Our database of Money Monday protesters is up to date and includes the latest protests from July 15! Not much has changed, although there are three things to point out:
This week saw an uptick in arrests – there were 101 this week compared to 64 last week. This should not be surprising to any observer. As the legislative session draws to a close, there is a limited window remaining for protests. Additionally, the abortion issue probably caused an increase: Last week, Senate Bill 353, which includes changes to abortion regulation, passed the House and is now off to the Senate.
Women are now significantly overrepresented among arrestees. Again, this should not be surprising. Pro-abortion activists were a major component of this week’s protests, and the theme of the protest was women’s issues. Still, even before the fracas about abortion, women were starting to overtake men: Last week’s data showed that 55 percent of protesters were female and 45 percent were male.
Minorities continue to be underrepresented among arrestees. Almost 85 percent of the arrestees have been non-Latino whites. Asians and Latinos are essentially not present among arrestees, despite the fact that they comprise a significant proportion of the North Carolina population. In the July 15 protest, only two of 101 arrestees were black.
We encourage you to review the database for yourself here. To learn more about the protest organizers, check out Civitas’ Money Monday study.
It is generally less complicated and wrought with fewer consequences for white people to have misdemeanor records. That’s why those numbers shake out that way. To be sure, Moral Monday demonstrations are actually very diverse and represent a genuine NC coalition, as opposed to “Thankful Tuesday” which was diverse in no meaningful way.
Ess — “Diversity” is a term that everyone on the Left uses, but no one ever quantifies. Certainly there is little “diversity” of opinion or political voting record. Or for that matter, the ability to talk rationally and w/o talking points.
Clearly the protesters come with a diverse set of concerns (tax policy, education policy, health policy, etc). They come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. There are religious folks of all sorts and atheists and agnostics (and some who kind of fit an “all of the above” label). There are folks (many religious) who feel a real conflict over, say, abortion, but who object to the process of the NCGA in introducing those bills. There are people who care more and who care less about fracking. There are a fair number of independents and even a few Republicans, despite the majority being Democrats. What the diversely invested in have in common is, indeed, some voting record, but also just general dissatisfaction with the extreme and short-sighted business being conducted in our state legislature.
Mainly what you’ve got on Moral Mondays is a motley crew of MANDATE against this NCGA.
Regarding the racial distribution, a independent analysis of the database found that there were substantial numbers of arrestees for whom there was no race data, or who were marked as “other”. This introduces large uncertainties which Civitas does not appear to acknowledge. Click my name or google “Topologic Oceans” for more information.
And don’t bother deleting this; I’ve taken a screen cap.
Hey chuckbot csoeder, are you going to go troll the WRAL website now?