Race and Perception in the Presidential Race

by Racialicious Special Correspondent Latoya Peterson

More politics – can I retire now?

This morning, I surfed over to the NYT website to skim the headlines before heading into the office. Here’s what I found:

In Obama’s Pursuit of Latinos, Race Plays Role

Brace yourselves.

LAS VEGAS — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has eaten beef tacos in East Los Angeles and sat on the living room couch of a working-class family in a largely Hispanic neighborhood here for 30 televised minutes. At a rally of the culinary workers’ union in the shadows of the Strip here one night, Senator Barack Obama pumped his fist and chanted with the crowd, “¡Sí, se puede; sí, se puede; sí, se puede!” or, “Yes, we can!”

[...]

Although the two candidates aggressively court those voters, who could be vital for Democrats this year and for years to come, the challenge is especially complex for Mr. Obama. It arises as Mrs. Clinton sought to tamp down reaction from Obama supporters to remarks she had made about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Obama confronts a history of often uneasy and competitive relations between blacks and Hispanics, particularly as they have jockeyed for influence in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

“Many Latinos are not ready for a person of color,” Natasha Carrillo, 20, of East Los Angeles, said. “I don’t think many Latinos will vote for Obama. There’s always been tension in the black and Latino communities. There’s still that strong ethnic division. I helped organize citizenship drives, and those who I’ve talked to support Clinton.”

A couple notes here.

1. Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that there seems to be a new news article every week discussing exactly which races/ethnic groups are NOT going to vote for Obama because he’s black? White people weren’t going to do it because “they weren’t ready for a black president.” Black people aren’t going to do it, because he’s either “not black enough” or “because they’ll kill him” or any other reason that can be parroted into a camera. And now, Latinos won’t vote for Obama because of inter-ethnic tensions.

2. The article goes on to mention:

“Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who just dropped his own campaign to become the first Latino president, said that the rivalry between the two groups had eased and that Mr. Obama could transcend many of the differences as he approached Feb. 5, “what I call the Hispanic primary day.”

Wow. In all the media drumming, I missed that a Latino threw his hat into the ring for president. We’re inching closer to representation! Maybe…

3. Al Sharpton provided yet another quote that made me raise an eyebrow at the computer:

The Rev. Al Sharpton of New York, who has been on the front line of many of the black-Latino battles in New York politics, said the tension would be a problem for Mr. Obama across the country and in New York, which also votes on Feb. 5. He said Mr. Obama would be at a disadvantage because of his choice to be a “race-neutral candidate.”

“It’s going to be a challenge that he has got to deal with,” Mr. Sharpton said. “There’s a natural history, and we’ve made some progress. But he has not been part of those efforts to make progress.”

Why did that seem vaguely threatening? He should have just came out with it – “lock the ranks Barry, or else!”

4. California State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero cuts to the heart of the matter:

She said the solution to overcoming the tensions was discussing economic problems of middle- and lower-class blacks and Hispanics like the mortgage crisis, an issue that first Mrs. Clinton and now Mr. Obama have been raising more frequency.

“I don’t think eating tacos,” is effective, she said with a flick at Mrs. Clinton. “We need to address what unites us. The key is not to raise the wedge issue.”

Interesting…

I shot an email off to Wendi, asking her what she thought. Wendi agreed with my initial assessment but added a few thoughts of her own:

I have seen a ton of this thing, but more explicitly just saying race
vs. gender as if they are exclusive categories that never overlap.

Seriously. But the whole race and gender thing needs a post in itself. We’ll touch on that later.

Wendi also points out:

Obama has the immigrant father/american dream narrative
that hillary lacks and they don’t consider that in the piece. I think
it depends on the subgroup too. I’m sure [Puerto Rican] and [Dominican] populations in
major cities may have entirely different voting patterns than say
Argentines, Cubans, Brazilians, or Mexicans. Yet somehow they still
mash them up into one monolithic category, failing to analyze or even
consider the vast differences between the groups.

What do you think, dear readers? Am I reading too much into a handful of articles? Is the MSM going to take this farther and ask about the Asian-American vote, or continue to pretend that Asian voters don’t exist? And why is the media so invested in the idea that PoC groups will not support each other? Are they merely reporting on the state of society? Or is there a different agenda they are pushing?

(You can also see the J & J Politics take on this article here.)

Update: This is mainly for those of you who read this through some kind of RSS reader and don’t see the comments. Kai pointed out that I misinterpreted Sharpton’s comments. Kai says:

Just wanted to note one thing: I’m not sure you correctly interpreted Sharpton’s comment. He’s done good work when it comes to coalition-building with Latin@s in NYC; in particular, he won major respect when he went to jail for 90 days in 2001 for engaging in a bold act of civil disobedience to protest the US Navy’s ongoing bombing of Vieques in Puerto Rico, an action which was ultimately successful (they stopped bombing). So I think his criticism is that Obama has not been on the forefront of those kinds of Black-Latin@ coalition-building struggles and will have to deal with that.

Thanks for the background info, Kai. That does put the comments in perspective and a better light. The way it was presented…well, hell, y’all can read.