Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of minority governors and lieutenant governors in the United States

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 23:40, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

List of minority governors and lieutenant governors in the United States

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List of minority governors and lieutenant governors in the United States (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Yet another of these political holders cross-categorisations (in this case, "holders of political offices X and Y" and "ethnicity")? Not only are the few sources used for unrelated facts, it is impossible to be sure whether this is accurate as it does not meet WP:V or WP:LISTN (the only coverage I can find is of how the US has elected only two Black governors [1]; which, beyond not even matching with the article as it stands, is not enough to create a list of them or support the rest of this); and because it is found nowhere but on Wikipedia, it is OR by definition (are there some missing? is everyone's ethnicity here properly recorded? ...) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:04, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 12:06, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 12:06, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 12:06, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete due to the WP:OR in creating this cross-categorisation and lack of sources discussing this group meaning it fails WP:LISTN. There are sources discussing African-American governors but the definition of “minority” here is original and doesn’t appear to be based on a sourced one. Unclear why a hispanic white is any more of a minority than someone of say Bosnian or Greek descent. Two examples of the issues with this categorisation: 1. The inclusion of Louis A. Wiltz because his mother came from Spanish nobility. 2. This discussion on whether Sephardic Jewish Americans are Hispanic enough to be included in this list. Clearly the “minority” categorisation is not workable and most importantly isn’t sourced. Importantly WP:NOTCATALOG advises against "non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, such as 'people from ethnic / cultural / religious group X employed by organization Y'". Vladimir.copic (talk) 14:13, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The definition of minority is based on the US Census categorizations. Bosnians and Greeks are considered non-Hispanic white, which is not minority, while Hispanic or Latino is a separate grouping, so this accusation of this distinction being original research is baseless. Louis Wiltz was Hispanic on his mother's side, just as someone today from Spain is Hispanic, so I don't see the issue here. Pointing out a discussion about Sephardic Jews likewise is irrelevant because there would not be any listed here anyway. Recognition of minority governors and lieutenant governors is a notable topic, with discussion including [2], [3], [4], [5], [6][7], [8], [9], [10]. These should correspond to Category:Hispanic and Latino American state governors of the United States, Category:American state governors of Asian descent, Category:African-American state governors of the United States. Reywas92Talk 16:32, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Whether the definition matches the US census doesn't matter if there are no sources which explicitly discuss the grouping of governors by ethnicity, and then explicitly discuss the subset of those that are from minority ethnicites. Many of the pages you link merely focus on the fact that, yes, US governors are not historically diverse, or more openly only focus on Black governors (for ex., beyond those where "back american" or a variant thereof, is in the title or the URL, places like Investopedia (is that really a good source?) only have the following:

Nowhere is lack of diversity more evident than in governors’ mansions across the country. Today, only two of the 50 states are led by someone who identifies as non-White: Hawaii, where Okinawan-American Dave Ige is governor, and New Mexico, whose chief executive is Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Latina.91011 There are currently no African American governors, which has been true for most of American history. There have been only four Black governors, and just two—Douglas Wilder of Virginia and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts—were elected. The other two, including David Paterson, who served as New York’s governor from 2008 to 2010, assumed the job after their predecessor was pushed out of office.

  • Some points in response:
  1. The use of US Census categories is not discussed in the article or sourced. Nor is this definition used in the sources you provided. I also think this is a fudging of how race is recorded and anachronistic to apply this changing category to historic figures (never mind BLPs).
  2. As explicitly stated by the US Census, individual’s response to the race question is based upon self-identification. We have no way of knowing how people identified and this is problematic for BLP. Also quite funny to think Wiltz, who fought in the confederate army, would have self-identified as non-white.
Who said anything about Louis Wiltz being non-white? He is listed in the article because he was Hispanic (who can be of any race, including white), not because he wasn't white (for the record, he was white, and Hispanic). And it is the U.S. Census, and myriad federal employment, education and discrimination laws, that deem African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, etc. to be racial or ethnic minorities. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 18:13, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
3. The Talk I linked to names several Sephardic Jewish people who would be eligible such as George Allen. Do we need to wait until his census is released before we add him?
4. Sources provided here are not adequate and mostly speak about Africa American politics which is a different topic altogether. Vladimir.copic (talk) 21:03, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You conveniently ignored my Wikipedia policy based arguments, and made an appeal to wokeness to keep the article, despite multiple people explaining nothing like this article exists in the real world (so fails WP:LISTN). Some editors in good status have edited the article since, so G5 doesn't apply here, but how is it bad faith to point out this article was created and nurtured for years (to this day?) by a prolific sock-master, not unlike many similar articles? You're entitled to your own opinion, but there is factual evidence this WP:OR Trivial cross-categorisation article is the haunt of many socks, and grossly lacks reliable sourcing or any real-world equivalent. Newshunter12 (talk) 21:45, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • None of these sources discuss minority governors and lieutenant governors though? Like I said above, maybe we could instead create an article about African-American or Hispanic and Latino American governors and lieutenant governors which are actually spoken about in sources. Better still just use the sources to improve this article. The catchall 'minority' is not reflected in sources and does not have a stable enough definition to be used for this kind of cross-categorisation particularly when it involves WP:BLP. Vladimir.copic (talk) 01:16, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean none discuss minority governors, they do. They discuss, respectively, the racial makeup of governors, the history of African-American governors, and the absence of women people of colour (ie the presence of men POC). But, wait, there's more: There has been little diversity among US governors: "Historically, there have been remarkably few minorities to reach that height in politics — only four African American men and two non-white women. There have also been a number of Hispanic, Asian-American, and two Indian-American Governors." Can We All Get Along? Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics NB p.181 which has discussion on minority elected officials at state level. Contemporary State Lieutenant Governors: An Initial Review see LIEUTENANT GOVERNORS: DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION pp.105-115 which includes a column on racial background on all LGs since the 1970s. As I said at the outset, I agree the title is not the best, but that is not the point of AfD. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 06:44, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What I mean is that the sources you previously quoted spoke about individual identities that are often grouped under “minorities” in the US and don’t use the term “minority”. To use these kind of sources to demonstrate notability of this topic is WP:SYNTH. The sources you have just now pointed to are more compelling but there are still massive issues for me over the varying definitions of “minority” in this article and the sources especially in regard to BLP. Fundamentally I think we agree - the topic’s constituent parts are notable but it’s clumsy and problematic grouping them under “minority”. I just fall into the WP:TNT camp and you into the WP:FIXABLE one. Vladimir.copic (talk) 12:12, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think the issues your raise would be more apposite if we were discussing an article rather than a list. Nevertheless, allow me to acknowledge your genial, collaborative response. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 09:08, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I mean I am basing all this off WP:LISTN which recommends groupings be "discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources" as well as WP:NOTCATALOG which explicitly advises against 'non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, such as 'people from ethnic / cultural / religious group X employed by organization Y'". To me that last quotation makes it a pretty open and shut case. The topic would be better served as an article or section in another article rather than a list. Vladimir.copic (talk) 02:42, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Let me finish your quote from WP:NOTCATALOG: "…unless the intersection of those categories is in some way a culturally significant phenomenon." Given the significance of race in America, I think this list passes that hurdle, no? (If not, what would?) -Tiredmeliorist (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Are people really thinking of politicians like John Garamendi (who appears on this list) when they talk about US minority politicians? Vladimir.copic (talk) 20:51, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
They might not be, but even if they are not, that has no relevance in determining whether to delete the list. Demonstrating that a list has areas of uncertainty (as against a list which is entirely ambiguous on inclusion) is not a reason per se invalidating the list. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 10:35, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I believe such a statement is already at the top of the article? -Tiredmeliorist (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It's not WP:OR as that requires making an argument and reaching a conclusion, which few (if any?) lists could do without prose. Saying it's incomplete or lacks more sources is WP:SURMOUNTABLE. "Remember, Wikipedia has no deadline. If there's good, eventually sourceable, content in the article, it should be developed and improved, not deleted." Please WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM rather than blow up a perfectly good list that passes both WP:LISTPURP#Information and WP:LISTPURP#Navigation. The latter also makes it WP:ENCYCLOPEDIC, refuting WP:TRIVIA. -Tiredmeliorist (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:OR doesn't require making an argument; The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. It's also not particularly difficult for lists to perform WP:OR without prose. Inclusion in a list itself can constitute WP:OR if no reliable sources verify that the entry actually belongs to the set of things that is being listed, for instance. The order in which things are listed can also be WP:OR if the list order is used to convey some kind of information. TompaDompa (talk) 17:47, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      There is a difference between general research and "original research." Writing an article on WP requires some research -- akin to what in academia is called a "literature review." WP:OR stipulates that some conclusion was reached by this research that was not reached in any of the published sources. So you may be correct that some people on this list constitute WP:OR, but not the entire list itself, most of which pass WP:V. And according to WP:LISTN, a list should be kept regardless of the demonstrated notability of any individual item. Thus, we should be debating whether to refine this list, rather than delete it entirely. -Tiredmeliorist (talk) 22:03, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The usage of the word minority here, and arguably in a wider American context, is very fatuous. Like the other guy said, why is a Confederate White Hispanic American more deserving of being listed as a minority governor than some Greek American? Census categories are a likewise malleable category both in the sense of self-identification and official state agency-backed language. Also, what to do when everyone is considered a minority some years from now? That said, I wouldn't be opposed to pages restricted to specific ethnic groups but that too can be covered by broader pages listing members of ethnic groups or categories which are usually very specific like African-American male actors. Killuminator (talk) 23:00, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It seems like the concerns about "who gets to be a 'minority'?" or "is using that definition of 'minority' here synthesis?" might be resolved simply by retitling the page or splitting it into sub-lists with more specific titles. XOR'easter (talk) 23:31, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I really agree with a lot of the arguments made by yourself (above and below) as well as other keep voters. I just am put off by the idea of editors acting like Victorian anthropologists going around WP with their callipers and separating people according to their race (which of course is a set of ever changing, pseudoscientific categories). The term minority usually includes religious, sexual orientation, disability groups so at the very least the page needs to change it's name. But the WP:V issues are so massive when you look at people like John Garamendi. He had Basque paternal grandparents so is included in this list. Who knows if his grandparents identified as Hispanic (they might have seen themselves as French and Basque isn't a Hispanic language). Who knows if Garamendi considers himself as Hispanic or a minority (no sources call him a minority)? As said above, on the US census ethnicity is done by self-identification which is not something we can always verify. Listing BLP like this has huge WP:V issues and result in considerable WP:OR. Maybe this just needs massive cleanup which is not a discussion for here. Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:51, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • The New York Times famously did this blood count of powerful Americans and here are some of their findings. Rashida Tlaib - not white, Justin Amash - white. Both individuals are of Palestinian descent, something that will likely get a fatuous umbrella ethnic term MENA on a future census form. Even when you have some purportedly serious publication do this kind of research you inevitably get some omission or weird inclusion like Justin Amash and John Garamendi respectively. You sometimes have people with spurious claims to an ethnicity, people with a multitude of ethnic backgrounds, people with declared and undeclared ethnic identifications and sometimes a journalist or researcher has to make a call on what some person may have identified as or how they'd be perceived through a modern lens. In some instances, you have a retroactive labeling people on what's basically a one drop rule. That's literally what the census bureau considers sufficient to mark someone as a minority. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/09/us/powerful-people-race-us.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes --Killuminator (talk) 00:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Well honestly, I don’t understand what the big fuss is about. First off, I think people need to read closely at the article to understand the definition of minority. If you read closely “ In the United States, an ethnic minority is anyone who has at least one parent who is not of non-Hispanic white descent”. I think it is clear what it is trying to say. As you can see they are saying in the United States, these are people that are considered minorities. For example, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Pacific Islanders, Black Sub-Saharan African Americans, and Asian Americans (Those of East, South, and Southeast Asian descent), are obviously not racially white. However when it comes to Hispanics it can get a little tricky, for example many Hispanics may have Mixed ancestry, usually a combination of either Spanish, African, or Native American, so it is obvious that they can be considered a minority racially, but what can be confusing is when Spanish considered a minority. Yes they are Hispanic, but they are still Europeans and White, but what some people forget is that any body can be culturally Hispanic, regardless of race. The reason that a Greek American can’t be listed is because, unless say they were born in a Hispanic country or have roots in a Hispanic country or place, can’t be considered a minority since they are considered white by the U.S. Census. For example, John Sununu, as well as his son Chris Sununu are Hispanic since John’s mother was a Salvadoran and he speaks fluent Spanish, however she was ethnically Middle Eastern (Lebanese and Palestinian), which is considered racially white in the U.S., though personally I don’t consider Middle Eastern and North Africans white and believe they should have their own racial category, but anyway as you can see John Sununu can be considered Hispanic. So yes all European Americans including Spaniards are considered white by the U.S. census, but what distinguishes Spanish from others is that they are Hispanic. Remember Hispanics aren’t a racial category in the U.S. like Pacific Islanders or African Americans, they are an ethnic category because as said before anybody of any race can be Hispanic, as long as they have roots in that culture or a Spanish-speaking country, including Spain. And as for ethnic categories in the U.S., there are two categories Hispanic and Non-Hispanic, and only 18% of Americans are Hispanic, so an ethnic minority. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8807:C807:6D00:C197:2179:823:7DE8 (talk) 18:09, 21 October 2021 (UTC) — 2600:8807:C807:6D00:C197:2179:823:7DE8 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • Keep Unlike some other lists I could name, the inclusion criteria are pretty clear-cut; if the status of any individual is debated in the sources, we can qualify and footnote appropriately. The cross-categorization is not original, and some of the sources mentioned above do expressly include Hispanic and Asian-American individuals, so we're not lumping together groups that haven't already been put under the same heading [11][12]. Change "minority" in the title to "BIPOC" if it doesn't sound specific enough, or split the list. I could see various arguments for trimming or revising (e.g., maybe including the less-discussed topic of lieutenant governors is getting out ahead of what the sources can justify, though I'm not convinced of that). All things told, though, this one is in the WP:DINC bucket. XOR'easter (talk) 21:20, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Looks like this is heading toward Keep, but after reaching out to the Eagleton Institute of Politics' Eagleton Center on the American Governor, which also has the History of Women Governors, the director told me they are in fact this "is something we are working on" and they "are in the process of putting together a list" of minority governors. It probably won't be ready for a little while, but this is a notable topic of research and discussion, regardless of some intricacies of inclusion. Reywas92Talk 15:48, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Reywas92: That will certainly be interesting to look at when it's done especially regarding historical governors and the "non-Hispanic white" stuff. Revisited this source and I note that they do not include Chris Sununu. For some reason this article has decided to call him Salvadoran American (he was born and raised in America) I am guessing because his paternal grandmother was born in El Salvador to a family of Greek Orthodox Christian Lebanese people (which I was earlier told was non-Hispanic white)?? Maybe the WP lab stuffed up the DNA/Haplogroup test results. If this does get kept I think we need some major clean up. Vladimir.copic (talk) 03:47, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz talk 13:39, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 00:44, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. The sources provided in this AFD shows that WP:LISTN is met, The primary gripe seems to be with the arbitrary nature of how "minority" is defined, but since it's using the official US definition, for an American topic, that's likely better than Wikipedia arbitrarily creating another definition. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 06:52, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment This official US definition is a more recent invention that has been retroactively applied to some curious and spurious cases, like the Confederate from Louisiana. Also, are Basque people a Hispanic culture? This is the census definition - Hispanics or Latino refers to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race. The Basque are not a Spanish culture even though their homeland is mostly in Spain, emphasis on mostly. Are French Basque non-Hispanic White as opposed to some Spanish Basque? Is John Garamendi a minority? Why does everyone dance around the shortcomings of this page and even official sources? --Killuminator (talk) 12:18, 6 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • It doesn't really matter how recent an invention is if it has been used as a basis for categorization by reliable sources. As for individual cases, it would fall on how they either self-describe or how reliable sources describe them. Extreme examples like Garamendi aren't reflective of the overwhelming majority of entries on the page. The hypothetical French Basque isn't even relevant to Garamendi, who's descended from Spanish Basques. Your issue is with the sometimes arbitrary nature of ethnic identity, and is a content matter largely independent of whether deletion is warranted. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 18:28, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment They are still Hispanic because they are from a Spanish speaking country or culture. Many Basques speak Basque as well as Spanish. So yes Spanish basques are Hispanic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8807:C807:6D00:E068:511:2932:6C1D (talk) 16:21, 8 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well it looks like actual Basque people disagree with that ([13] [14]) but I'm sure editors who, despite the guidelines, are determined to define everyone's racial makeup for their endless list articles know better. Vladimir.copic (talk) 23:08, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yes, the Basque people are not Hispanic. Everyone with passing knowledge of this unique nation would laugh at the suggestion. Also, the reliable sources like the New York Times famously did a who is white and who is not white in American halls of power which curiously listed Rashida Tlaib as not white while Justin Amash as white, both persons being of Palestinian Arab descent. Is that really reliable or people doing guesswork with the own biases and perceptions calculating in the decision? Are you familiar with the fact that the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea are Spanish speaking countries? Not the first places you'd associate with Hispanics. Even self-identification has its own limits. Elizabeth Warren identified as Native American based on some family story and some very distant and tiny ancestry might be there but as we have seen, she was humbled by the reactions of people with more substantial claims to that ethnic qualifier. A long time ago pages for ethnic groups used to have these big collages of famous people from that ethnic group until real world identity conflicts spilled on talk pages and they were replaced completely. This isn't that much different with the addition of the word minority carrying a lot of baggage here. --Killuminator (talk) 20:26, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, based on the discussion above. More broadly, this list article is high quality and notable. Caleb Stanford (talk) 00:37, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Reywas92. I sympathize with Killuminator's comment that The usage of the word minority here, and arguably in a wider American context, is very fatuous, but this doesn't matter here. Wikipedia and AfD are not the place for original social critique. It is what it is. This is not a non-encyclopedic cross-categorizaton and NLIST is met. — Alalch Emis (talk) 12:20, 17 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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