Negrophile
Have proven they're independent thinkers.

The latest accounting of African-American elected officials by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies was released Wednesday. It shows that from 1998 through 2001 the number of black women elected to political offices grew by 10.1 percent while the number of black male officeholders declined by 1.1 percent.

Men still hold the advantage, 5,881 to 3,220, but the ratio has gone from 10 to 1 in 1970 to less than 2 to 1 today.

Black women also hold a higher percentage of most legislative seats than women as a whole. According to the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, women hold 14 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, 20 percent of state Senate seats and 23 percent of state house seats. The comparative figures for women in black-held seats are 38 percent, 35 percent and 32 percent.

However, there are seven white female governors and 14 white females in the U.S. Senate, and no black governors or senators.

The center's senior political analyst, David Bositis, offered several theories for the rise in black women-officeholders.

  • Black women vote more than black men. African-Americans accounted for one in 10 voters in the 2000 presidential election. Women were 6 out of those 10.

  • Black women support Democrats even more than black men. In 2000, voter surveys showed that only 6 percent of black women voted for George W. Bush compared with 15 percent of black men.

  • Most black women participate in the workforce, either as part of a two-worker family or as head of their own household.

  • More black women go to college than men. According to the College Board, women made up 59 percent of the 2003 black high school graduates in 2003 who took the SAT, a larger percentage difference than for any other race.

  • About 13 percent of black men, 1.4 million, are not allowed to vote or run for office because they are in jail or prison, on parole, or are disfranchised by their states according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group.

  • The boom in black elected officials following the 1990 census and reapportionment has faded. Hispanic candidates are displacing blacks in some minority-dominated districts in Texas and California. The modest increase in the number of black elected officials - 233 from 1998 to 2001 - has occurred in majority-white or split districts.

    • | James W. Brosnan's Memphis Commercial Appeal article "Black women beginning to move up the political ladder" uses data from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies' "Black Elected Officials: A Statistical Summary, 2001" (downloadable in PDF format)


    posted in data on December 4, 2003 1:07 AM | t (0)

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    Comments

    The felon-disenfranchisment numbers dovetail into the numbers of the male/female ratio. Also, the Democrat voting ratio is not surprising, in that women overall vote more heavily Democrat.

    — Phelps, December 4, 2003 10:25 AM

    Blacks, must understand that, unless they/we are willing to risk losing the materialistic things we cling to. Unless they/we are willing to to transition from a people addicted to consumerism to a people with true power and influence, we will be left forever standing out in the cold,with our hat in our hand, wishing, hoping and praying for meager handouts from those who call themselves our leaders.

    — Jasper McMillan, May 19, 2005 8:11 PM
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