TNC on racism and Joe the Plumber

Ta Nehisi Coates, over at The Atlantic, has another thoughtful post up about racism. The key point, and one he's made before, is that to defend prejudice, even in soft ways--like attacking affirmative action or "the sanctity of marriage"--requires you to dumb yourself down. That doesn't mean you're not smart, or that you can't cobble together a smart argument; it just means you still have to cheat your brain a little to get there.

He has a rich quote from Joe the Plumber (yet another lasting gift from McCain--will we ever give him his due?), in which Joe plays the moderate on homosexuality:

Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we're supposed to do--what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we're supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children.

As TNC puts it: "So much of this is so perfect--including the idea that "honkey" is the worst slur Joe can think of." The post also put me in mind of a comment I heard today at the gym (which here in H-town has TWO separate Fox News TVs on at all times) where someone suggested that Conservatives need to find someone who can talk moderate. What I love, is that's exactly what Joe's trying to do here. As a formula for the kind of "moderating" statement Obama has mastered, you couldn't get better than:

(1) State something anodyne which tries to defuse the topic by shifting it in a more culturally-neutral direction.

(2) Spice it up with something that shows you Feel the Pain of the other side and respect their opinion.

(3) Dip back into the well of common opinion for another injection of the anodyne.

(4) Use (3) to make an argument that everyone, even those who don't agree with (3) itself, would agree with.

(5) Return to (2) if necessary to burnish your cred before

(6) Make your final position clear, and if you've done 1-5 right, they may not agree with you, but they'll appreciate your opinion.

Back in college I had a prof who called this a "Rogerian" argument, based on the writing of psychologist Carl Rogers. It's essential to drawing people of opposing views into, if not out right agreement, at least appreciation of your opinion and moderation of their views. But for it to work, you have to find those "common ground" bona fides that the other side will recognize and respect. Joe's got the form of the argument down, but citing 19th-century diction, biblical wisdom, and knee-jerk homophobia isn't gonna get him anywhere. I mean, even conservatives must cringe when he gets more air time.

The key point is, you can't just try to talk like a moderate. You have to be able to adopt more moderate views, and to recognize what kinds of arguments others will recognize as moderate. Until Republicans can do that they're toast.

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Texas Secession

Tom Delay's bone-headed call for Texas to secede has sparked a broad online debate about the ramifications of secession for Texas, and weather Texas is truly "wealthy" as Perry claims. This prompted Matt to opine:

One problem here is that Texas isn’t a wealthy state. Its median household income of $47,548 made it 28th in the country. Below average, in other words. New Jersey is second, California is eighth, and New York is nineteenth. Indeed, of the top ten states in per capita income nine are “blue” states.

The exception is Alaska, whose wealthy is due not to “hard work” on the part of the population or a business-friendly policy environment but to the combination of substantial natural resource wealth and a small population. Texas is like a poor man’s Alaska, with the substantial natural resource wealth but with the wealth spread across a much greater population.

Ta Nehisi Coates picked this up (and despite my deep unabashed boy crush on each) I had to respond (a response TNC kindly reposted):

This is pretty ignorant. The GDP of Texas, in 2007, was 1.14 trillion dollars, close to nine percent of the national GDP (13.7 trillion). In this Texas stood just below California (1.8 trillion) and above New York (1.10 trillion). Taking the median income may say a lot about wealth distribution in Texas, but it’s a stupid measure of how “wealthy” the state is. Tell me again how Texas is a “poor man’s” Alaska (GDP 44 billion).

By the way — this means Texas’ economy would make it the fourteenth-largest in the world, larger than Australia, Ireland, Italy, etc.
Note: I think the secession talk is stupid grandstanding (albeit, grandstanding drilled into us by the mandatory Texas history course we public schoolers take). But it shouldn’t be dismissed as an operationally insignificant possibility.

The central question, as I understand it, is how wealthy the state is, not what is the centerpoint value of the wealth distribution. Using the median confuses wealth with income equality. California’s median income was $56,000 for 2006-7, Texas’s $45,000 for the same period. But if you divide GDP by population, California’s GDP per person was $49,000, Texas’ 48,000 (rounded up from 47,581). What this suggests is that the *wealth* on a population basis for Texas is roughly equivalent, but distributed much less broadly than in California. If we’re talking about just policy, then California looks a hell of a lot better. But in terms of whose policy is better at generating wealth, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. THAT’s why the “flaws” of median income make its use in this context misleading (if not ignorant).

There's been more discussion over at TNC's blog at The Atlantic, including some arguments that pick up Matt's assertion that Texas wealth doesn't count because it's oil based.

To me, this is a bit like arguing that Houston's transportation woes are due to the prevalence of horse-drawn buggies. Only a fraction of Texas' economy is Oil and gas based (despite stereotypes). This has a lot to do with the oil bust of the early 80s, which forced a large-scale diversification of the Texas economy.

To put this in numbers, according to the Texas Comptroller:

Assuming oil and natural gas prices of $30/bbl and $5/Mcf and 2002 annual production of 368 MMbbl and 5,038 Bcf, wellhead value is greater than $36 billion. Natural gas wellhead value is currently double that of Texas oil. In terms of economic value trickled down through the Texas economy and jobs created, this figure equates to over $105 billion and 691,993 jobs.

With the Texas gdp for that year 829 billion, that makes the value of Oil and Gas about 4% of state GDP, and about 13% once all associated economic activity is included (which would include everything from associated housing and food production to auto sales). And while I don't have the numbers, I'm pretty sure the state's production is continuing to decline, which means those percentages are probably significantly lower today. That's hefty, but it's absurd to attribute all of the income inequality in Texas, or all of its wealth, to its natural resources.

For all that, Texas secession is an absurd idea fueled by our mandatory Texas history courses (which remind us that it's a right guaranteed by our state constitution--civil war be damned!). That's why, when polled, 31% of Texans think we have the right to secede, and 25% either would like to or are undecided. But it's a bit like asking New Yorkers whether they've got the best pizza, or Bloomington residents who's got the best shot in the sweet 16 next year. It's a pre-programmed cultural more without larger significance. End of story.

Now git off my porch.

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