Black-white v. brown-white
On Paul’s discussion about race and American politics, though I am in general agreement with him when it comes to black-white issues and their implications for our politics, past and present, a friend of mine recently raised a question that, frankly, had me stumped: Do the polarities that result in whites voting more Republican the blacker their state (county, other jurisdiction) also apply to polarization between (non-Hispanic) whites and Hispanics?
This is an interesting question because, even if black-white polarization were to never dissipate (it should, in time), as I have been arguing with my non-southern strategy, persistent black-white polarization will not be an obstacle to Democrats building a majority so long as they consolidate power outside the South. But a potentially major chink in my argument would be the sudden even steady emergence of brown-white racial polarization that compels white voters who live in proximity to significant Hispanic populations, and who might otherwise be ready to lean or convert to the Democrats, to tilt toward or return to the Republicans.
The GOP, of late, has been trying to have it both ways when it comes to Hispanics: Appealing to whites in subtle, xenophobic ways, yet distributing in 2004 CDs in Spanish to Hispanic voters about how El Presidente Bush loves them. But they can only pull this sort of stuff for so long. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ problem is the reverse: If they overplay their Hispanic hand, they might lose working-class or other whites who are worried about the “browning” of America. If such apprehensions arise, it’s reasonable to assume they will develop quicker in communities where Hispanics and whites are living in proximity and, therefore, competing for power and resources.
The principle difference between white-brown racial tensions and white-black ones, of course, is history: African Americans were slaves, then freed slaves, and now descendants of slaves, whereas for the most part—examples, from LBJ’s south Texas rancher buddies’ exploitive labor practices to tomato-pickers in Immokalee, notwithstanding—white-brown tensions are de-coupled from the ancestry of slavery and all the attendant social and psychological burdens that have prevented whites and blacks from moving toward a fully, post-racial America. My (non-expert) understanding of the cross-national sociological literature on this subject is that privileged ethnic groups tend to view former subjects/slaves differently (and worse, more inferior) than those who have immigrated.If Paul is right that much but surely not all of our politics is determined by underlying racial currents, I wonder if this will be less true precisely because the key non-white constituency moving forward—and key because it is not only growing, but is more up for grabs and is geographically distributed in ways that make it more pivotal and maybe more mobile—is brown, not black.
One test case: South Florida. Since a very large fraction of the Hispanic population (the Cubans) tend to vote Republican, the fact that the region is a Democratic stronghold argues that the whites of the area must be voting Democratic in fairly significant numbers. There are of course Blacks in the area and non-Cuban Hispanics. However both population include a large proportion of recent, non-citizen immigrants who are therefore non-voters. (Admittedly, the large gay and Jewish populations in the area may also be skewing the white vote Democratic)
October 30, 2007 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems unarguable that, whatever the rule around the world about former slaves vs. other minorities, American whites view blacks in a worse light because of the history of slavery. American whites have dramatically more positive attitudes towards Caribbean and African immigrants than towards "traditional" American blacks.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
October 30, 2007 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
South Florida may be unique. The original Cuban influx consisted of the wealthier (and more European) elites fleeing Castro. Chicago may be a more representative case.
October 31, 2007 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: The original Cuban influx consisted of the wealthier (and more European) elites fleeing Castro.
While this is true, I'm not sure it is relevant. Those Cubans do speak Spanish, and indeed Miami is probably the most Spanish-speaking major city in the US, to the extent that even someone like myself, who looks about as Anglo as anyone possibly can, will be addressed in Spanish first at any grocery store or gas station in the city since the default language is no longer English. That ought to incite the passions of bigots and indeed you will hear plenty of bitching about it from the Anglo folks (and from non-Spanish speaking Blacks too). Moreover the Cubans are hardly alone: South Florida is home to Latin American immigrants of all sorts. I work with folks who are from (or whose parents were from) the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, and Nicaraugua. And, oh yes, Cuba too. Somehow the presence of all these "brown" hordes (and of lots of Carribbean Blacks too) has not scared the white population of the area into the arms of the GOP. Now, this may due to the fact that much of the white population consists of internal immigrants from the Northeast, and these people are simply liberals born and bred who would not vote for the GOP if you offered them a winning lottery ticket. But the fact that immigration is not a hot-button political issue in one of the most immigrant-populated areas of the country does bear looking into.
November 1, 2007 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink