CALIFORNIA COLLAGE

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Why One Out of Four Blacks Opposed Affirmative Action

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Date: 11-13-96

Exit polls show that slightly more than one out of four African Americans who voted backed Prop. 209, the state's anti-affirmative action initiative. For opponents who vilified the initiative's black supporters as racial traitors, this level of support should serve as a cautionary reminder: more blacks are joining the conservative sea change in the U.S. PNS commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a Los Angeles-based writer and scholar whose books include "The Mugging of Black America."

LOS ANGELES -- For many African Americans, the handful of blacks who publicly supported California's Civil Rights Initiative barring affirmative action in state programs are racial traitors. The assumption is that Prop. 209 passed because angry white males voted for it, pushed by California governor Pete Wilson and Bob Dole in a campaign bankrolled by the state's Republican Party.

What this ignores is the fact that slightly more than one out of four blacks who cast a ballot voted for the initiative -- slightly higher than the percentage of Hispanics who endorsed it. (According to exit polls reported by the Los Angeles Times, 26 percent of black voters, 24 percent of Latino voters and 39 percent of Asian voters approved of Prop. 209).

These votes -- more than 600,000 in all -- would not have been enough to defeat the initiative but would have narrowed the margin of defeat and thus given the court challenges greater urgency and legitimacy.

Opponents of 209 insist that blacks who supported it were confused by its deceptive language or misled by Republican trickery. This view overlooks the deeply conservative sentiments in the black community. Many blacks are convinced that they achieved their success in business and the professions through hard work and ability. They agree with those who argue that affirmative action, like welfare, discourages incentive and unfairly stigmatizes blacks. They are particularly insulted when whites claim they got ahead because of color, not competence.

Most younger blacks have no direct experience of Jim Crow laws, little or no knowledge of the civil rights battles that erased them, and only the fuzziest notion of how affirmative action benefits them. This reinforces their feeling that affirmative action laws are more relevant to white females, Latinos and Asians than to blacks.

Anti-affirmative action sentiment among blacks has also been fueled by the new wave of black radio commentators, writers, academics and politicians. They oppose not only affirmative action, but welfare, abortion and government spending in general and advocate school prayer, more police and prisons, and "personal responsibility."

Early warning signs that more blacks were joining the growing conservative sea change emerged during the debate over the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991. A USA Today poll found that nearly half of the blacks surveyed at the time supported self help and not government quotas. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican National Committee, claimed that 25-45 percent of blacks called themselves "conservative" -- a fair prediction of the anti-affirmative action vote by blacks in California.

One key reason for the shift is rising black prosperity. Since the 1970s the number of black managers, professionals, technicians and government officials has increased by 52 percent; nearly one in three blacks has an income of over 35 percent a year, and one in ten earns more than $50,000 annually. A sizable percentage of blacks now claim they are pro-life, pro-school prayer and anti-gun control. As more than one analyst has argued, middle class blacks are more likely to be solid patriots than protesters.

There's yet another reason that more blacks define themselves as conservatives: African Americans have roots in the country that are far deeper than most non-black Americans (with the exception of Native Americans). They are totally shaped by American ideals, and have always -- through their churches, social organizations, political and economic associations -- embraced programs of self-help, business development, law and order, and religious and family values.

During all of America's wars, African Americans have enthusiastically answered the call to arms; they have fought and died in disproportionate numbers. Even black radical protest has always come wrapped in American colors. Malcolm X called for empowerment through the ballot and self-help programs, not the gun; the Black Panthers shouted "pick up the gun," but their programs were hardly revolutionary. Stripped of its anti-white and anti-Jewish rhetoric, the entrepreneurial agenda of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam reflects straight mom-and-pop, Apple-pie Americanism.

The NAACP and Urban League always waged their fight for jobs, affirmative action, education, civil rights legislation, and political representation within the tradition of American reform. Their recent national conventions emphasized self-help programs, personal responsibility and family values.

Many blacks will continue to vilify those blacks who think that affirmative action -- and indeed all government programs -- are lose-lose propositions whose time has long since past. But if the black vote against affirmative action in California is any indication, their ranks are likely to grow.