Monday, January 21, 2008

Latino Vote

An email from my sister Regina asks:

Kofi, one of the political analyst said Hispanics also tilted the Nevada vote in Hilary's favor...what do you think about that? The analyst said many of the Culinary Union members are Hispanic; this unions leadership endorsed Obama...

My response:

As I said in a couple of my earlier emails Latinos in this country are very divided and splintered as an ethnic voting bloc (UGLY EXAMPLE: A whopping 43% of them voted for BUSH in 2004--Can you believe that?). It's always been a profound MYSTERY to me why so many Latinos (I never use the racist term "Hispanics"; as a great Puerto Rican poet and writer from New York that I know named Miguel Algarin always says--"What is this bullshit? "His-Panic/" I'm nobody's PANIC!") don't seem to really understand where their own actual political and economic interests really lie. They have even less power and wealth than we have, after all. I find these backward attitudes and values especially true of MEXICAN-AMERICANS--many of whom want to be "white" and "upperclass" so damn bad they actually DELUDE themselves that they can pull it off by voting like a reactionary WASP or changing their name from say, GOMEZ, to GUNTHER OR GAINS. Far too many Mexican Americans (the largest Latino group in the country) are also very RACIST toward blacks. I found this out in a depressingly empirical way when I made the MORTAL MISTAKE of "living in the ridiculous city of Los Angeles for three years from 1992-1995. As you probably know relations between them and our people are at an ALL TIME LOW right now as we speak--even though they finally have a Mexican-American mayor. Obviously we and them SHOULD be involved in a national progressive coalition of people-of-color BUT you and I both know how DEADLY AND VIRAL RACISM IS. So the result is once again DIVIDE AND CONQUER for the wealthy white ruling class who of course DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT EITHER "NIGGERS", "WETBACKS', OR "SPICS." Obama is just the victim of the absurd political fallout from all that. I wish the fuck EVERYONE WOULD WAKE UP FROM THIS BULLSHIT--but, ALAS (Our Ass?) that's AmeriKKKa for ya...

Kofi