Where are all these Texas atheists?

Near the end of its latest poll on the Beto O'Rourke-Ted Cruz Senate Race, Lyceum reports on the background of respondents, as most in-depth polls do.

There's this, on page 11: NINE percent claim to be atheist or agnostic. That's more than twice as many as who reported as Muslim. Throw out the 13 percent who were either "didn't know" (really?) or "refused," and you're at a little over 10 percent.

Really?

That said, counting 22 percent as either unaligned or third party, Lyceum claimed respondents were otherwise split, 39 percent each on Doinks and Rethugs.

Really?

But, let's get back to those atheists and agnostics.

I'm quite familiar with people misusing these terms to really mean "spiritual but not religious," or "irreligious vis-a-vis organized religion."

Let's say half our 10 percent falls there.

That's still 5 percent atheist or agnostic.

Let's say that 8 percentage points of the 13 percent refusniks are "nones," as are all 9 percent, in the original number, of alleged atheists or agnostics. Then, one-sixth of Texans are "nones."

That leads me to a piece by Psy Post. Until Friday, it seemed to me to be a pretty good psychology popularization blog and website. John Horgan is among its Twitter followers.

But then it blared: You live longer if you're religious.

Without saying that all we have on that is statistical correlation, not causal correlation, and without, in the western tradition, comparing today's US to today's Europe on that. (Well, it did kind of say that, but after the "blaring.")

Given that the power of intercessory prayer has been disproven by double blinded studies, in fact, we can say that almost certainly, it is NOT a causal correlation.

Add to that the fact that, especially in small towns, "church" and non-church general religious affiliation adds a degree of "community" to life for many people, especially in a place like red-state Texas. Also note that, especially in smaller communities, for those in need, many food banks and other forms of charitable outreach are church-based, or if not so explicit, at least religiously themed.

The only way to do a halfway scientific version of such a survey would be to look at churched vs unchurched people who are both also members of other organizations, like Rotary, Kiwanis, etc. And, you'd have to use more than obits. You'd have to use longitudinal time management research to confirm how often said people actually attended both churches and their social clubs.

And, there's been plenty of empirical research on the reality of a god already.

Speaking of empirical matters, we do also know that, by percentage of respective ethnic groups, more of those atheists are white than black or hispanic, but we also know that young blacks are consciously starting to catch up on leaving church, in part because African-Americans are finding more "secular" leaders willing to speak on "spiritual" issues. Like LeBron. Or Kaepernick. This is even as Congressional Black Caucus leader Jim Clyburn will suck up to Trump as much as those black ministers, to avoid churches paying new taxes.

==

Update, with some related stats? In 2019, 23 percent of Americans went to church every week. Sounds fairly devoted, right, every week? But 29 percent never went once. Texas, Bible Belt stereotypes aside, is no exception. This site says that it was less than 20 percent, and they're a religious website.

Will Greens continue to struggle in chasing black members?

I referred to this issue in passing in a blog post in July, in talking about the Green Party's public pants-crappings leading up to, and during, the 2017 national convention.

That's the issue of race and the party.

As both the Texas state and the national conventions showed, there is racism in at least a few pockets of the party. Maybe more than a few.

Is it endemic, though?

I don't think so.

And, I definitely don't think that evidence of absence is proof of that.

Neither does Bruce Dixon, as referenced there and noted here.

Bruce, the editor of the Black Agenda Report, has a few problems with this spin.

First, he sees at least a small degree of tokenism in a fixation, or at least an overfixation, on black party members qua black party members.

Then, he notes that Greens need to reach outside traditional black bases where most black Democrats come from. He rightly, as Greens are generally more "frou-frou" religiously (setting aside the secularists) than Democrats, let alone black Americans of any party, notes that the black church is definitely NOT a place to look.

And, as proof of that? This Pew survey, looking at Democrats in general, then doing some breakouts.

Some 48 percent of all registered voters who identified as Democrat or Democrat-leaning said they were "liberal." Another 36 percent said "moderate."

First, although not all registered voters vote, you have to be registered in order to vote legally, of course, so this is an important subset within "all voting age adults."

Now, the ethnic breakout.

A full 30 percent of black voters called themselves "conservative," (versus 16 percent for the full party) 40 percent "moderate" and only 28 percent "liberal." Hispanics about split the difference, with 41L 36M 22C.

Now remember, that's versus the whole set of Democrats and Democrat-leaners. We haven't extracted out whites.

Pew goes on with that. Whites were 55L 35M 8C. See how HUGE that difference is?

The divergence in percentage of "liberals" started between whites and blacks in 2000, Pew shows, and about 2006 between whites and Hispanics.

Why?

The black church, per Dixon. Per myself and Brains, regionally as well as nationally.

We've seen, in cases such as Houston's HERO, black Democrats' generally tepid support for gay rights. Certainly transgender issues now only increase that.

And, African-Americans are the most religious American ethnic group. They're certainly, if one restricts to Western monotheisms, the most religious American ethnic group. Within the Democratic party, the division between blacks and whites is much greater than between black and white Republicans.

And, the black-white, and somewhat black-Hispanic, divisions may go beyond one or two hot-button social issues.

That said, younger voters of all ethnicities who lean Dem are more likely to identify as "liberal." And, they're more likely to be secular, too.

So, there you go, state and national Green leaders. Don't look to take blacks "captive," but do look to recruit. Focus on the under-40 crowd, though.

None of this is meant to say that the national party, and Texas and other state parties, shouldn't address racism where it exists within the party. It should be addressed, of course.

But, failure to get more black members as quickly as some people would hope shouldn't be considered as "proof" of party-wide systemic racism, either.

Black America not 'feeling it' for #OWS

I'd noted before that, per its own polling at the Occupy Wall Street website, OWS is ... very ... white!. The fully-crunched numbers/data from the poll are here, in PDF.

And now, other reports confirm that black Americans simply aren't connecting to OWS.

“Occupy Wall Street was started by whites and is about their concern with their plight,” Nathalie Thandiwe, a radio host and producer for WBAI in New York, said in an interview. “Now that capitalism isn’t working for ‘everybody,’ some are protesting.”

This gets back to comments I've made before. Black Americans, by and large, have seen capitalism work less well for them for longer, including being the prime targets of subprime mortgages.

Beyond a lack of leaders to inspire them to join the Occupy fold, blacks are not seeing anything new for themselves in the movement. Why should they ally with whites who are just now experiencing the hardships that blacks have known for generations?

The story also notes that black churches were key to the civil rights movement, but aren't part of any clarion call right now, as far as the lack of leadership. It adds that A-list black civil rights groups like the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus are co-opted, if you will, by the amount of money they've received in the recent past from Big Tobacco and other hypercapitalists.

So, will more blacks get involved? Possibly not:

Leslie Wilson, a professor of African American history at Montclair State University, is not optimistic.

“Occupy Wall Street cannot produce enough change to encourage certain types of black participation,” Wilson said in an interview. “The church cannot get enough blacks out on the streets. Some students will go, but not the masses. Black folks, particularly older ones, do not think that this is going to lead to change. . . . This generation has already been beaten down and is hurting. They are not willing to risk what little they have for change. Those who are wealthier are not willing to risk and lose.”

Black America’s fight for income equality is not on Wall Street, but is a matter of day-to-day survival. The more pressing battles are against tenant evictions, police brutality and street crime. This group doesn’t see a reason to join the amorphous Occupiers.

It wouldn't surprise me, either, if many blacks, from old-line civil rightsers through "new black" politicians like Newark mayor Cory Booker on to young black entertainers, remain more on the sidelines.

And, that's not to mention that the man who received even more hypercapitalist money than the NAACP, Dear Leader, America's first black president, has already effectively washed his hands of OWS and has had the federal government advise local governments on how to respond.

is the black church dead?

If by black church, we mean its traditional, more social gospel, more politically liberally oriented version, then, yes, as discussed here, that's quite arguably the case.

If not dead, it's at least ailing and infirm.

Why?

Well, as the story notes, one big issue is the rise of black megachurches, more conservative in political tone and more focused on the prosperity gospel rather than social gospel. This became clear in the last decade when some pastors and other leaders at such churches even worked hand-in-glove with banks and other lenders to peddle toxic subprime mortgages to their flocks.

Not all black megachurches are quite that bad; T.J. Jakes, for example, seems to have a bit of the older sensibilities side by side with the social gospel. But many younger black ministers are indeed naked capitalists.

Related to that has been more blacks going to multicultural or even white-majority megachurches.

Along with this has been both the newer megachurches and many of the older black churches being openly illiberal on gay rights. From clandestine sex on the down low and its attendant AIDS fallout to the loss of Prop. 8 in California and what degree of effect black voters had on that (it may not have been a lot, but I reject some apologists, whether black and gay or not, who claim the effect was minimal to near-zero), it's also clear that on one major issue, the traditional and new black church are both losing relevance with one slice of black voters.

And, among a certain segment of the black underclass, black churches of any political bent are surely losing ground.

That said, none of this is bad.

While I'm certainly not a Republican or a generic political conservative, growing black political diversity would prevent their votes from being taken for granted.

Lessening political power of traditional black churches would lead to liberal push for black votes becoming less religiously focused, in turn.

What’s good for Obama might not be good for blacks

Namely, Obama winning the presidency might not be so good for black Americans.

The story is variations on a theme, that white Americans, even more liberal ones, would think we’re in a new generation. From “Stuff White People Like” types talking about “post-racial America to racialist Steve Sailer saying Obama offers “White Guilt Repellent,” it’s a theme that cuts across political divisions.

Among the most worried? Some black commentators:

Glen Ford, executive editor of the online journal blackagendareport.com, offered some white Americans a free solution to the race problem: “Millions of whites came to believe Obama could solve the ‘race problem’ by his mere presence, at no cost to their own notions of skin privilege,” Ford wrote in an essay in January.

Ford and others also distinguish between individual prejudice and institutionalized racism, in the places it can still exist today.

And, could an Obama presidency also produce a black backlash?

Not likely, but expect an Internet video campaign commercial to that effect from some winger 527 in the near future.

On the coffee table – ‘Sellout’

This is a great book that provides an insightful and even-handed look at the use of the word “sellout” by some African-Americans against other blacks.

Kennedy is personally qualified, as he notes near the end of the book. Besides being a professor at Harvard Law and the author of previous black sociology/studies type books, he has himself been a target of the “sellout” moniker more than once.

At the beginning, Kennedy explains that the word is used as part of efforts to maintain racial solidarity. He then notes that other groups use similar tactics, and later in the book draws some parallels to the gay/lesbian community.

But, for groups in general and black in general, this raises new questions that Kennedy tackles.

What are the defining points of the community, and here, specifically, the black community? And, who are the guardians and gatekeepers?

On the former question, Kennedy says it is, without a doubt, affirmative action. He then devoted an entire chapter to exploring how this rubber hit the road with Clarence Thomas.

Kennedy isn’t afraid to point fingers at many black “guardians” for merely engaging Thomas on his point of view, rather than any evidence he may have for it. He links this to the larger problem of black “guardians” writing off black conservatives in general. He makes clear that wrestling with an opposing point of view on empirical grounds does not necessarily mean agreeing with it.

No. 2, after affirmative action, from how I read Kennedy, he would probably say is interracial marriage.

And No. 3, quite relevant today with Barack Obama and Tiger Woods, is racial identity. Kennedy defends an ABC reporter a year ago asking Obama about how he identified himself, in part by referencing Woods’ “Cablinasian” self-designation.