepiepie](#):
>
> Yeah, I can see that. Your post is fine, but sometimes it’s annoying when, I would guess, mostly white people are discussing this “black issue” and then as an after thought think to ask black folks their opinion. That’s not your fault though.
>
> Anyway, in my official opinion as a black poster of this board, the OP is ridiculous and I find that these topics are what keep me from visiting here. Hmm, now that I think about it, I do prefer to conduct my internetting on a predominately POC board/blog thing. Then again, we just got invaded by racist trolls. So an all black state would be nice in a safety sense, but I doubt white people would ever leave us alone. So, again, the OP is a ridiculous idea.
It would help if you’d elaborate on why you think it’s a bad idea.
---
### Author:  [@piepiepie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/piepiepie)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/102 "2015-08-31T01:07:25Z")
> [@piepiepie](#):
>
> So an all black state would be nice in a safety sense, but I doubt white people would ever leave us alone. So, again, the OP is a ridiculous idea.
That is quite literally my only reason why. All of the power in our black state would never give us any peace. We could be running the joint and still get attacked by white nationalists or whomever else. It just wouldn’t matter. There’s no positive in this for us. Our president is black and if he can’t do anything to help us I doubt putting us all in our own state would be any better. Yes, it’s simplistic, but that is really all there is to it.
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### Author:  [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/103 "2015-08-31T01:07:51Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> Years ago, I had a small argument with **BrainGlutton**.
>
> I said the USA is not strictly a nation-state, in that the boundaries of ethnocultural identity and political identity were too disparate. (I still think this is true, BTW. A white American often sees a chicano as foreign and an anglophone Canadian as familiar.)
>
> He said it was; that there’s a common culture across the country.
>
> Well, maybe; in the sense that there is a political ruling class that expects to be in charge. Even the historically chicano state of New Mexico has a substantial sub-population of anglos, who even win political office.
>
> But what is that common culture? Is it Ann Coulter’s “Anglo-Protestant” culture? I don’t think it’s that straightforward. The USA’s ruling class has multi-ethnic, multi-religious roots. But it is, well, kind of white, isn’t it?
>
> It seems like there’s a dominant white, anglophone culture that want to go into any corner of the USA and take over. Hawai’i, with its preponderance of Japanese-Americans, avoids complete domination. But Louisiana, home of the Creole people and refuge of the Acadian? Dominated by white anglos. Nueva México? California? Poor Arizona? Overrun by even more sons of old Dixie.
>
> Now and again someone will talk about how different states have different “cultures.” But the cultural divisions in the USA bear no resemblance to most state lines. (I say _most._ No surveyor separated Hawai’i, the ocean did.) So we have the farces of state governments and US Senators both representing the “different” states, while largely coming from a few common stocks.
>
> A man “from” Maine had sons become governors of Texas and Florida! But they were all educated in Massachusetts, apparently!?
>
> We have majority-minority districts in the US House of Representatives, and in state legislatures. But we don’t have (much in the way of) majority-minority _states._ (Again, Hawai’i is an exception.)
>
> Maybe we should. Maybe we really, really should.
>
> Let’s say (generously) that the dominant culture is about 75% of the populace, and rules 48 of the present states. (I’ll grant that Hawai’i and New Mexico are different.) OK, to get to parity, we have to flip some states, or add [del]16 states[/del] 14 states to reach 16. (That is, 48/3.) About six of these can be black-majority states carved out of present territory (say, the northern ends of the Deep South states). Eight or nine can be “Latin” states, and one or two can be “mixed but \*not \*predominated by whitebreads.”
>
> I don’t have a map drawn up yet, I’m just blue-skying right now.
>
> Now, “white Democrats” are probably going to complain about this like they complain about majority-minority districts. Something about dividing the working classes and costing them elections. Well, right now it looks like your coalition bled out on a street in north St. Louis County. So, tough.
>
> Now, I know this board. Every response will be a variation of, “No, you imbecile.” But I want you to \*defend \*your answers.
What you’re proposing, hypothetically, of course, is pretty much standard territorial black nationalism. It’s had it’s supporters among black Americans over the decades, but never more than a small minority. That’s the first problem - that black Americans have never really supported it in great numbers.
The second problem is that black American institutions and organizations tend to marked by unusually high amounts of corruption, mismanagement, and in-fighting. Just being set apart from white Americans won’t stop this, and would probably make it worse. Unfortunately, we’re a lot more like Greece, and southern Italy than we are like Switzerland or Germany.
If I recall correctly, in the earlier discussion, Pravnik proposed that this new black country be called “Blaxico” which is hilarious, and at the same time dead on true. Mexicans, as we know, have a country of their own where their fellow Mexican are firmly in charge. This by itself has not solved the problems with corruption, violent crime, and lack of economic opportunity. The solution for working poor Mexicans has been to run away to someplace where gabachos are in charge.
Black Americans would probably end up doing the same thing. Running to white America when the black run Mississippi state government goes bankrupt yet again.
Now, if black Americans do decide that they want black states, they can have them without any outside action required. Just as the Mormons dominate Utah, black Americans could dominate the states of the lowland south. Just emigrate their, develop their sector of the economy through savings, investment, and entrepreneurship. They can exercise considerable political power without being in the majority, so long as they vote regularly, and make small but consistent donations to politicians who support their points of view. No need to reinvent the wheel. The old, hard ways work. In fact, they’re the only ways that work.
Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, east Texas, and north Florida are all about a quarter black. South Carolina and Louisiana are about a third black, and Mississippi is one half black. That’s plenty. There’s enough potential political and economic power there to do anything you want to do, if you have the will to do it. You have to put in the work. Not showy, theatrical demonstrations and speeches, but slow hard work.
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### Author:  [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/104 "2015-08-31T01:14:13Z")
> [@piepiepie](#):
>
> That is quite literally my only reason why. All of the power in our black state would never give us any peace. We could be running the joint and still get attacked by white nationalists or whomever else. It just wouldn’t matter. There’s no positive in this for us. Our president is black and if he can’t do anything to help us I doubt putting us all in our own state would be any better. Yes, it’s simplistic, but that is really all there is to it.
If you control the state, you also control the National Guard and the various levels of law enforcement. At that point, you’re safe from outside attack, but it’s not the outsiders you have to worry about.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/105 "2015-08-31T01:26:38Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> It would be if you’re telling people of some races they can’t move from Texas to New Mexico or vice versa.
Ah! I see!
So, I can’t tell white Americans they can’t move into any given state and take it over like they did to Arizona. Because that would be unAmerican! I probably can’t tell them not to burn crosses and run the darkies out, either.
So, if this proposal somehow were put into place, pretty soon those 14 new states would have the same white ruling class as everywhere else.
Because, see, that kind of racial purge is what “white America” has done all along. That’s what it\* is.\*
So my proposal in the OP is no solution to what I see as the problem. That the white anglo will invade and lord it over anyone else, and then say, “Go back to \_\_\_\_\_\_!” to people just trying to live in their own country.
Welp, I guess there’s nothing to do but say Stokely Carmichael was right to leave. Huh.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/106 "2015-08-31T01:49:21Z")
Belowjob, I’m going to quote you out of order:
> [@Belowjob2.0](#):
>
> Now, if black Americans do decide that they want black states, they can have them without any outside action required. Just as the Mormons dominate Utah, black Americans could dominate the states of the lowland south. Just emigrate their, develop their sector of the economy through savings, investment, and entrepreneurship. They can exercise considerable political power without being in the majority, so long as they vote regularly, and make small but consistent donations to politicians who support their points of view. No need to reinvent the wheel. The old, hard ways work. In fact, they’re the only ways that work.
>
> Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, east Texas, and north Florida are all about a quarter black. South Carolina and Louisiana are about a third black, and Mississippi is one half black. That’s plenty. There’s enough potential political and economic power there to do anything you want to do, if you have the will to do it. You have to put in the work. Not showy, theatrical demonstrations and speeches, but slow hard work.
This is well-argued, and would appear to just about win the thread. Of course, it leaves out the fact that those states still have ruling institutions and traditions that derive directly from the Redemption and Jim Crow, and have historically been used to “keep the Negro down.” Three-quarters a loaf is better than one quarter, and new institutions mean an ability to start without great numbers of your base disenfranchised. (What proportion of black voters in Georgia are on parole or probation and denied the right to vote?)
But yes, what you’re proposing not only is a practical prerequisite of my OP’s odd proposal, but might obviate the call for it.
> [@](#):
>
> The second problem is that black American institutions and organizations tend to marked by unusually high amounts of corruption, mismanagement, and in-fighting. Just being set apart from white Americans won’t stop this, and would probably make it worse. Unfortunately, we’re a lot more like Greece, and southern Italy than we are like Switzerland or Germany.
I’m going to modify this. I think subcultures that derive from the Southron US, “Dixie,” mentality fall into this trap of corruption, whatever the color of their skin. That’s a problem for much of the country already. Look at Arkansas politics now. Look at the economies of the Jim Crow states. Nappy hair doesn’t do that to you.
And so, thanks to your self-congratulatory implication that white _gringo_ businessmen do better because they’re white _gringos,_ I can’t give you the thread. Good effort, though. You came close.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/107 "2015-08-31T01:54:39Z")
Wow, **piepiepie** , I’m sorry to offend you so much it drives you away from the board. 😕
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/108 "2015-08-31T02:08:36Z")
OK, this does come from somewhere. I worry about people who live in a place, and I guess especially those who have lived there a long time, being treated like they’re not so important that they deserve respect. The underlying ideas of the OP have been smoldering in my head for a long while, but I think this article spurred it:
**[“It’s not just a party, it’s our life”: Jazz musicians led the way back to the city after Katrina — but what is this “new” New Orleans?](http://www.salon.com/2015/08/23/its_not_just_a_party_its_our_life_jazz_musicians_led_the_way_back_to_the_city_after_katrina_but_what_is_this_new_new_orleans/)
Culture brought New Orleans back after the flood, but for some artists there’s a newfound sense of alienation**
Larry Blumenfeld on Salon
> [@](#):
>
> “There’s a feeling among many of us,” White told me in 2006, “that some of our older cultural institutions, like parades and jazz funerals, are in the way of progress and don’t fit in the new vision of New Orleans, that they should only be used in a limited way to boost the image of New Orleans, as opposed to being real, viable aspects of our lives.”
>
> Was New Orleans jazz culture welcomed back? Not exactly.
>
> If there’s a culture war going on in the city, that’s hardly news. According to historian Freddi Williams Evans’ book “Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans,” Congo Square was codified by an 1817 city ordinance that restricted drumming and African dances to a single spot. Skip to 1996, when a photograph of a protest march that ran in the Times-Picayune newspaper showed a teenage snare drummer wearing a sign: “I Was Arrested for Playing Music.”
>
> [snip]
>
> The battles during the past decade over what would get rebuilt and what wouldn’t, who could return and who couldn’t, have in large part now given way to debates over the shape and character of the “new” city. Those who remember the green dots on maps issued in January 2006 by then-Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission — targeting certain hard-hit areas of New Orleans as future park space — know that the city’s future and character has a lot to do with how its spaces are zoned and used. Amid the panic and fury of residents whose neighborhoods had been overlaid with those green dots, who had expected to return and rebuild, that 2006 map quickly met its demise. Yet many of its ominous implications have played out anyway through obstacles to rebuilding and land grabs.
>
> The wave of gentrification that has intensified in New Orleans during the past few years — especially as carried by what one writer referred to as “yurps” (young urban rebuilding professionals) — has been stunningly swift and dramatic. New Orleans has long held bohemian attraction: Now that allure is coupled with start-up cash.
It filled me with a certain frustration with the dominant culture. Add that to my general disgust with the USA’s police forces, and out came this thread, somehow.
I reckon it’s worthwhile to think about what cultural self-determination means. And what the challenges of it are.
Anyway, the OP was a goofy thought experiment, and a few of you added some interesting information, among the expected “What? No!” responses. So thanks for that.
---
### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/109 "2015-08-31T02:36:08Z")
I’m always amazed by the conservative mindset that is so afraid of cultural change. The idea that a “culture” at any given point in time is something that has to be preserved is laughable in the face of the cultural change that created the here and now in the first place. Every culture that exists displaced some earlier culture before it.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/110 "2015-08-31T02:40:15Z")
Um, so cultural imperialism is\* good?\* Is that what you’re saying?
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/111 "2015-08-31T02:44:24Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> So, I can’t tell white Americans they can’t move into any given state and take it over like they did to Arizona.
If you can’t see how racist it is to tell black people they’re only allowed to live in certain neighborhoods then you need to go back to the first day of Race 101 and take the whole course over again.
---
### Author:  [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/112 "2015-08-31T02:46:48Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> Belowjob, I’m going to quote you out of order:This is well-argued, and would appear to just about win the thread. Of course, it leaves out the fact that those states still have ruling institutions and traditions that derive directly from the Redemption and Jim Crow, and have historically been used to “keep the Negro down.” Three-quarters a loaf is better than one quarter, and new institutions mean an ability to start without great numbers of your base disenfranchised. (What proportion of black voters in Georgia are on parole or probation and denied the right to vote?)
>
> But yes, what you’re proposing not only is a practical prerequisite of my OP’s odd proposal, but might obviate the call for it.I’m going to modify this. I think subcultures that derive from the Southron US, “Dixie,” mentality fall into this trap of corruption, whatever the color of their skin. That’s a problem for much of the country already. Look at Arkansas politics now. Look at the economies of the Jim Crow states. Nappy hair doesn’t do that to you.
>
> And so, thanks to your self-congratulatory implication that white _gringo_ businessmen do better because they’re white _gringos,_ I can’t give you the thread. Good effort, though. You came close.
Greeks and southern Italians generally don’t have nappy hair either. They are gabachos, though. If whiteness or Europeaness were enough, they’d be doing swimmingly.
Self-congratulatory? Nothing like that in my post. You probably heard about the Prince George’s County county executive who was taking big bribes from real estate developers. Facing imminent investigation, he had his wife hide some of the cash in her underwear.
This guy and his wife were part of my parent’s social circle. My parents donated money to his campaign, attended fundraisers for him at friends’ and neighbor’s houses. One of his kids is married to the child of my parents’ next-door neighbors.
One of my parents, for most of their working life, was a professor at arguably the most distinguished historicaly black college. When I talk about infighting, corruption and mismanagement, I’m talking about stuff I have seen pretty close-up.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/113 "2015-08-31T02:59:42Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> If you can’t see how racist it is to tell black people they’re only allowed to live in certain neighborhoods then you need to go back to the first day of Race 101 and take the whole course over again.
:dubious:
Is that even what I said?
My state has majority-minority General Assembly districts. I don’t live in one. I have black neighbors. Does that make those majority-minority districts not majority black?
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/114 "2015-08-31T03:09:54Z")
I stand corrected, Belowjob.
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### Author:  [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/115 "2015-08-31T11:33:54Z")
The last 150 years of US history have proven that black people and white people can’t get along
Maybe it’s time to try some fair segragation
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### Author:  [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/116 "2015-08-31T12:38:21Z")
> [@PSXer](#):
>
> The last 150 years of US history have proven that black people and white people can’t get along
>
> Maybe it’s time to try some fair segragation
Yep, but it was just fine before that though. I guess a problem event could have happened around 150 years ago … any ideas on that?
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/117 "2015-08-31T13:50:40Z")
> [@PSXer](#):
>
> The last 150 years of US history have proven that black people and white people can’t get along
I’m going to go with: “The last 150 years of US history has proven that certain individuals, black or white, can’t get along with people of different races.”
> [@](#):
>
> Maybe it’s time to try some fair segragation
Fair segregation? Oh, you mean “separate but equal”! Uh, no.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/118 "2015-08-31T13:57:01Z")
Fair segregation now, fair segregation tommorah, and fair segregation forevah!
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/119 "2015-08-31T16:05:26Z")
I’m kind of okay with the idea of having _one_ white-only and _one_ black-only state. Moving there would be purely voluntary, of course. And you’d have a problem with uprooting the existing populace, so you’d have to carve these places out of some part of flyover country.
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### Author:  [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/120 "2015-08-31T16:08:14Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> I’m kind of okay with the idea of having _one_ white-only and _one_ black-only state. Moving there would be purely voluntary, of course. And you’d have a problem with uprooting the existing populace, so you’d have to carve these places out of some part of flyover country.
Would 96% white qualify as a “white-only” state? If so, we have three of them today.
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