Unless you’re poor, then you’re not equal at all.
I’m a Republican, and I’m white, but my support for Republican candidates and policies has little if anything to do with race. I want lower taxes and a smaller, less-intrusive government, etc, and so I support the candidate that I think is most likely to get me to those things.
Right. And you are not at all unusual.
What is unusual is that non-whites that support the same things you do overwhelmingly do NOT vote Republican anymore, even in populations that used to. This is almost certainly due to the rhetoric used by the party in response to 9/11 and subsequent events (for Muslims and other Asian religious minorities) and immigration (for Latinos).
The operative word being disproportionately. Ask yourself this: who benefits more from Republican policies, white voters or black voters? If for no other reason, there are more white millionaire CEOs than black millionaire CEOs.
There are, I believe, 5 times as many white people as black people in America. And even then, there are situations where non-discrimination, non-favoritism, can still lead to vastly skewed results. IIRC, about 70% of players in the NFL are black - and I certainly don’t think that’s because the NFL was/is intentionally favoring black athletes.
That may be the case, but a significant number of white Americans either do not believe that they are having that good thing going for them (they don’t feel/perceive/believe that “every month is White Heritage Month,”), or, they *do feel that white people are privileged, but want to be given the same perk as every other race as if they do **not *have privilege.
It’s kind of like a teacher who gives cupcakes to students every Monday morning. Suppose that you have 9 poor kids and 1 rich kid in that class. Conservatives would think that the teacher should give everyone a cupcake, treating everyone equally as if wealth is not a factor. Liberals would think that the teacher should only give the poor kids cupcakes, and pass over the rich kid.
I think some white conservatives also think about race in America as something akin to sports officiating: Even when a team has more talent, better coaching, better players, more money, etc., just about every single sports league in the world officiates and regulates them the same as a hapless team that has little talent, bad players, bad coaching, little money, etc. The Golden State Warriors, for instance, are arguably the NBA’s best team right now. The Philadelphia 76ers are arguably the NBA’s worst team at the moment. Yet, if the NBA put down a rule saying, “Due to the disparity between the two teams, when the Warriors play the Sixers, the Warriors will only be awarded 1 point for every basket that they make while the Sixers will be awarded 3 points for every basket that they make,” the Warriors would be quite reasonably pissed off.
Sorry, that was TL;DR; I tend to be that way. TL;DR; some white conservatives want white people to get the equal treatment as other races, so that the white advantage can prevail, since if a superior team faces off against an inferior team on a level playing field, all other things being equal, the superior team is likely to prevail.
I am Muslim, and I was an economic centrist voting on both sides … until birtherism took off in 2008. Now I just don’t feel like I have the luxury of voting on economic interests when one party is overriding in its antagonism to “outsiders” like myself.
And let me tell you, I also thought “white privilege” was nonsense, but I feel it strongly now… if you’re a white Christian, you have the privilege of voting on these various legitimate policy debates - economics, foreign policy, and so forth - but I’ve lost that privilege and so have many - it doesn’t feel good.
There is also a subset of the right who deplore the very idea of equality. They believe that some people are literally factually better than other people, and that social equality is some kind of mistake.
Confirmation bias. Those who have been convinced that Republicans are racists will choose to “rationalize” that bias by viewing anything that republicans do as evidence of that bias.
It’s interesting that you have the citations and facts to back this statement up.
You DO have something to back this up, right?
Conservatives would put an end to the cupcake welfare program, and the rich kid would go on having all the cupcakes they wanted.
Well, not all conservatives have the same opinion on cupcake welfare. That’s an issue with big tent coalitions.
Its a result of Two things IMHO. All the non-white people have left the party as the party has forsaken most of the reasons for minorities to support the party and the erosion of white privilege has driven many whites to the party in an effort to preserve or reinstate their prior privilege.
The first element can be most clearly seen in the voting patterns of Asian Americans. Asian Americans voted largely for Reagan and H. W. Bush (Asians were MORE Republican than whites). Asians broke 75% for Obama over Romney in the last election and Romney is generally what you would consider an acceptable Republican candidate for Asians.
The second is a natural reaction to loss of privilege.
Read the thread. Cite was posted by Santaman.
Conservatives would think that the teacher should give the rich kid 90% of the cupcakes and the rest have to share- equally,- except the poor kid, who gets nothing.
No, that’s ridiculous.
You could say that conservatives think the rich kid should be able to *buy *90% of the cupcakes or to *keep *90% of the cupcakes (that he already has), but no one argues that he should be *given *90%.
We aren’t talking about wealth or income. The context of this analogy is about (Insert Race) Heritage Month. In that sense, conservatives who argue that white people should have a White Heritage Month just like Hispanic Heritage Month or Native American Heritage Month, are like the hypothetical rich kid in the classroom thinking that he should be given a cupcake just like the impoverished kids.
WTF is white heritage anyhow? Being Jewish my heritage is a lot different from Irish Heritage or Italian Heritage or my wife’s WASP heritage.
I can see the white heritage street fair full of booths offering samples of tasty Wonder Bread.
Well the conservatives in my state would argue he should be given them, otherwise he’ll take his cupcakes to another classroom. And we can’t have other classrooms getting his crumbs.
That’s a bug, not a feature. A kid whose ambition is to be an NBA or NFL player is almost certainly going to be disappointed. How many white kids don’t focus on sports because they have other more likely avenues open to them? It might seem like a better bet for black kids. While the percentage of black stars is high, so is the percentage of black athletes who never make it, and could have done better with more studying and fewer hoops.