We continue to repeat the polls from two years ago in order...
Race and Ethnicity is certainly at least as contentious a topic as Sex/Gender, and not nearly as real as Age.
Race/Ethnicity is not a matter of skin color, genetics, country of origin, upbringing, social-economic status, personal family history, national history, social-cultural construct... it is bits of all of those. I have tried to follow the U.S. Census definitions, with some modifications.
Once again, please take the poll itself seriously, and save the humor, snark, and uhmmmm... comments, etc. for the comments section.
Once again, hopefully, this poll will stay up in the Recommended Diary section for at least 24, so that everybody at all local hours in all times zones will have an equal opportunity to participate.
After a year and a half more of Barack Obama in our consciousness, it will be interestnig to see not only how the Daily Kos (poll responder) Community demographics may have changed, but also how our attitudes towards race and the realities of race in America may have changed.
Why Poll Has The Categories It Does - The 5 "Traditional" Census Race Categories and 2 Ethnicities:
In the 2000 Census, Race and Ethnicity followed a modified version of what has become the most widely used "U.S." system for categorizing race and ethnicity in surveys.
For this purpose "Race and Ethnicity" is a different axis, a different kind of question, different then country of origin or ancestry. As before, I'll be doing that as a separate poll.
For these related reasons of widespread use, comparability and consistency, I am using a variant of this same system.
The first five are for the "five census races" and if you consider yourself Non-Hispanic/Latino, that is NOT.
The second five are for the "five census races" and if you consider yourself Hispanic or Latino.
The last five are my attempt to offer options for folks who primarily self identiy as biracial or multiracial, given both the limits of having only 5 questions left, and also given that one objective of this poll is to get at the underlying question racial and ethnic diversity at dKos (aka: how White are we; how many "people of color" are there here); admittedly trying to have my cake and eat it too to some extent. With only five poll questions left I have chosen to combine the American Indian, Alaskan Native, Hawaiian & other Pacific Islander into one group, in order to also make room for Hispanic/Latino. More on this below.
White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "White" or report entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish." So this is not only all folks whose self identified predominant family background is from Europe. This also includes eastward through Russia and yes the Caucuses (for you true Caucasians). It also includes the entire Mediterranean basin, including the Middle East & North Africa... Arab, Jew, Berber, Kurd, Turk, Iranian... you (we) are all White Americans in the eyes of American Census Bureau (I know many Jews and Arabs want to check other; for today... please check just White and then complain in comments).
Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian. All folks whose families originate from "subSahran Africa" and the African diaspora. The majority of folks whose ancestors were enslaved came from West Africa. The history, culture, ethinic identify for folks whose families more recently were in the American South is different from those in the Carribbean, or Guyana or Canada. Folks who families are more recently from West Africa, East Africa or the Horn (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia) are of course all quite different but are lumped together as "Black." Indeed, people from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, some parts of India all might be "read" in the American context as Black, but are not African and so do not "count" as such.
Asian: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam. It includes Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and "Other Asian." Obviously this too is a an (almost?) meaningless mishmash. People from "East Asia" (China, Japan, Korea, Vietanm and Thailand) have some similarities and many differences. Even more so, when lumped together with people whose family came from South Asia (India or Pakistan, Bangladesh). But again, please use the Asian category as given, for now.
American Indian & Alaska Native: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment. Sorry, even if your ancestors came over on the Mayflower and your family has been here "forever" you are not a "Native American" in this sense.
Hawaiian & Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. It includes people who indicate their race as "Native Hawaiian," "Guamanian or Chamorro," "Samoan," and "Other Pacific Islander. Native Hawaiian were originally separated out from the other pre-European native people as a political decision when Hawaii and Alaska came in as State together. Since then there are also more people of Polynesian and Micronesian ancestory in the U.S. as well. If there are any dKos folks from Pohnpei, Kosrae or Chuuk... please email me!
Bi or Multiracial: People may have chosen to provide two or more races either by checking two or more race response check boxes, by providing multiple write-in responses, or by some combination of check boxes and write-in responses. More on this further below.
Ethnicity: The Federal government of the United States has mandated that "in data collection and presentation, federal agencies are required to use a minimum of two ethnicities: "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino"" as a separate axis from "Race". For these purposes "Hispanic or Latino" is defined as "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race." Use of the word ethnicity for Hispanicity only is considerably more restricted than its conventional meaning, which covers other distinctions, some of which are covered by the "race" and "ancestry" questions. The distinct questions accommodate the possibility of Hispanics in the United States also declaring various racial identities (see also La Raza Cósmica, White Hispanic, Afro-Latin American, Asian Latin American, Zapotec language).
Having only the 15 mutually exclusive categories to work with, I have gone with the "five race" categories by either "Not Hispanic/Latino" or (yes) Hispanic/Latino. So for example, I am "Not Hispanic/Latino". Based on his pictures and biography, I guess that Markos "is" Hispanic/Latino White. Boston Redsox baseball player Manny Ramirez "is" Hispanic/Latino Black. That makes for the first 10 categories.
For those who identify themselves as biracial or multiracial, I ask that you bear with me, and also consider "how strangers on the street would most likely kneejerk consider" you. That makes for a total of 15 categories. Please note that full multiracial combinations would require at least 62 categories (31 Bi/Multirace combination x 2 for Hispanic/Latino or Not), and up to 126. However, Kos polls are limited to 15 categories; I beg forgiveness ahead of time. I had to combine some categories.
Wikipedia has some pretty good additional info on racial and ethnic demographics in the U.S. and a quicki on race in America.
Bi- & MultiRacial:In response to activist demand, starting in 2000 the additional choices of multiracial was added to the Census. To the limited extent that race means anything, most of us are multiracial, though only some us consider ourselves such. Even within the confines of the artificial 5 race scheme above, many, perhaps most Americans are BiRacial or MultiRacial. This categorization is at least as real as any other, it is important... and it makes doing this a whole lot more difficult. Popular examples in the news include, of course, Barack Obama, and perhaps even more so (in his self identify) is the Cablinasian-American (his term) Tiger Woods whose father was African-American and American Indian, and mother was from Thailand. Many Hispanic/Latino people have a mix of Native American and/or European and/or African. Many folks who simplistically seem to be "White" or "Black" in fact have both European and African ancestors, and different individuals in the family tree may choose to live as "Black" or "White" in America as story of Sally Hemmings and her descendents reminds us. A great story is that of Walter White (1893-1955) who was a longtime leader of the NAACP and said of himself "I am a Negro. My skin is white, my eyes are blue, my hair is blond. The traits of my race are nowhere visible upon me." As a child, he escaped the 1906 race riot in Atlanta, Georgia only because his fair complexion allowed him to pass through it safely. As a young man he joined the NAACP and his fair appearance enabled him to travel to communities where lynchings had occurred. Passing as a white man, he gathered the details about the crime and the names of the participants! Another very different story of passing is the case of Anatole Broyard and his daughter. Some additional random thoughts: Many White and Black folk have Native American Indian in their family history (especially, due to specific specific history, folks from Oklahoma and Florida). One childhood friend of mine had a Black mother and White Jewish father. He married a woman of northern European heritage who has fair skin, blond hair blue eyes. Their children are lighter in skin tone than my Ashkenazi (from Poland) Jewish grandfather (who looked a lot like Thurgood Marshall. Here in New York City, we often make a distinction between African-Americans (presumptively descendents of persons enslaved in pre-civil war south) and people who are Afro-Carribbean (people whose families more recently immigrated from Carribbean such as anglo Jamiaca or franco Haiti).
Should we ask about "Race" at all?
One argument against asking, is that race does not really exist. Or that it does not exist in the way that we usually think of it. Another argument is that it should not matter. Another is that if you cannot ask it in a more open-ended way that does not limit the pre-categorizations, then it should not be asked. There are many other arguments for why not to ask....
Among the arguments in favor of it, is that since the reality of the history of the European settlement of North America is in part the history of genocidal killing of Native North Americans and the enslaving and forced importation of Africans, that to not measure such things is to ignore or deny it. Certainly public political polls ask it all the time, in the real world political operatives take it into account, and it is "used" by everybody in American poltics. Another is that if one wants to measure how we are doing today by such categories, then we need somehow to use such categories. For example, in my work we want to reduce racial health disparities, so we must have some sort of consistent categorizations and measurements. Some have argued that one reason France has such difficulties in assimilating people from North Africa and elsewhere and in knowing what to do about the discrimination that does exist, is that they do not ask race/ethnicity in any of their data collection (it is actually illegal to ask). There are many other arguments for why to ask....
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Analysis of Sex/Gender and Age Polls:
The Sex/Gender poll suggests that we are slightly more female (39% compared to 33%) and less predominantly male (61% down from 67%) then two years ago. That's roughly 3:2 instead of the prior 2:1.
And again here are the results of the age polls from last week, the prior one from November 2006 and the U.S. population estimate from 2006:
It looks like our apparent age distribution is about the same as it was last time. Median and Mode (plurality) age-group is 45-49. Despite the cliche of yesteryear, and the new variant due to Obama-mania, we are not mostly a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings.
Additional thoughts and commentary as to Age, as well as Sex/Gender, certainly are welcome, in addition to Race/Ethnicity.
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Demographics and Polls at Daily Kos:
Here is the link to the complete series of Demographic Diaries; scroll up from the bottom.
Of course these polls are not "scientific." The poll is inherently self selecting and is not a random sample. Since we don't know enough about total population, sample frame and self selecting sampling factors, we cannot even measure or estimate how inaccurate it might be. There is always the possibility for selection bias including but not limited to responder bias, making the survey results different than truth. And just size alone does not make it valid since still self selecting and has inherent selection bias.
Yet probably it does have some validity... yet not valid and can't even measure how invalid... yet.... Granting all that, there are some indicators suggestive of possible validity in these polls: for example if distribution is relatively stable and does not jump around wildly during the day, this is not definitive but suggestive (at least that it is not being "freeped". Also, when the poll is done repeatedly, either same way, or only slightly different way (some advantage to doing slightly differently, if thought out, as test of validity), at different times, let’s say different day of week, weekday and weekend, morning vs. night, months or years apart.
Some folks asked why should we do these demographic polls at all, and raised the issue of privacy concerns.
As to the why question, the simple answer is "know thyself." Who are we when we spout off and comment? Also, it can be fun. It also helps the discussion of whatever the topic is. And yes, maybe it will be reported by other media or be used to market advertising to the site.
As to the privacy concerns, Kos has certainly made clear his strong views against "outing" the real identities of anybody. I do not know what access the site administrators have to the data or linkages of usernames to poll responses. Myself, I am just a regular user, and have nothing to do with administration or behind the scenes here. I don't know who has voted or what age goes with whom. All I have is the same bar graph and diary that is publicly visible. Also, there are no cross-tabs between any variables. It is not like a questionnaire with multiple separate questions per single interviewee. I guess the question is a matter of what the site administrators COULD access and link or identify if they were so inclined, whether they WOULD do so; and what protections are there on system to prevent an outsider from doing so? Clearly if there were a serious break of confidentiality/privacy, the Kos community would react very badly. The simple answer is, if you are that concerned, with this or any other issue, then do not participate; don't vote. This is a voluntary poll, within one of many diaries, among the nearly infinite number of webpages you can browse.
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