Criticism of Minnesota's racial disparities is not new, but the murder of George Floyd and ensuing protests and riots have amplified the attention these disparities are getting from news media. According to US News, Minnesota ranks 43rd in terms of equality as measured by racial income gap. That's pretty bad, but it should be noted that California (the most populous state) ranks 48th. A popular inference seems to be that Minnesota's high racial disparity indicates a greater level of racism in Minnesota (despite Minnesota's 'liberal facade'). I live in Ward 9 of Minneapolis, which is where George Floyd was killed. With the exception of Donald Trump and Mike Pence, every elected politician representing Ward 9 is a Democrat. That includes the city council, mayor, county commissioner, members of Congress, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state auditor, and state attorney general. I will also note that of these 13 elected politicians, two are Latina, one is Native American, and four are black. I decided to compare Minnesota to the five states with lowest racial income gap. In order starting with the lowest gap, these are: New Hampshire, Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, and Washington. I'll preface this by saying that I don't claim to have a definitive measurement of racism, but I do think the judgement that Minnesota is particularly racist may be ignoring the context of the situation. Firstly, we'll consider the percentage of the vote Donald Trump received in these states in 2016:
New Hampshire 46.61%
Kentucky 62.52%
Virginia 44.41%
Missouri 56.77%
Washington 36.83%
Minnesota 44.92%
Of course, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both white. I also analyzed the propensity for non-white people to be elected to Congress by these states. The first numeric column is the percentage of the congressional delegation that is non-white. The second is the percentage of the state's population that is non-white (2019 estimate). The last column is the ratio of non-white people in the congressional delegation to non-white people in the state.
CD Population Ratio (CD/Population)
New Hampshire 0 6.11% 0
Kentucky 0 12.21% 0
Virginia 15.38% 31.42% .49
Missouri 20.00% 17.21% 1.16
Washington 16.67% 22.73% .73
Minnesota 10.00% 14.70% .68
The data from this measure is limited because of the small size of some of the congressional delegations. New Hampshire and Kentucky have all white congressional delegations, but these delegations only consist of four and eight people, respectively. The ratio in the last column indicates the degree to which non-white people are underrepresented in the delegation (or, curiously in the case of Missouri, overrepresented). The data suggests that non-white politicians in Minnesota have a greater propensity for being elected than three out of the five 'most equal states' (after adjusting for the demographics of the state).
The final statistic I will consider is the change in the proportion of black residents in these states. These are the percentages of 'black or African American alone' for 2000 and 2010, and the percent change of these proportions:
2000 2010 Percent Change
New Hampshire .73% 1.14% 56.16%
Kentucky 7.32% 7.78% 6.28%
Virginia 19.64% 19.39% -1.27%
Missouri 11.25% 11.58% 2.93%
Washington 3.23% 3.57% 10.53%
Minnesota 3.49% 5.17% 48.14%
While New Hampshire experienced the most rapid increase in its black population, at 1.14% in 2010, the number remains very low. The rate at which Minnesota's black population is increasing is far faster than any of the other four states. While many have decried Minnesota as a bad place for black people to live, the fact remains that black people continue to move there. Other factors, such as birth rate or even emigration of other races, may have had an impact, but with Minnesota's black population increasing 60% over the course of 10 years, it would be reasonable to estimate that most of the black people in Minnesota spent much of their lives in other places. Before states like Kentucky are used as models for Minnesota to remake itself after, other factors impacting racial disparities ought to be considered.
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