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GRIEGO: Politics, race mix

By Tina Griego, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 5, 2008 at 10:39 p.m.

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I end up Tuesday night at Horace Mann Middle School in north Denver. Let’s just say I’m glad I got there early. By 6:30 p.m., the cafeteria was standing- room only, and the jubilant Democratic Party site coordinator was clambering upon a table to shout: “This is only one-fourth of House District 4, and I don’t know any of you. It’s fabulous.”

By 6:35, half the group had moved into the gym, where Precinct 514 crowded into one corner and in short order, cast its votes:

Hillary Clinton: 38

Barack Obama: 62

Upon being given the opportunity to cajole Obama supporters into joining the Clinton camp or vice-versa, first-time caucus-goer and Denver Public School Board member Arturo Jimenez, an Obama supporter, said in Spanish: You have a great opportunity to support a candidate who offers hope to many communities. It doesn’t matter, your race, age, gender.

I wished Sergio Bendixen were there.

Bendixen is the Clinton pollster quoted in a recent interview with the New Yorker as saying, “the Hispanic voter — and I want to say this very carefully — has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.”

Let us lay that canard to rest.

If that were true, Wellington Webb would never have become Denver’s mayor. And he was just one African-American mayor buoyed by Latino support in this nation.

Have there been tensions between the groups? Of course. Latinos and blacks are not unique in this matter. History teaches us that. It tells us that in the competition for resources and struggle for social acceptance, it is the people at the bottom of the economic totem pole — those who have much in common — butting heads.

My grandpa, a railroad worker, viewed the few black workers around him with suspicion and prejudice. It was an ugly thing to hear, and were grandpa alive, I don’t know what he would make of Obama.

In a modern-day context, take a look at Border Street. Swap “black” for “illegal immigrant,” and witness the same historical struggle at work.

It’s a shame then that a Latino would forment a strategy of divide and conquer. As Denver councilman Paul Lopez, another Obama supporter, told me, “that kind of sentiment is meant to divide folks who would normally be united on real issues like poverty, inequity in education, better access to affordable health care and better access to a voice, whether it be in city hall, state Capitol, or the White House.”

Former Denver Mayor Federico Peña told me it reminded him of his own first campaign for mayor. “One of my opponents polled, asking, ‘Would you vote for a Hispanic?’ That question became public and there was outrage. It backfired, and I was elected.”

Let’s look at the alignment of a few Latino political leaders in our backyard. Jimenez, Lopez, Peña and city councilman Rick Garcia support Obama. On the Clinton side: former state Sen. Paul Sandoval, current state Sen. Paula Sandoval, city councilwoman Judy Montero and former state Sen. Polly Baca.

I’m tempted to call this split generational. Jimenez, for example, tells me his socially conservative grandparents are Republican, his aunties and uncles Clinton supporters, and he and his cousins Obama people. At the Clinton rally I attended Sunday, an event sponsored by the campaign’s Hispanic Leadership Council, the average age had to be 50 years old. Lots of abuelos and abuelas. And, as Harry Pachon, a longtime observer of Latino politics, noted in the Los Angeles Times last month, Bill Clinton was the first president to have two Latino Cabinet members serving at the same time. “Moreover,” he wrote, “during the Clinton years, rising economic tides lifted Latino boats along with many others.”

Latinos who support Obama speak of him as an internationalist, a uniter, a person who doesn’t have, as Peña put it, “the albatross of old partisan battles hanging around his neck.” Part of his appeal lies in his ability to transcend identity politics.

But, even the generational argument falls short. Take a look at that endorsement list of local Latino politicians again. Listen in at the Precinct 514 caucus:

“Clinton supporters stand here against the wall,” the caucus leader said. “Obama supporters stand over here.”

There’s goes Jimenez with the Obama supporters. And who is in the Clinton camp? Well, Angie Rivera Malpiede, who offers some support to the generational argument because her daughters are going for Obama. But, here, too, are first-time caucus-goers Ron and Lupe Armenta, a lovely young couple in their late 20s. Lupe admits considering Obama because he’s a minority and I’m a minority and he understands that experience. But, in the end, she and her husband believed Clinton’s experience mattered more. Listening to us talk is Judy Vargas, Lupe’s grandma. Vargas chose Clinton for her experience and her stand on health care.

I repeat Bendixen’s statement to them and am not surprised when they bristle. “I voted for Wellington Webb,” Vargas informs me.

Peña calls Bendixen a friend, but says on this matter he is simply wrong. “The evidence is contrary to the broad sweeping statement about this supposed tension,” Peña said. “I think it’s important in the year 2008 that we look at the facts and not assume old clichés.”

Precisely. Dig up that old coffin holding the restive spirits of racial and ethnic stereotyping and — bam — drive another nail into it.

Comments

  • February 6, 2008

    12:51 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    STOPUSAGiveaway writes:

    and where did you come to obtain USA citizenship?
    and look who is talking talking and talking R A C E???
    Live by the word die by the word
    \ You would think this is THE RACE for Latin America: and if it ends up it is --you will never be an American because there will no longer exist One Nation Under GOD....
    Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto Y O U