Thread by @GeeDee215

So this Kanye story is about #housingsegregationineverything.

first, let's stipulate that *all* groups do intragroup policing to establish and re-enforce group norms.

There is no racial group as partisan as Black folks are in national elections; they/we are deeply Democratic.

Now, some of that is THIS:

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But Being Black + voting Democratic has become a powerful norm in Black American life over the last half century or so.

And as a few v smart political scientists pointed out to me today, the potency of intra-group policing is magnfied by how isolated those groups are.

which makes sense, right? the most effective social sanctions — and social rewards — are ones that you're going to feel profoundly + immediately.

If you are a Black person who lives in a Black community with Black neighbors, you will prolly acutely feel the deviation from this norm.

And black people do live in those places, because...#housingsegregationineverything.

These academics found that the effect of this norm was so powerful that even just having a Black questioner asking a Black respondent about their voting preferences made Black respondents more likely to say they were voting for Democrats. (!!!)

And again, all groups do this. But in America, no racial group has had to do this as much as Black folks. The researchers said that Black folks had to come up with social sanctions for people who betrayed other enslaved people for their own benefit.

During and after Reconstruction, Black folks had to find ways to ostracize people who were bribed to vote for Southern Democrats, the party of former Confederates.

it seems paradoxical, in a way: at least electorally, the project of Black liberation has required that Black people maximize their bloc-level voting and not have much individual choice in how to vote.

One of the things that mitigates the effectiveness of this kind of enforcing of norms is an attenuated proximity to other Black folks.

So let's say, hypothetically, you're a rich Negro who lives in Calabasas (2% Black) with your white wife + in-laws. Hypothetically.

You might be all, "i'm a free thinker! I'm about peace and love and continuing the ongoing project of upward distribution of wealth! Make America Great Again!"

Indeed, bc of your wealth/fame, you might have a whole separate apparatus of (white) affirmation. "Look at this person! This free thinker! He is a harbinger of..."

And so forth.

You don't feel the social sanction from Black folks. That is, until you log onto Twitter.

Among Black folx, the brand you've linked up with is so toxic that evenyour BOYS are irradiated by it when they offer up their tepid defenses for you. And there connections to Black folks are less attenuated, at least symbolically.

And so *they* have to apologize or at least make a show of correcting you.

Anyway, it's an irony we can all appreciate: all Republicans have to do to win over Black voters with conservative views is ameliorate the residential segregation that defines American life and also make a lot of Black people rich.

🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

Anyway, the point is that there are powerful social dimensions to all partisan behavior. As one of the researchers pointed out, this reward/sanction dynamic explains how you get conservative evangelicals in Alabama supporting Roy Moore.

So is Kanye a “free thinker”?

Or is this man — with his deep, seemingly unslakable need for affirmation and attention — just adjusting to the shift in the affirmation/sanction arithmetic around him? 😐😐😐

For more on this research by the brilliant @chryllaird @jwamble25 @cmMcConnaughy and Ismail White, read “We Are One: Understanding the Maintenance of Black Democratic Party Identification.”

chryllaird.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/we-are…

And remember, y’all : #housingsegregationineverything