The biggest surprise here for me was that LA fell for the hate-filled lies of the yes on 8 campaign. It was close in LA, like most counties that went "yes." Well, most counties except Riverside, San Bernardino, and Kern. They're the "Inland Empire" counties west and north of LA, and they account for more than the 400,000 votes that make up the difference between "no" and "yes."
Let's overlay a filter on the map:
This filter darkens any county whose population has less than 15% with Bachelor's Degrees. The darkened counties above are 85% or greater non-college educated. If we only counted the votes of the counties with 15% or more College Graduates, Prop 8 would have burned. By a significant margin.
Now, as Humboldt, Mendocino, and Monterey prove, a less than 15% college degree rate does not mean you have to be a right-wing, homophobe-filled region, much as San Diego, Orange, and Sacto prove that education does not necessarily lead to an idyllic paradise of loving diversity.
What these data do suggest to me is that education leads to open minds. I think that's really what education is supposed to be about. So, if we want to help bring the world forward to a more accepting, embracing place, we should support higher education.
The data represented here came from the Los Angeles Times and the US Census Bureau.
Ever upward.
-- Post From My iPhone
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