On Prop 8 and how it got passed

Prop 8's got me sick to my stomach. I don't live in California and I'm not even sure I want to get married, but it's still this nasty red blotch over what should be the most all-singing, all-dancing week of my political life. I'm furious that these rights should even be up for public debate.

The result that's got me torn up, though, even though I should have expected it, is what's turning into the dominant narrative on how this happened. Dan Savage, as usual, is out in front with the knee-jerk no-analysis response, but he's not the only one to have said it. I've heard all over in personal conversations that Prop 8 passed because of black (or sometimes black and Latino) voters who came out to vote Obama and then deny gay people their rights.

I'm upset about this, not just because it's racist and not just because it lacks more than fifteen seconds of thought, but also because it's the same thing we hear every single time a gay initiative passes. People of color are so homophobic (this can also be replaced with 'Christians' or 'rednecks' if no people of color are available for scapegoating). And that's it. End of story. And then the next initiative comes around and they go and do the exact same thing and wonder why it fails again.

Before I even get into anything else, I want to point out that this 'POC vs. gay fight' frame completely makes invsible queer people of color, who, last I checked, actually exist, plus the hundreds of thousands of people of color, queer or straight, who voted against Prop 8. None of these groups are monolithic and trying to assign qualities to groups of millions of people is painting with a very broad brush.

So, first up. Black folks make up less than 7% of the population of California, as seen here. Even if they did go for prop 8, as the exit poll in question claims (and for the record, that is a breakout of 10% of a single exit poll of 2240 voters, which means that the sample was actually around 224 voters out of ten million, which makes the margin of error on that like 6 and half percent, so the poll can't say for certainty whether that 70% is actually 63.5% or 76.5%, plus of course the five-percent chance that the poll is an outlier in one direction or the other. They didn't even sample enough black men to be able to make an estimate), even if they did, they're still a small portion of the electorate. Further, as bias_cut's load of statistics make clear, 49% of white voters voted for Prop 8. A 2% margin isn't really something to be bragging about. There's blame to go around, but most of it is going on the communities of color.

But now, let's assume for a moment that the numbers are all great and representative and that voters of color did, in fact, provide a decisive swing to yes on Prop 8. Why would that be? The Nation has this. La Macha at VivirLatino has this. (There's a lot of great writing on this out there. I was following links for hours yesterday.) No on 8 specifically, and I do think this is common for LGBT initiatives, did little to no outreach to communities of color. They weren't printing up Spanish language signs. They weren't advertising in Asian-language newspapers. Yes on 8's television ads featured people of many races. No on 8's focused mostly on statements from white celebrities and elected officials. They ceded a huge swath of territory right from the start (and by that I don't just mean voters of color, but also folks who still think that being gay is a rich-people big-city thing). One of the big lessons of the Obama campaign is that there are persuadable voters everywhere. If gay legal campaigns just stay white liberals talking to white liberals, we're just going to be right back here again in a few years.

So what can be done? Practice those ally skills. Stand up against the racism out there, and not just when it's other white queers doing it. Petition large orgs to take positions on issues that matter, even if they don't see why they should. Policies that hurt people of color hurt queer people of color too. Learn to speak persuasively; disrespecting something that's important to someone is not likely to win you their support. And then maybe the next time something like this comes around, we'll be able and willing to talk to everyone.