So it is true that anti-HispanicLatino rhetoric continues unchecked, driven by the prolonged Republican presidential primary campaign, fed by the fights in places like Alabama, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina over mostly unconstitutional state laws on immigration and festooned by the antics of the hate-filled Joe Arpaio.  And the tone of the attacks that like shrapnel explode in every part of the HispanicLatino community might get shriller still.  However, a sliver lining adorns every cloud.

Within the audiences that listen to the angry messaging, a set of people exists who are more educated than not and who do not react to hyperbole.  These men and women, many of them professional managers of medium-size corporations, businesses and institutions, amid the tumult come to see the HispanicLatino as a phenomenon they merits their attention.  I am not just talking about the chief executive officers of Fortune 500-type organizations.  Rather, these often are business owners who see their immediate markets changing.

In the spectacle that has unfolded since Arizona initiated its discriminatory legislation, it seems hardly possible that any manager worth his or her salt has not taken the initiative to look more closely at what is presented to them as a problem.  Upon even the most rudimentary examination, the “problem” can be seen as a multi-dimensional reality that is permanent – far from the picture painted by anti-HispanicLatino activists who want to undo the changes wrought by the new demography changing not just regional markets but the entire nation.

This year alone, commercials and advertising on television and radio from companies and organizations that are new to the reality underscore that they understand the changes transforming the nation.  The irony of the Arpaios is that they are abetting the very change they most fear.

For HispanicLatinos within those entities whose managers are seeing the light, now is the time for them to put themselves and their ideas forward and, more important, to increase the level of economic activity and economic development within the HispanicLatino community that is critical to the nation’s future.

Even the Republican candidates for President echoing the anti-HispanicLatino rhetoric of the extreme right find it necessary to run political commercials in Spanish and, in English-dominant markets, commercials that appeal directly to HispanicLatino households.  The individuals making those decisions are, in effect, managers of an enterprise large enough to notice but not large enough to be classified as a large corporation.

Presidential campaigns, after all, are start-up businesses whose sole purpose is to pay vigilant attention to their markets.

What does that tell you?

Years ago, a Texas politician named Mattox was informed he was being investigated by a grand jury and could be indicted.  Asked for his reaction, he thought for a moment then responded laconically, “I’ll take the publicity anytime.”

Feel free to forward these blogs adapted from previous writings, with additional thoughts published invariably in between.