Defending My Home State

The good news about the intense focus on Tuesday's primary is that it gave West Virginia some face time on the national stage. That doesn't happen very often. The bad news, however, is that the results of the vote, particularly the exit polls, have confirmed a lot of preconceived notions about the state - namely that we're all ignorant, racist, insular hicks who simply will not vote for a black man. Today's Daily Mail has an article about it, while the comments to this New York Times blog post from earlier in the week give you a flavor of what people are saying about us. As with many things, it's just not that simple.

To be fair, the numbers are pretty ugly. According to CNN's exit polling, Obama didn't win a single demographic group in the state nor a single county. Along the way, he lost the white vote 69-23, which made up 96% of the voters. Almost 1/4 of voters said "race" was either "most important" or "one of several" factors they considered in voting (Clinton won those groups 86-10 and 80-13, respectively). Ouch.

Yet, when you look at other states, they're not much better. In Pennsylvania, a win for Clinton, she carried the white vote 63-37 and 19% of voters said race was "most important" or "one of several" factors they considered. In Arkansas, Clinton won a whopping 79% of the white vote. Even in North Carolina, where Obama won handily, Clinton carried the white vote 61-37. Simply put, Clinton's pull among white voters is not something that is new to West Virginia.

What was different about West Virginia is that, compared to most states, it is damn near all white (see the 96% statistic above), which boosted Clinton's overall numbers. Why is that? Are we an inherently racist state? Not really. It all comes down to history.

African-Americans tend to be concentrated in two areas of the country - the deep south and industrial cities. The majors forces of history responsible for those concentrations largely bypassed West Virginia.

On the one hand, the deep south concentration is largely a vestige of slavery. While slavery was legal in West Virginia while it was part of the Old Dominion, it was not as economically viable here as it was in the tidewater plantation areas. So there just weren't that many slaves in West Virginia to begin with. On the other hand, the urban concentration is largely due to the Great Migration, when scores of African-Americans left the south to find work in the North, Midwest, and West. West Virginia never possessed the type of urban centers that provided that kind of economic incentive, so the migration largely passed it by. As a result, West Virginia never had the influx of African-Americans that other states did.

But, as Ron Popeil might say, that's not all. In addition to the racial demographics of the state, the age breakdown of the state's population favored Clinton, too - it is the oldest state in the Union, after all. She's done better that Obama among older voters, of which we have quite a bunch - 64% of voters Tuesday were over 45 and they broke overwhelmingly for Clinton. As they did in Pennsylvania and other states, though to a lesser extent. In other words, West Virginia was the perfect demographic storm for Clinton - the oldest and whitest state in the union. And that's why she did so well Tuesday night.

Does that explain why white folks and older folks prefer Clinton to Obama? No. Does racism play a part for some of them? Undoubtedly. But for most of them it does not. It certainly doesn't in the (admittedly small) sample of those in my world who voted for Clinton. It's unfair to them and to Clinton to subscribe the basest motive to their votes.

To the extent that racism played a part, it doesn't appear to have more sway in West Virginia than in other states. Which was really the whole point of this. If you're willing to write off an entire state because of the way one election turned out, that's says much more about your narrow minded views of the world than the people of that state. As always, life is much more complicated.

UPDATE: Of course, none of the above will make the impact of the idiots in this video piece over at The Film Geek's place. Oy.