A one minute Google search (all I have time for right now) turned up a 1995 Washington Post article that includes the following paragraph:
"The survey [a 'poll of 1,524 randomly selected Americans'] found that affirmative action, like most racial issues, sharply divides whites and blacks. And within communities of color, a debate about affirmative action also rages: Nearly half of all African Americans interviewed said they opposed affirmative action programs giving preference to minorities."
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/affirm/stories/aa032495.htm.
Would Michael argue that the poll was anomalous or that attitudes have changed in the ten years since the poll was taken?
I raise this point not really to argue over the views of African Americans about affirmative action, but because Michael suggests that Justice Thomas's thought is not in any sense representative of African American thought.
Even if most African Americans disagree with Justice Thomas on affirmative action, his views may, on many other issues, resonate with a majority of African Americans. I worked with two real estate agents in Los Angeles this summer who are African American women. Their strongly held views on Establishment Clause issues - e.g., Newdow and the removal of the tiny cross from the Los Angeles County seal - were much closer to those of Justice Thomas than to the views of the strict separationists on the Court.
Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine University School of Law
-----Original Message-----
From: Newsom Michael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 2:55 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Massachusetts proposals to force church disclosures
I think that the only thing that one can say for sure is that Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly do not support affirmative action. Polling data and studies of the political views of African Americans tend to show that the vast majority of black people in this country support affirmative action. One cannot assume that either of these two people are in any sense representative of African American thought, particularly when all of the available evidence points to the contrary.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sanford Levinson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 11:43 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Massachusetts proposals to force church disclosures
Vince Koven writes:
I suppose that depends on how you define "anti-Catholic," but the proponents of this legislation (all Catholics, so far as I can tell) are adopting the *political* stance of supporting the lay Catholics who have been critical of church-closing decisions. More votes in the pews than in the pulpits, I guess.
I think this raises a very interesting question going well beyond the specific example. Many people who have studied abortion note that women are basically split on the issue, which makes it problematic to argue that those of us who support reproductive choice (as I do) are "pro-women" and those against are "anti." Similarly, one of the things that Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly have taught us is that African-Americans do not necessarily support affirmative action and, indeed, are willing to argue that it is functionally anti-Black to support it. I don't agree, but I'm not sure that I'm any longer willing to say that opponents of affirmative action are "anti-African American." If one accepts Catholic theology, then I suppose that the "pro-Catholic" position is indeed the pulpit (and ultimately the Papacy) rather than what the laity happen to profess, but that is obviously a tendentious argument (for most of us). With regard to almost all Protestant denominations (or Judaism), there would certainly be no reason at all to reject the laity in favor of ministers or rabbis.
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