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Obama and
the Latino vote
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
February 7, 2008
On January 26, 2008, in a Newsweek interview with political
analyst and author Earl Hutchinson, a question was asked whether
America was ready for a Black president.
Presumably, the questioner believed that since three out of four
whites in a recent poll thought so then race was not going to be
a factor in 2008 “as it once was.”
Then came Super
Tuesday and the Hispanic vote!
The questioner, like many
Americans, had not thought much about the Hispanic horde that
came out to vote for Hillary Clinton against Obama.
They hadn’t paid much attention to what could be a huge
political rift to come between Black and Hispanic communities.
But Earl Hutchinson had thought about it.
His answer to the interviewer from Newsweek was that the “rules
of political engagement fall apart when you talk about Black and
Latino candidates.”
He continued, “ I do not believe
Latino voters will vote even for a candidate like Obama who is
an appealing, well-financed liberal Democrat. ….. At the end of
the day, I expect the Latino vote nationwide to be 60 to 65
percent for Clinton. If Obama gets 30 percent, he should count
his blessings.”
That prediction was made before the Super
Tuesday primaries and Earl Hutchison was right.
Almost 70% of the Hispanic or Latino vote went to Hillary
Clinton, thus preventing Obama from wiping her out at this early
stage of the primaries.
You may marvel at the Clinton’s
political astuteness and you will be right.
They were the ones to drag race into the campaign at the
beginning, with the “Birther” insinuation, hoping to cause a
backlash against Obama among white voters.
Instead, the astute political duo hit pay dirt with the Hispanic
vote.
The Hispanic vote came as no surprise. Some Blacks
have long suspected that the creation of the Hispanic minority
group was meant to do one thing - to supplant Blacks as the top
minority race in the US, and thereby clip Black political power
and ambition.
They have insisted that the creation of
Hispanics as a minority group is a political ploy that came out
of the same mindset that created gender and sexual preferences
as categories in minority groupings.
Unlike Blacks, the
Hispanic group is not a race. The idea that it is a racial
construct is as boldface a lie as an African claiming he is not
because he speaks English!
The Hispanic group, as found
in America, is more of a cultural construct since it is a
collection of many races speaking the same language; whites,
Blacks, and others.
It also has one advantage of being characterized by a growth
rate that is higher than that of any other group in America.
Hispanics form 15% of the American population as it stands
now, and that footprint has made them the second largest ethnic
group after white Americans of European descent.
In states like California and Texas, they form about 35% of the
population.
Like it or not, they now constitute a
political power and it is the overwhelming majority of that base
that has denied Obama the victory on Super Tuesday.
There
have been several opinions as to why the Hispanic vote went
Hillary’s way: That she had the support of her husband (the
first Black president?), and that Hispanics are very fond of
President Bill Clinton are the predominant excuses.
However, these explanations would have been exceptionally valid
had Hillary run against a white Republican.
Obama is as
much a liberal Democrat as Hillary. On many of the social issues
of the day, from immigration to health, they are barely
hairbreadth apart.
The overwhelming Hispanic preference for Hillary is not an
indication of gender support either.
So the question is how could anyone in Black America miss seeing
that the Hispanic vote, though hidden as it was, was going to be
averse to African-American political aspirations?
Yet,
the creation of Hispanic or Latinos as a distinct minority group
was aided and abetted by the African American establishment.
Hispanics are now a “race” apart, howbeit an artificial one.
But a vast number of people of African descent do also reside
within this Hispanic community, except, politically, they have
been disemboweled from the larger Black community.
And as result, they exercise nothing in common with their
Black brethren’s political aspirations.
The sad truth is, that these Black Hispanics are just as
handicapped by race, within the Hispanic confines, as their
counterparts in the larger white American society.
The
same cannot be said of Hispanic whites. They enjoy both worlds
and at the day also come up on top of the political totem pole.
The faces you see among the Hispanic power structures of America
are Latino whites. The power brokers within political action
hierarchies of this community are all dominated by white
Latinos.
The proof is on Spanish-speaking television every day. The faces
on these screens are usually white. They shape opinion and form
its narrative class.
Unfortunately, there has been a
historical reluctance on the part of the Black political
establishment to recognize the above. Earlier, this
establishment had thought that support for Hispanic causes would
eventually translate to advantage - universal minority
solidarity for Blacks.
It hasn’t and wouldn’t in the future because the chasm
would widen with the years.
Our Black leaders are yet to learn that the Hispanic community
is also a world divided by skin color, as Obama should also know
after the 2008 Super Tuesday result.
Regrettably, Obama
may be the loser today, but all Blacks will be impacted.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, February 7, 2008
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted on a website,
email a copy of the web page to publisher@ghanadot.com.
Or don't publish at all.
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