Wednesday, December 2, 2009
News All about race? Norwood takes northside, Reed takes south
Posted by Patrick Saunders on Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 5:07 PM
11Alive has a Google map up showing how precincts voted and, with a few waiting to be updated, it looks pretty clear that the battle line was Bankhead Highway/North Ave. If you live south of that line, you likely voted for Kasim Reed, and almost everywhere north of there into the suburbs went for Mary Norwood.
Surprising? Not really. But still odd seeing it in that stark of a contrast.
Comments (17)
Showing 1-17 of 17
So...is this going to be another case where the gay community blames black people for its election woes? Honestly, the whole competing-identity-politics aspect of this political race obscured the really important issues. Like who is the better candidate. Anti-spam word: edu
like
dislike
I agree with your second statement LL, but regarding the gay community blaming black people like they did for Prop 8, that wouldn't be the case here because from all indications the LGBT community never really got behind one candidate over the other. Norwood might have had a slight edge there after she hit hard on the marriage equality issue the last couple weeks, but all in all Reed wasn't that far behind as far as LGBT support. See the Stonewall Dems' endorsement of Reed for example.
Hmm. How can you be sure, then, that the results on the precinct map are due to race, and not class, which is harder to see? Anti-spam word: enjoy
I wish reporters would stop calling my neighborhood a "suburb". I live inside the city limits and if I didn't I couldn't vote. So what if I don't live in Midtown. If north Buckhead is a suburb then so is Cascade.
I had a similar thought last night as the results were being posted, but since we only have binary options here, I don't know that's a fair conclusion to jump to. On this map, a precinct shows as having gone for a candidate even if they only won by 1 vote. In such a case, it's unfair to say everyone in that precinct voted the same way. It would be more useful for additional analysis to show some type of color gradations, but I know that's beyond the scope of what they were trying to show here. Fulton Envy - The AJC said that the nine DeKalb precincts voted for Reed, but barely (51%-49%, or less than 100 votes). I haven't been able to find precinct totals, though.
@Fulton Envy: the DeKalb precincts are on the map, but the county line just isn't labeled.
Scott, You sure about that? There are no data points east of Moreland, and the precinct entries on the left do not include Mary Lin or Epworth UMC, both in Candler Park.
Buckhead is the burbs. It's the most half ass way possible of living in the city. The only thing more suburban would be Brookhaven: where buckhead yuppies go to have children before they move to Alpharetta when the kids get school aged.
A map like this is, in a way, as misleading as those maps of the US after presidential elections showing "red states" and "blue states". The visual impression is of solid blocs. The reality is much more varied; Norwood got a significant number of black votes, and Reed got a significant number of white votes.
BPJ, I'd like to see the Atlanta election similar to how a Princeton University gent presented the 2004 election.
The map certainly indicates that geography played a role in how people voted. This post got a nice mention in this Lens on Atlanta blog yest. http://bit.ly/8dTenB Nice discussion here.
Yes, we all know that the only true city dwellers are the ones living in crime infested neighborhoods.
Zoinks, Lens, that was hardly a nice mention. I took the title of Mr Saunders's blog post as an open-ended question. Anti-spam word: nospam
BPJ has a great point, in that the map seems to point to exactly who voted how, but all the map really shows is that 50%+1 voted that way at that precinct. A precinct could be 70% white, and vote 50%+1 for Reed and would be as blue as a 100% black precinct. That statistical comment aside, these two candidates were not very differentiated by issues. There was no big difference of substance between the two...just lots of minor ones wrapped up in rhetoric. That left little on which to base a decision other than who one thought would truly "feel the way I do" on most things, and all other things being equal, what is there other than race, age, gender and other factors that normally would not matter. I am white and live on the southside, and have met and worked with Norwood on numerous projects, never knowing she would be there. Our paths just repeatedly crossed based on shared interests. I've never met Reed. So I supported Norwood. I am white. Did race play a part in that decision? Not at all.
@Kevin Hudson You proclaim that race had nothing to do with your decision. Yet you've given the clearest example I've yet seen on how race has everything to do with your decision. You state that yours and Norwood's paths "just repeatedly crossed based on shared interests." That's precisely the point. Whites and blacks tend to have DIFFERENT and unaligned shared interests. Thus white people will tend to "get" other white people and ditto with black people. White people will tend to show up in the same places as other white people, and ditto blacks. Note that I am not saying that one group's interests are right and the other's are wrong. I am simply stating that they tend to be different. That you as a white person "just happened" to cross the same paths as another white person is not surprising in the least. Please note that I said "TEND to be different." I am NOT saying that every single white person has the same interests as every single other white person, or that every black person has the same interests as every single other black person. Whoever is getting ready to flame me, please re-read that last sentence. I am merely talking about probabilities, about likelihoods. Having shared interests with other people like you does NOT make you racist, it merely makes you human.
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
Suspects in Pittsburgh gay bashing slated to go to trial Tuesday
The men accused of beating Brandon White in Southwest Atlanta already headed to court
-
Film Clips: Men In Black 3
Men in black are back, Chernobyl's tourism industry is booming, and music festival romance all this weekend 'at the movies.'
-
Rep. Elena Parent won't seek re-election, will join Georgia Watch
Endorses Holcomb, fellow Dem who was drawn into new district
- More »
