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"But Minority Voters 'Don't Become Elderly, They Die First'"

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donsu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 10:28 AM
Original message
"But Minority Voters 'Don't Become Elderly, They Die First'"

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5145


-snip-

Unbelievably, the Chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, John Tanner, contends that while it's "a shame" that elderly voters may be disenfranchised by new Photo ID restrictions at the polls because many don't have driver's licenses, minorities don't have to worry quite as much. Why? Because "minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first."

Yes, that's what Tanner said last Friday at the National Latino Congreso in Los Angeles and The BRAD BLOG was in tow with video camera to prove it.
-snip-
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read/see it - an exciting time
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PDJane Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 10:33 AM
Response to Original message
1. I'm always amazed at this stuff..........
I simply don't see how supposedly intelligent people aren't ashamed of opening their mouths and saying this racist stuff.

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The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 11:23 AM
Response to Reply #1
11. Welcome to my hell.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 10:35 AM
Response to Original message
2. We need to answer this @sshole. K&R
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Rhythm and Blue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 10:38 AM
Response to Original message
3. Disgusting, not so much for its content
but for its callous disregard for a humiliating fact of American society. "Yeah, minorities die sooner than white people do. You should be happy, though, guys, because you won't have to worry about having a photo ID to vote! You'll be dead! Isn't that great?"
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HiFructosePronSyrup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 10:44 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. You're a funny guy.
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Rhythm and Blue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 11:02 AM
Response to Reply #4
8. ?
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MissMarple Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 10:44 AM
Response to Original message
5. Where do they find these people?
It is no wonder John Eisenhower left the Republican Party in 2001. THe GOP just keeps sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire of ignorance, prejudice and hubris accumulated on an oily foundation of blind greed.
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Raejeanowl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
6. Stunning
This guy is just a poster boy for sensitivity and "civil rights" all around, isn't he?
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tanyev Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 10:57 AM
Response to Original message
7. He says that like it's a silver lining.
Shameful.
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ellacott Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 11:10 AM
Response to Original message
9. Why don't these things get more press? n/t
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RaleighNCDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 11:14 AM
Response to Original message
10. That's what you get when you confuse demographic trends
with people.

While it may be true that minorties are shorter-lived than the majority population, that does not mean there are no elderly minorities. Moron.
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Igel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 01:03 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. He didn't.
The quote ends before saying what he was leading to. I'll try to say what *he* said and then my personal judgment (and possibly those of others) to what he said.

1. Members of minority communities tend to die younger. True. (Moreover, he said it's a bad thing, due to discrimination and a lack of equality in medical care and access. Also true, and obviously something only a freeper would say.)

2. Members of minority communities tend to be a disproportionately smaller percentage of the elderly population. Presumably true, at least I can't think of any plausible conditions that would make it obviously false. But note this implies that there are elderly minorities.

3. Therefore, when you look at potential race-based disenfranchisement that unfair ID requirements might produce, you can't just look at the absolute numbers of people with valid IDs. It's important to look at rates of ID possession. True; at least it's a valid assertion, IMO. A small number of elderly without IDs might translate to a wildly disproportionate racial impact, or you may find that other assumptions that would lead us to predict a higher rate of minorities without valid IDs lead to wrong conclusions.

4. However, if you look at the population of elderly who has ID acceptable under the Georgia ID voter law, in terms of percentage of subpopulations, you find that there's a slightly *higher* percentage of minorities that hold the accetpable kinds of ID than there are whites. It's a claim I hadn't heard, and have no way of judging, but one that should be established to be true or false in order to actually form a reality-based opinion. In any event, this is the statement that the audience found either controversial or counterfactual (based entirely on anecdotal information, however), and the claim that actually needs to be defended or rebutted when discussing voter disenfranchisement in racial terms. (Note that dsenfranchising *anybody* is bad, but when the argument is made in racial terms, anything that shows that there's no race-based bias in the outcome is sufficient to deny the argument's validity.)

However, nobody seems to get past the first statement in the series of statements that form the argument, because obviously what's true must be false if it's an offensive truth, even when the last claim is what is much more important for the argument. It's especially bad when the string of disclaimers saying that it's a horrible, discriminatory state of affairs that should be remedied, is left off the quote. It's also bad when the guy's on record as saying he personally finds the voter ID requirement bad policy, but his office doesn't make the policy, it just investigates the "policy-reality interface" (my jargon, not his).

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progressoid Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Oct-09-07 11:28 AM
Response to Original message
12. Oh....My.....Gawd
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