Posted on Dec . 6 for Dec. 7
News reports in the weeks leading up to the election in November about obstacles being placed to obstruct HispanicLatinos and other minorities from voting terrified a friend of mine in New York. I assured him that the Obama people were on top of the situation. Of course, the Obama team had a lot of it covered, filing lawsuits left and right. More important, though, minority voters reacted and voted in greater numbers than in 2008. Does that mean that efforts to intimidate minority voters will stop? Of course not. The Obama campaign is not going to prosecute the issue, and the individuals who ramrodded these unnecessary, nonsensical laws, aided and abetted by simplistic slogans about drivers’ licenses and boarding airplanes, are motivated not by civic sensitives as they are by racial and ethnic animosities. And that is a lasting feature of life in America today.
That kind of accusatory statement seems to be as pejorative as the unkind statements Tea party types make about minorities. But the anti-voter laws became an avalanche as a reaction to Barack Obama’s win in 2008. Previous superficial social conventions were the products of a belief that the country would never elect a black man President in the first place. So, after his victiry, disappointment gave rise to strategies intended to prevent his re-election by taking aim at all minotities. The motivation of the voter-intimidators was made evident by the fact that these anti-discriminatory laws were enacted not just in swing states but in states that Obama had no chance of carrying. So voter intimidation laws also are aimed at HispanicLatinos who live in swing states and in states that in due time will feel their states pulled into a new political orbit. HispanicLatinos have to be on guard. Maximizing their political power is critical for their social and economic advancement.
But beyond keeping these tactical imperatives in mind and keeping Republicans’ — especially HispanicLatino Republicans’ — feet to the fire, what are the larger issues that HispanicLatinos should dog?