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http://blackagendareport.com/content/black-president-and-brown-vote
The Black President and the Brown Vote
By Bruce A. Dixon
Can Barack Obama be re-elected without the overwhelming majorities
he received in Latino communities across the country? The short
answer is probably not. Detentions, deportations, raids, profiling
and mass roundups of immigrants are at an all time high. The
border wall that Obama originally campaigned against has been
built with his endorsement, and generous federal contracts to jail
detained immigrants have rescued the private prison industry. What
happened, Latino activists are asking, to the president's
commitments to fairness, human rights and a path to citizenship?
And what will happen to the Latino vote in 2012?
In 2008, President Obama got a full two-thirds of the Latino vote
[4], a greater slice than of any ethnic group apart from African
Americans. The brown vote for Obama was decisive in Florida,
Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado and topped 70% in California,
Illinois and New Jersey. Can the president count on that kind of
overwhelming support in 2012? With deportations and family
separations at an all time high, and no end in sight, some Latino
activists think not.
“We can't hide from it, even if we wanted to,” Roberto Lovato,
writer and co-founder of Presente.Org [5], the nation's premiere
on-line Latino advocacy group told Black Agenda Report. “Just
about every Latino family contains undocumented people, along with
citizens and adults registered to vote. They know. They can see
that deportations are at an all time high. The number of these
brutal family separations where children and old people are left
behind has never been greater. They see this in their own families
and the families of friends and neighbors. The level of actual
fear people live in, in their homes, on the street or at the job
has never been more intense than it is right now.”
In the generation since the Freedom Movement ended, black
politicians and the black church have appropriated its mantle and
symbols to market black candidates in black constituencies for
every office from city council to president as the heirs and
fulillers of Dr. King's Dream. Hence candidate Obama didn't even
have to make black America any promises. Black voters bit the
marketing, made up the promises in their own heads, and flocked to
the polls in record numbers. But along with the slick marketing
and the slippery language of “comprehensive immigration reform”
Barack Obama did make a handful of specific commitments to
Latinos. He promised a road to citizenship for the millions of
undocumented, along with a more just and fair immigration regime.
He hasn't delivered.
“The fact is that on immigration issues,” Lovato continued,
“Barack Obama has been the worst US president of modern times.
Supporting him again, for many Latinos is a proposition that flies
in the face of our own dignity and self-respect.”
Without overwhelming majorities in brown constituencies,
re-electing Barack Obama will be difficult [6] indeed. White
support for the president is dropping, and even African American
support is softening. Latino support for the president, according
to an authoritative February 2011 survey by Latino Decisions and
impreMe, is around 70%. But that number, they caution, “...does
not translate into automatic votes for 2012...” The second part of
that poll reveals that while Republicans are gaining no ground in
Latino communities, only 43% of Latino voters are certain they
will support Barack Obama next year.
The White House knows it's in deep trouble.
“My sources in DC tell me that when the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus called for the President Obama to use his executive
authority [7] to suspend or alter the so-called “Secure
Communities” program under which hundreds of workplace raids and
countless incidents of profiling, indiscriminate roundups,
detentions and deportations have occurred, the White House
responded by working the phones, calling up key House Democrats
and cautioning them to keep their distance from the caucus on this.
“The president is running around the country, showing up at town
hall meetings claiming that federal policies are only deporting
criminals, but everybody knows it's not true. At one meeting a
young woman, a college student stood up and pulled out her own
deportation order to show the president. The president is
convening panels of Latino celebrities [8], asking them to spread
the word about the good work he's doing for our people. But it's
not working, not as well as he needs it to. There is a solid and
growing base of people and organizations in our communities who
just aren't buying it.
“There are moves to silence critics of the administration on this,
to deny them access to publication and broadcast, to cut funding
and such. But I think those efforts will fail. The number of
imprisoned, brutally separated and terrorized families and
communities is just so great that Latinos even in unions, in
community groups and such that normally constitute the informal
infrastructure of the Democratic party can't ignore them.
“At some point the White House will either have to try to divide
us, or step to the table and negotiate. When that happens, the two
minimum demands, neither of which Obama needs Republican support
to meet, will be to stop the deportations [7] of DREAM Act [9]
students, and to cut off funding for the “Secure Communities Act.
Maybe we'll even get to remove the many punitive elements of
so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” as well. We just have
to stand against this White House, and Latinos are showing some
backbone, I'm an optimist, I think we can.”
We think Lovato has a point. President Obama, in his El Paso
speech earlier this week dishonestly laid the blame for the wave
of deportations and terror exclusively on Republicans. He talked
about undocumented workers “jumping to the front of the line.” The
president might have taken a moment to explain to the “what do you
not understand about illegal” chorus of white America that the
federal government, in the 19th and early 20th centuries removed
all barriers to and actively solicited European immigration, with
the oft-stated goal of making this a white republic. The famed
American “melting pot [10]” was intended, in those days, to
exclude everybody who wasn't white. So much for the “our ancestors
came here legally” nonsense. Time to get over all that. But in the
color-blind America of the 21st century, this remains forgotten
and forbidden history.
Lovato adds that many Latinos have carefully studied the struggle
of African Americans, both before and since the Freedom Movement
of a generation ago. Let's hope they don't make some of the
mistakes [11] black America is making today, like unconditionally
supporting an administration that does virtually nothing for them.
They have little to lose. When that happens, black people will
have a lesson to learn from Latinos.
Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and
based in Marietta GA, where he is also a state committee member of
the GA Green Party. He can be reached at
bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
Links:
[1]
http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/anti-immigrant-hysteria
[2] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/latino-vote
[3]
http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/black_latino_divide.jpg
[4] http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1024/exit-poll-analysis-hispanics
[5] http://presente.org/
[6]
http://latinodecisions.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/latino-influence-states-even-more-important-in-2012-electoral-college-map/
[7]
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/hispanic-caucus-calls-on-obama-to-freeze-controversial-immigration-enforcement-program-.html
[8]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-28/obama-enlists-longoria-dawson-to-aid-immigration-overhaul-plan.html
[9]
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/dream-act-will-extend-poverty-draft-immigrant-youth-such-deal
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Melting_Pot
[11]
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=category/us-politics/obama-delusional-affect
[12]
http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblackagendareport.com%2Fcontent%2Fblack-president-and-brown-vote&linkname=The%20Black%20President%20and%20the%20Brown%20Vote
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