Black-Latino Animosity?

In a non-joking vein, I've been a bit surprised at the volume of commentary speculating that Hillary Clinton will have some kind of a firewall among Latino voters, much of which seems pretty reductive to me. In a lot of urban areas, you see conflict between black and hispanic local political elites as they compete for power and patronage. But it would be a mistake to assume this will carry over into some latino antipathy to Barack Obama. After all, Hillary Clinton has actually secured the support of a lot of black leaders. What's more, it seems very likely that Obama being elected president would undermine the power of African-American urban machine politicians -- a President Clinton or a President Edwards would rely on such politicians to be intermediaries between them and black voters, but a President Obama would be much less in need of their support.

Now that said, Obama probably will have trouble with the Cuban exile community because of his position on Cuba policy, and since Hillary Clinton represents New York in the Senate she may have the Puerto Rican vote in the NYC region locked down. None of that, though, would be about Obama's race. I'm not at all surprised to see that out west Obama's gotten the support of unions with large Latino membership in Las Vegas and LA or the endorsement of Rep. Linda Sanchez.

Comments

My impression of the Clintons over the years is that they understand deeply and know how to exploit the ethnic and racial lines in American culture to put together a win in an election. Does Obama know how to do that?

Posted by Helter | January 18, 2008 10:52 AM

For whatever it's worth, the polls in California bear out Clinton's theory ... she does much better among Latinos than among whites. I'm sure the appearances with America Ferrera can't hurt.

Now, there may be some income effect here ... that Clinton is still doing better among downscale voters, and once you control for that, they're faring about the same.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | January 18, 2008 10:54 AM

There's an immense amount of anti-black racism from latinos from many countries. Even many darker skinned latinos who most americans would identify as black don't self-identify as such and see themselves as distinct from the "traditional" US African-American population.

I don't know how much this will impact primary or general election voting, but the racism is real and deep.

Posted by Tiny Tim | January 18, 2008 10:58 AM

I take it then you will accept that Hillary's overwhelming support among Latinos is well earned then.

Posted by Armando | January 18, 2008 10:59 AM

Kate Sheppard covered this on TAPPED from a different angle awhile ago:

It's about white America's preconceived notions about other races. Case in point: when asked about black-white relations, three-quarters of whites ranked them as "very good" or "somewhat good," but when they were asked about their perceptions of relations between blacks and Latinos, less than half thought they were positive. But 68 percent of blacks and 59 percent of thought relations between the groups were good.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=10&year=2007&base_name=newschool_or_oldschool

Posted by preznit | January 18, 2008 10:59 AM

I actually think his appropriation of "si se puede" as his campaign slogan will be a tremendous help for him with Latinos.

Posted by right | January 18, 2008 10:59 AM

Actually, Matt's mostly got it exactly backward. While there certainly is some "jockeying" between black and Latino political/media elites---notably in New York City and perhaps in Chicago---this is pretty minor compared to the *gigantic* level of grassroots dislike/conflict/hostility between ordinary blacks and Latinos.

This is simply an objective fact of reality, and pretending it doesn't exist because it doesn't accord with a particular ideological framework---as our DC/NYC media elites tend to do---doesn't really much change that reality.

On the other hand, as endless pundits and many black activists have argued, "Obama isn't culturally black" in the usual sense, hence only a portion of this grassroots hostility actually adheres to him.

Matt's generally a pretty sharp young guy on some things, such as (maybe) foreign policy, but despite his last name, there's no sign he really knows anything about Latinos, so he probably wouldn't be the best choice for a "token" Latino columnist.

Posted by RKU | January 18, 2008 11:07 AM

What preznit said. Also, the second most common interracial marriage in America is between a black man and a Latin woman. It's like an article I saw in the NYT (or maybe the Boston Globe) like ten years ago that was talking about black-Jewish disagreements and played them as huge. For the last line, they decided to basically say "oh, by the way, African-Americans and Jewish Americans agree more often politically and on racial issues than Africa-Americans and white gentile Americans. Not that that is important. Look, it's a recently married homosexual interracial couple burning the American flag!" If you were a Martian, you would never have guessed that African-Americans and American Jews were the two most Democratic ethnic demographics in the US.

I'm happy to hear that Sanchez endorsed him. Did Loretta Sanchez do so as well? I wouldn't be surprised to see Linda become rather powerful due to her focus on both Latin and Asian issues and thus become a useful foreign policy adviser to a Democratic president down the road.

Posted by Reality Man | January 18, 2008 11:08 AM

Is this Matthew the pundit speaking or Matthew the token Hispanic speaking?

Maybe in the next Table Video, Matthew could wear a Fidel Castro olive green jacket/hat and smoke a cigar?

Or should he go for the Che Guevara beret look? Wearing a beret and putting a cigar in his mouth might give him greater access to Bill Clinton for interviews.

Posted by Don Williams | January 18, 2008 11:15 AM

One thing that I think people are overlooking is that Obama is an immigrant, of a sort. It certainly helps him with me; in his books, he comes across as someone who has chosen his american identity, the same way I have, and I think many immigrants and children of immigrants do. It makes his unifying, outsider approach to american tribalism more convincing. Dispite being white, as an outsider where I grew up, I feel a much more culturally connected to Obama than to Edwards or Clinton. I seem to remember the exit polls showed that he did extremely well with the asian community in southern new hampshire.

Posted by Boring Commenter | January 18, 2008 11:17 AM

it seems very likely that Obama being elected president would undermine the power of African-American urban machine politicians

I don't think your average voter thinks in those terms. Somewhere, I read about a focus with Hispanic voters and they really responded to the back-to-the-90s theme. And with a downturn in the economy it will help Clinton.

Posted by Mike | January 18, 2008 11:24 AM

Another aspect of this is that while we talk about blacks and Latinos as if they were both species of genus "racial minority," in a lot of ways the experience of Hispanic immigrants to this country is much clsoer to that of earlier waves of mass immigration.

* A lot of distinct nationalities -- you don't find "Hispanic" neighborhoods anywhere, just Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, etc.

* A big generational gap, with younger people much more assimilated than their parents.

* A lot of public hostility but far less day-to-day discrimination than blacks face. You can go into any population center in the US and find Latinos living there, while blacks remain very highly concentrated and are excluded form many areas almost completely.

The point of this is that even if Latinos look similar to African-Americans right now, their long-term political loyalties are much more fluid and uncertain.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | January 18, 2008 11:32 AM

Yes, Lemuel Pitkin's points are exactly correct. Despite his last name, I think he'd make a *much* better "token Latino columnist" than poor Matt...

Given Matt's own family background, maybe he'd be better off targetting the "token Hollywood/NYC Literati Columnist" slot...

Posted by RKU | January 18, 2008 11:46 AM

I have a bit of personal data. My dad refuses to vote for Obama. Since his early US experience in the 50s and 60s was in poorer neighborhoods, he equates blacks with criminality. He worked in downtown Chicago and took the El and busses to work and all he saw were lower class blacks. He was mugged a couple of times as were many of his friends inevitably by black men. My brothers and sisters are all Obama supporters, but our experiences with black folks has been in suburban settings, college and in professional work environments. We have a much different perspective about intelligent, educated African Americans than do our immigrant parents and their contemporaries.

Posted by HS | January 18, 2008 11:54 AM

As a Latin American writing from outside the U.S. (Panama), I'd like to reply to Tiny Tim's comment: Barack Obama may have a traditional African-American wife, but he is even farther away from being a traditional African-American than black Latin Americans (who may have come over to Lat Am or the Caribbean from the same African regions as African-Americans).

That's because he's from Kenya, and I find no evidence that the Transatlantic Slave Trade included people from that part of Africa (the only people from Eastern Africa which seemed to have been part of the TST were Mozambicans and Madagascarians, but I believe they mostly went to Brazil).

Posted by JRVJ | January 18, 2008 12:06 PM

"My dad refuses to vote for Obama. Since his early US experience in the 50s and 60s was in poorer neighborhoods, he equates blacks with criminality."

And Clinton wants to use this racist notion when she has so many of her proxies play into it.

Posted by Sebastian | January 18, 2008 12:08 PM

Yes, JRVT raises another good point about Obama's background, and one of the reasons he's hardly in the mainstream of "typical" American blacks culturally.

But I'd argue that this isn't really the main factor. Remember, Obama's Kenyan father disappeared when he was about two, and he was raised by his Mayflowerish grandparents in Hawaii, and then later in Indonesia. So his East African cultural background is pretty much zero, except perhaps in his own mind.

And given his very affluent, elite upbringing, he really doesn't have anything like the typical "immigrant" cultural background which he otherwise might have acquired. He's probably more like the child of a foreigner who immigrated to the U.S. for his Yale Ph.D. than someone from a typical working-class immigrant family background.

Admittedly, though, I haven't read Obama's autobiography, so my analysis is pretty impressionistic.

Posted by RKU | January 18, 2008 12:18 PM

Re: That's because he's from Kenya, and I find no evidence that the Transatlantic Slave Trade included people from that part of Africa (the only people from Eastern Africa which seemed to have been part of the TST were Mozambicans and Madagascarians, but I believe they mostly went to Brazil).

Just as a minor correction, the Malagasy (not 'Madagascarians') are probably not best described as 'Eastern Africans'- in terms of ethnicity they're a mix of East African Bantu, Indonesian, Arab and Indian strains with the first two of roughly equal importance. I don't _believe_ that Malagasy slaves were brought to the Americas but I could be wrong- I think they were mostly bought by the Dutch in South Africa and the French in Mauritius.

I wouldn't consider Obama an 'African American' in the strict sense- nor would I use that term to describe Caribbean immigrants either.

Posted by Hector | January 18, 2008 12:24 PM

Identity politics is a bitch, no?

Posted by kafka | January 18, 2008 1:26 PM

RKU,

I think I have a closer read on Obama's upbringing having not just grown up in the same state he did, but partly in the same millieu (the private schools of Honolulu). So here's what I speculate he would have grown up with: he went to the "top" private school in the city (and state) (at that time both academically and socially). But, he would have been one of very few blacks in a school pretty evenly divided between whites and Asians. I'm not sure there would have even been prejudice--it would be more like dealing with someone from another planet--he just wouldn't fit anywhere in the established ethnic hierarchies. I'm not sure if he was actually on scholarship or not, but living with his grandparents in an apartment would have put him at a definite disadvantage, socially. I've read that his classmates never recall being invited to his home, and I'm going to have to believe that there was a big social component to that--that a number of his classmates would have had much nicer homes etc. The background of my immediate family is somewhat similar, but my extended family has branches in and through the social fabric of some of the more rarified bits of Honolulu society. Obama would have been an outsider, getting by on talent and charisma, but without the wealth or family background to really "fit in".

That's one of the reasons, he's really had both the opportunity and burden to "create himself" rather than having an identity thrust upon him since birth the way many of us do.

Posted by JMS | January 18, 2008 1:32 PM

The most natural default identity for Obama would-be "Hawaiian" -- not in the sense of an indigenous Polynesian background, but in the sense of a racially mixed person who grew up in a tolerant Honolulu culture where about 1/3 of his age cohort were racially mixed. Judging from his 8th grade class picture at his expensive private school, between 7 and 10 kids in his class of 21 weren't all-white. Interviews with his classmates show that he was viewed as "another mixed kid."

Considering the vast hunger among whites to view Obama as a "postracial man" who "transcending" race who will help get us past all that recent unpleasantness about race, the ironic thing is that Obama almost never presents his racial identity in terms of his Hawaiian upbringing. Instead, he emphasizes his Chicago years, even though Chicago is notorious as the anti-Hawaii, a place where stark racial conflict permeates local politics.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 18, 2008 1:36 PM

Actually, Obama's classmates at Punahou recall frequently hanging out at his grandparents' apartment in Honolulu. The Chicago Tribune reported:

"Much time is devoted in Obama's book to exploring his outsider status at Punahou. But any struggles he was experiencing were obscured by the fact that he had a racially diverse group of friends--many of whom often would crowd into his grandparents' apartment, near Punahou, after school let out."

The facts about Obama's years (ages 10-18) at Punahou have been rigorously investigated by reporters who underwent the supreme sacrifice of taking an all-expenses paid trip to Honolulu last winter, and the consensus of their articles is that Obama's depiction of his Hawaiian years in Dreams from My Father as a maelstrom of anti-black discrimination is a tad distorted.

I particularly like how Obama rationalized his preppie drug use as "something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind . . ." His classmates, in contrast, in these articles seemed to find his explanation puzzlingly gratuitous. Many of them smoked dope on the beach, too, but they didn't need a racial identity crisis caused by the white power structure to justify their getting high. It was, like, Hawaii in the 1970s, you know? Maui Wowie, dude!

I summarized the investigative reporting on Obama in Hawaii here:

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/070325_obama.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 18, 2008 1:48 PM

Obama Exposed As Race Racketeer

Amazing, Steve - you actually wrote that without being struck by lightening.

There must not be a god.

Please tell us you'll move to Austria if he gets elected.

Or maybe you'll move to South America and become the Minister of Race in "Paultown"?

Posted by SoCalJustice | January 18, 2008 2:02 PM

It is kinda sad when you have to comment on other people's blogs to market your own failing career.

Posted by Reality Man | January 18, 2008 3:37 PM

"even though Chicago is notorious as the anti-Hawaii, a place where stark racial conflict permeates local politics"

While there are still tensions that still exist between Blacks and Whites living in Chicago, there aren't really stark racial conflicts which permeate local politics. The Council Wars era (1983-1987) has long been over. While Mayor Harold Washington (the city's 1st African-American mayor) had to endure a stark political opposition in the Chicago City Council that played upon white fears of a Black-dominated city throughout his 1st term in office, Mayor Richard M Daley experiences very little opposition in the current City Council, even from the Council's African-American alderman (many of whom were Harold Washington loyalists). Moreover, Harold Washington had to cobble together a bare majority coalition of Blacks, Hispansics, Asians, and white Lakefront Liberals in order to win election in 1983 and re-election in 1987, Mayor Daley's coalition has consisted of white ethnics, white Lakefront Liberals, Hispanics, Asians, and African-Americans. Moreover, Daley has made political outreaches to Chicago's African-American community, and over time has gained majority support from Chicago's African-American community (although his support tends to be stronger with middle-class Blacks than with working-class and poor Blacks).

No, the phrase "stark racial politics permeating local politics" is a more apt description of New York City (particularly under Rudy Giuliani) than it is of Chicago. If anything, Chicago's local politics suffers from too little conflict, since Mayor Daley has coopted most of the potential sources of political opposition in Chicago.

Posted by eltoro | January 18, 2008 3:37 PM

Hilary Clinton should not count on Latino voters to save her from being defeated by Obama. Here in Illinois, Obama has demonstrated an ability to unite Black and Latino voters to a far greater extent than any other current African-American politician in this state. The only other African-American politician in Illinois history to match Obama in this regard was Harold Washington, the 1st African-American mayor of Chicago.

I suspect that Obama will replicate this success with Latino voters in other parts of the country. Like Harold Washington, he will find supporters where Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton could not.

Posted by eltoro | January 18, 2008 4:09 PM

Right, Chicago is now back to one-party rule run by a conservative Irish-American Democrat. The more things change ...

But the point is that Obama's mature identity was forged precisely during the 1983-1987 Council Wars in Chicago. (I'm hoping he underwent a second maturation after he was rejected by black voters in 2000, but nobody has ever gotten him to speak frankly about that. I'm not sure if anybody has even tried.)

Here's a question: Many, many people, such as Obama-enthusias George Will, assume that Obama "transcends" race, but has anybody ever heard Obama endorse the Hawaiian model of race relations, with it's rejection of the traditional American one-drop rule for defining racial categorization?

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 18, 2008 4:22 PM

"But the point is that Obama's mature identity was forged precisely during the 1983-1987 Council Wars in Chicago."

Obama's political idol during the Council Wars era was not a divisive figure like Jesse Jackson, but Mayor Harold Washington, a man who achived political success by building a multi-racial political coalition. It was the leader of Washington's political opposition, Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak, who fanned the flames of racial animosity in Chicago's white ethnic communities,and made Chicago politics so toxic during the Council Wars era. Washington's re-election in 1987, in which he defeated Fast Eddie and attained a City Council majority supporting him, marked the end of the Council Wars era.

Note that one of Harold Washington's gifts was to remind voters from various backgrounds of what they had in common, and not what divided them. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? So if the Council Wars era forged Obama's identity, it did so in a positive way. Obama was inspired by Harold Washington, not Fast Eddie Vrdolyak.

Posted by eltoro | January 18, 2008 5:15 PM

Matt,

If you want to see an intersting tale of black-latino conflict, read a little about the riots in DC in Mount Pleasant and Adams Morgan in May 1991. I was caught in the middle of it and it was a rather surreal experience.

Posted by Sir Charles | January 18, 2008 9:39 PM

Right, that started when a black policewoman tried to arrest drunken Central Americans. Paradoxically, much of the looting was done by black youths.

At least two of the three big black riots in Miami in the 1980s were sparked by anger at Hispanic policemen.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 18, 2008 9:53 PM

I think you are on the right track with your reservations about all of this. Precisely because, as copied from wikipedia:

Obama was born in Honolulu to a Kenyan father and an American mother. He lived most of his early life in the Pacific island U.S. state of Hawaii. From ages six to ten, he lived in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Father = immigrant. Get that part? Onto the next.

I know (from, among other things, having a half-Afro-American neice, and Afro-American sister-in-law, who I love dearly, so can any Steve Sailer comparisons, other commenters)

that he would not be considered "authentic" African-American by many purists in the "hood." Here's a good way of visualizing that for you: put him in your favorite TV show, "The Wire" and tell me how he fits in there.

Along with the Latino vs. black problems in some urban areas, you are also aware of some of the animosity shown towards African immigrants in Harlem? And the slightly older but much more prevalent animosity between recent immigrants of color from the Carribean and Afro-Americans of many generations lineage? (As in: Colin Powell--Jamaican immigrant parents--means he's not "really black"?)

Though Obama ventured into Afro-American culture in his teen years, he will not easily be sterotyped as Afro-American black by many American people of color themselves once they get to know the particulars of his life story more. He's clearly "mult-culti," and this is what of his young fans already understand, precisely because many of them are too.

One of the most interesting thing for me about this all was in the Iowa win, did Iowans get this too?

This is also related to the "wine track" appeal thing he has which also partly encompasses problems he still has yet to overcome as I look at voting and poll results. You won't be able to separate out working class dislike of that from racial issues. An urban ghetto black and a white working class male might have the same attitude towards him because of this all. Hillary bridges some of sub-cultural these things better, precisely because her husband has the label of "first black president".

It's also why it's not actually not a total detriment for Obama to be associated with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, when at first look it seems like he'd be nothing but trouble for him.

Posted by artappraiser | January 19, 2008 4:39 AM

Yglesias was TOTALLY WRONG on this one, and hey there, RKS, you were totally right. The egghead overthought it (it was too 'reductive').

Well, I didn't know yesterday, so I actually skipped this post, but I've been skimming like a mofo for anything on this tonight after HRC won 2 to 1 the Hispanic vote, and Sullivan had that GREAT Luntz Youtube segment. So I guess there is some... something going on out there that's real, measurable, lasting, between Hispanics and blacks.

Anyone know what that is?

Posted by sloppy joe | January 19, 2008 11:15 PM

Here's an original idea: Hillary won because she's better qualified and has more experience.

The media would rather call all Latinos racist than admit that Hillary is better qualified than Obama and has wider grasp of the issues. They also play down the historical significance of electing the first woman President.

And everybody is acting like an expert on Latinos. Everybody is an amateur sociologist now. It's riduculous.

Posted by Karen | January 20, 2008 11:32 PM

Call me sensitive or whatever, but some of these comments are disturbing. What is wrong with being "traditionally" African-American?
If a person would actually decide not to support an individually solely because they are "traditionally" African-American, then they are sick to their soul. Especially if that person is also a minority themselves.
Do not make it seems like the African-American is "cursed" to non-acceptance. Its only your racist views that are the real problem.

Posted by mvega | January 29, 2008 11:30 AM