Introduction
Throughout American history, and especially in the most recent century, the relationship between black African-Americans, Hispanics and white Americans has hit a rocky patch, and has also began to deteriorate. Particularly in the last decade, with the rapidly increasing support for the Republican party in the US, racial tensions have hit an all-time high. With many small groups now turning to violence, and the increasingly tough immigration laws being imposed on Hispanics and other minorities trying to enter to United States, the question needs to be asked: Is this now a now more modern race war? There has been mass media attention given to this topic, but this paper will delve deeper into the statistics and the causes of this tension, from government down the civilians themselves and those who are involved in this new form of freedom-fighting.
This paper will focus on how the racial tensions between these racial groups have become so ill-tempered and more extreme. This will be done with research dating back to the Civil War, all the way up to the present day and the Black Lives Matter campaign, along with the immigration scandal caused by now US President Donald Trump. Though there have not been any serious incidents over the 12 months, there have been many different incidents over the last decade that can prove that there has been discrimination and hatred towards Hispanics and African-Americans.
The purpose of this research project is to investigate the racial tension between these ethnic groups from the post-Civil War era, all the way to the modern day, and study the trend of protests and violence between them and these times. Throughout history, and in more recent times, the Republican Party has never had the vote of Hispanics, or northern
states such as New York or Pennsylvania. However, over the last two years, the Republicans have begun a huge march towards power. After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the Republican party have gained more and more support from the Southern, less developed states such as Florida, Alabama and Louisiana. Even before President Trump was elected to the White House, Black Lives Matter and other minority groups were in full swing in a bid to have their voices heard at all costs.
For the majority of this paper, it will centre around the general turnout of voters, the percentage of voters that are African-American or Hispanic, and the actual effect of the turnout. Does their vote actually matter as to whether or not who gets elected to congress or to their state government? This paper will also look at those who can heavily influence these voters such as pastors, protest groups, freedom fighters and members of the US Senate and Congress.
Literary Review
For the vast majority of time that elections have been contested, Blacks and Hispanics have turned out in their millions ot have their vote heard. In an article by Richard J. Timpone, he believes that the minds of the American people are already made up purely based on their political party, or that many will now vote for anyone, as long as a certain other party will not be voted in. for example, though many Republicans could have been quite reluctant to vote for Donald Trump in the Presidential election, they were willing to vote for him simply because he was not Hillary Clinton or a Democrat running for office. (Timpone, 1998)
Timpone also drew out two tables for the purpose of his paper. For the first table, he has drawn out the level of bias in pre-selectin terms. This means he has carried out a survey on who he believes people are going to vote for but has also surveyed those who are also projected to actually turnout and vote for their party. For every presidential election, it has been a straight shootout between the Republicans and Democrats for the Presidency. Though some smaller parties such as the Green Party are able to have candidates running, for most, they are simply there to make up the numbers.
On another note, churches played a significant role on not just who blacks and Hispanics voted for, but also who white Americans voted for. Throughout the 1950s and well up into the 1980s, the Americans civil rights movement was a period defining moment for the minorities in the country. As the desegregation of public buildings and schools began to take shape, small extremist groups such as the Black Panthers and even the Ku Klux Klan were getting involved in political demonstrations involving race. The vast majority of the groups were branched out of their local churches. Each church could easily have their own wing of the Black Panthers or the Ku Klux Klan. In churches for blacks, most pastors would preach about tackling crime, police brutality, and even the severe lack of equality in the Southern states. (Boehm, 2009) At this time of the 20th century, blacks were not seen as people. They were viewed as the lowest of the low in society. They even had their own seats on busses, restaurants and public toilets. They were forbidden from mixing with whites, and if they were found to have broken unfair laws against them, they could face years in prison or death. (Brown, 2003) As Brown explains, the linkage between and church and citizens actually had a positive influence, which is also the focus of this research, to see if these groups had any sort of influence on the turnout of voters.
It was the pastor’s and preachers bidding to expose the Republicans and pro-white candidates running for office by any means necessary. The hardest hit parts were down South, in parts of Florida, Georgia and Alabama. In the early 1950s, the sought the help of Martin Luther King, a pastor, who had just moved into Montgomery, Alabama. For a decade, King played a pivotal role in the emergence of the black civil rights movement in the South, and even did his best to improve some of the relations up north. However, as rising extremism from the Ku Klux Klan arrived to put off the movement and send the protestors packing, it did little to the impact. Blacks now felt like they had a place in Alabama.
After the law came in to desegregate the whole state, the voter turnout now began to increase not only in Alabama, but now in the whole of the Southern United States. (Womback, 2010)
For the purpose of this research, and though it seems there is a major reliability on the happenings in the mid to late twentieth century, let it be assured that this is only being used as mere background to what this research is going to entail. The research will look at the voter turnout now and the results of these elections. It will also look at who these groups have voted for and how that has affected the polls in important states, and the outright result of the election for the whole country. In an article about the 1986 General election, George Bingham Powell wrote that it was the largest voter turnout the country had ever seen, especially in the case of African-Americans. (Jr., 1986) However, in the 2016 election, numbers dropped, but the African-American vote increased significantly. With over 60% of African-Americans turning out to vote in the last election, it was a real step in the right direction. However, in the years prior and the year after the election, violent protests and wild police brutality became the norm, and images broadcasted to the world to show what life was really like. With increasing mass protests, including the iconic white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, America was now officially divided.
The race relations were now on thin-ice. The majority of this research is looking at how the brutality and the treatment of African-Americans has affected the turnout at general elections, and also how it effects the results of these elections.
Hypothesis
For the hypothesis of the research, it has been selected to prove that violence, hate crimes and racism is evident in the turnout of African-Americans in terms of voting in elections. For this to be proven, there are a few factors that need to be considered. Can African-Americans votes have a real effect on the results of elections? Or is the electoral college process in America too strong for the public decision? For the most part, there was evidence that voting rights had been almost equally shared among both black and white Americans. However, it was the turnout that was the turning point. Like mentioned in the literary view, the turnout for blacks in the elections was constantly shorter than their white counterparts. Perhaps, this was due to a feeling of oppression. They felt as if their vote was never going to be taken into consideration, so they never bothered either registering to vote or even going down to the polling stations to cast their vote. Public opinion was also starting to swing by the turn of the decade. After the appointment of President Obama in late 2009, the African-Americans began to make themselves heard again, much like they did in the 1950s in the time of Martin Luther King.
For the hypothesis to be proven, further research will be conducted by delving into the records and general census of Americans to figure out if there are any trends in voting or support for certain candidates in the lead up to voting day. If there are trends, there will be specific focus on the candidate’s policies.
There are three main hypotheses, followed by questions that need to be asked:
1. African-Americans are convinced their vote will not be heard or recognised.
2. Numbers are improving due to a lack of fear shown by the Black Lives Matter campaign.
3. There has been a steady growth in the rise of prominent African-American senators, so they feel if they can reach out ot them, they will get somewhere quickly.
Are they in favour of certain aspects of the candidate such as cutting unemployment or trying to reduce poverty levels in states currently under the line? Income levels will also be looked at through this. For the most part, an in-depth examination of the percentages of the turnouts from the past 12 or so elections will be used to determine any trends in the percentage of votes. There will also be an examination of any big racially fuelled controversies by any parties, candidates or the current president at the time of the election. For example, was there a bigger voter turnout in 2016 because of the severe lack of inequality, accompanied by the incidents in Charlottesville, and Ferguson, Texas and Baltimore in years previous. For this, further research is needed to delve into why these trends develop. Have these rises just been brought up as an excuse to stay relevant? Or is there something more underlying?
Methodology and Data
For the most part of this research, there has been possibility of any possible interference, and for the most part of it, there are very little. However, there can be dips in trend, a very low voter turnout in times of racial segregation, or even a case of tampering with records, such as inaccurate figures in census. Most of this would happen around the mid-East and the Southern states of America in the mid-twentieth century. For this to be proven, it had to be researched further to identify where this can be accurately identified.
As an educated guess, this will begin around the early to mid 1950s, around the time desegregation was beginning to come into effect, and the white supremacists and black panther movements were beginning to gain momentum in the South. There are two variables that will help link these together. For the purpose of this research topic, the dependent variable will be the voter turnout in the elections, and the independent variable will be the discriminatory and racial elements that can influence the voter turnout. There is evidence to suspect that racism and discrimination can affect the presence and the turnout of voters for an election, it just needs to be proven clearly and accurately.
For the purposes of this research, it is expected that a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, however, the vast majority of the research process has been qualitative. As there was very little known about the exact figures of the turnout of voters, or even the full results of the election, but it will give us a vague or detailed idea as to just how these groups voted, and which states voted for what candidates and parties. As each state is obviously different size and in different population, this research will begin by looking at the key so-called ‘battleground’ states, such as Ohio, Washington DC, Florida, California and Texas. For the most part, these would be heavily republican states, however, those such as New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan would be heavily republican, and much closely populated than Florida and Ohio. For the most part, states such as Texas, California and Florida would be highly populated with African-Americans, but many of these would refuse to vote. So, this is why the majority of these states are now considered real republican strongholds. One of the big problems that was found is that the American system is based on something what is known as the Electoral College. The votes in each state are counted by each government but are only taken into consideration. It is infact the government of each state that is responsible for electing their candidate. This could highly affect the findings, as once again, citizen’s votes are only taken into consideration, and actually have no real benefit, only a mere opinion on who they want to be their next president. States such as Ohio had Hillary Clinton to win the majority vote, but their electoral college chose Donald Trump as their nomination. This would be the only main error in this investigation, as the vote is almost meaningless and undemocratically. For the majority of the research process, data will be collected from each of the last presidential elections in America, and this will culminate in the designing of graphs and charts to determine whether or not the theory that discrimination does in fact impact the turnout of voting among African-Americans and minority groups. Data will also be collected from the parties and also, the white, or more privileged vote. Here, we can determine any ratios between the votes, for example, is every white vote 1:3 compared to the African-American? Or is there a class issue? Wil only the more wealthier and upper-class citizens in each state vote or certain parties, or only vote for those candidates that will have little effect on the upper/lower class but will have a bigger effect on the other.
To conclude, this research will be a test in mental strength, critical reading and extremely accurate facts for this to be proven. From the outset, it is fully believed that African-Americans are being discriminated against and racially profiled by those in the white upper-class and by white extremist minority groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan in parts of the Deep Southern United States, are responsible for a lack of turnout in elections, which can evidently harm the future of not just other Americans, but for themselves. As the research nears its conclusion, a clearer idea as to why this is happening with avail. Though the possible hurdles such as the electoral college can provide tricky in providing the evidence, the fact that the voting numbers and the general census figures are there to get the proper and clear figures for each jurisdiction and for each state to show who was voted for, and who the electoral college decided to nominate as their preferred candidate for each election.