[Ads-l] Diverse = not white

[David Wilton]

On yesterday’s NPR Politics Podcast reporter Asma Khalid said that Ayanna Pressley’s “district is not nearly as diverse as the district where Ocasio-Cortez won” (11 min, 20 sec). It seems that Khalid is using “diverse” to mean less white rather than, to use M-W’s definition, “composed of distinct or unlike elements or qualities.”

The two districts both have a varied ethnic breakdown, but if anything, Ocasio-Cortez’s NY-14 district is less varied than Pressley’s MA-7. The NY-14 is heavily Hispanic, just 0.2% shy of a Hispanic majority. No ethnic group in the MA-7 has numbers than high, but it does have a plurality of whites at 34%. 

According to Wikipedia, Ocasio-Cortez’s NY-14 is:
50%  Hispanic
18%  White
16%  Asian
11%  Black
4%   Other

Pressley’s MA-7 is:
34%  White
27%  Black
22%  Hispanic
11%  Asian
8%   Other

(Numbers don’t add to 100 due to rounding.)

“Midterm Update: Ayanna Pressley’s Upset Victory Shows Power of Women of Color.” NPR Politics Podcast, 5 September 2018. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/05/644917928/midterm-update-ayanna-pressleys-upset-victory-shows-power-of-women-of-color. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts%27s_7th_congressional_district

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_14th_congressional_district


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