Obama Murder Plot

[TK-421]

Well, according to the US Census of 2000 (didn't have time to go looking for the more recent numbers) the numbers are higher than "less than 10%":

Census 2000 showed that the United States population on April 1, 2000 was 281.4 million. Of the total, 36.4 million, or 12.9 percent, reported Black or African American. This number includes 34.7 million people, or 12.3 percent, who reported only Black in addition to 1.8 million people, or 0.6 percent, who reported Black as well as one or more other races.

[Ursa major]

As you have the figures to hand, TK, how many were women? I'm guessing over 50%, particularly amongst those of voting age.

I'm also assuming that the figures you quote are for all ages.

[Tillane]

2007 estimate figures from the CIA World Fact Book:

White: 79.96%
Black: 12.85%
Asian: 4.43%
Amerinidan and Alaskan native: 0.97%
native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander: 0.18%
mixed (two or more races): 1.61%
note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean a person of Latin American descent (including persons of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin) living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.); about 15.1% of the total US population is Hispanic.

As for the male-female ratio, the site gives it as 0.97 men to every woman, so not a million miles from a 50/50 split.

[Ursa major]

That may be true of the whole population (in fact I recall being told that slightly more boys are born than girls - this is from natural causes, not "social" ones), but as women still live longer than men, there ought to be more female adults than male adults.


And it's the adults that vote. (In the UK, the older you are, the more likely it is that you'll vote, apparently: although there is the problem that fewer of them will survive to the next election to punish a party for breaking its election promises, so perhaps their influence isn't as great as it might be.)

[Tillane]

That's certainly true, Ursa. The site (and I realise that this is only one source) gives a breakdown of the figures thusly:

gender ratio:
15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female

Age structure:
15-64 years: 67.1% (male 101,825,901/female 102,161,823)
65 years and over: 12.7% (male 16,263,255/female 22,426,914) (2008 est.)

So it's certainly true that in the over-65 bracket women outnumber men by a fair degree. How much of a difference this would make in an election, I don't know, but with 6 million extra women in that bracket it could certainly be significant.

[Ursa major]

But it rarely leads to greater representation, and often very poor representation, for women, even in countries where democracy is well established.


I think you'd find discrepancies between represention amongst legislatures compared to general populations for all sorts of factors: gender, age, religion, type of culture (I mean art, not social) - even spelling ().

If we had to balance everything, you'd probably need a computer to go through a database to find the few hundred people that would allow you to match a parliament with an electorate ("we need to find a man from Wales with an English degree who likes meccano; he has to be a Buddhist, have a great grandparent from near Durham and he must be a morris dancer"). There wouldn't be enough choices to need an election.

[Tillane]

Could make for a very well-balanced dictator, though. But I feel I'm digressing from the original gist of the thread somewhat...

[TK-421]

Yes, the figures are for all ages but I would not have the figure as to what percentage would be women. I don't know enough about the demographics.

[Wiglaf]

California is 6.7% Black; I did not realize that nationally the percentage was double.
California is
White (includes Hispanic and Middle Eastern)...59.5%
Black............................................. ............6.7%
Asian............................................. ...........10.9%
American Indian or Alaskan Native....................1.0%
Pacific Islander.......................................... ...0.1%

Hispanic of any Race is 32.4%
White alone is 46.7%
Filapino is only 2.7%; locally it is closer to 12%
Apparently the rest of the country has way more white and black folks by percentage than out here.
Oh, 35.8% are men over 18 while 36.9% are women over 18 (in CA)