Criticized by supporters for passing a weak civil rights bill in 1957, even though it was the first civil rights legislation in almost a century, the powerful Democratic Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson responded by saying that it was but a first step to larger gains ahead. Eight years later, a far more comprehensive civil rights package indeed became law. The story of those years — retold in part in Robert Caro’s new book on Johnson, The Passage of Power – holds implications for those contemplating a watered-down version of the Dream Act. The courageous leaders of the Dream Act movement, perhaps unknowingly, hold in their hands much of how HispanicLatinos are redefining themselves. The other part of that redefinition is being accomplished through the courtesy of states like Arizona, Alabama and Georgia and, soon enough, most likely, the Supreme Court.
Category Archives: Politics
Court Set to Empower Ethnic Cleansing of HispanicLatinos
Last week a Department of Justice led by Attorney General Eric Holder mounted an attack so lame in front of the Supreme Court against Arizona’s anti-immigrant, anti-HispanicLatino law known as S.B.1070 that even first-time observers realized how thoroughly DOJ had been routed. Obama’s lawyers cratered in a case of existential importance to HispanicLatinos, who should be thankful that Obama’s lawyers later this year will not handle the challenge before the same Court to the minority-friendly college admissions policies of the University of Texas – meaning those of all of the nation’s colleges and universities.
HispanicLatinos should not be happy about last week’s unmitigated disaster if the Court affirms any part of 1070 in June. Any HispanicLatino citizens who think they are exempt from its ramifications have a surprise waiting for them. As surprised might be President Obama in November.
Most legal experts presume that last week’s faux attempt at lawyering by DOJ will cause the Court to endorse at least part of the Arizona law that targets individuals based on color, race, ethnicity and sound of speech on the mere supposition that they might be in the country illegally. My fear – and I so hope I am wrong – is that local governments will rush to propose and enact ordinances against defenseless local immigrant and HispanicLatino populations. Imagine the likes of hundreds of “Americans” like Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona running wild in every state.
1070: Any Court Affirmation Will Sink America
The Supreme Court hearing today on Arizona’s retrogressive 1070 law serves to remind us that every HispanicLatino is in the same boat. It is called America, and when states like Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Texas begin to subvert the very foundations of democratic governance, we have to hope the Court does not provide additional momentum to a state of affairs that might turn ugly. It has been a little more than a decade since the Court in 2000 greatly damaged the country’s faith in itself by overturning the results of an election that was never fully consummated, thus giving the country a historically disastrous Presidency from which the nation is still trying to recover. And it has been but two years since the Court further eroded the principles of every vote counting equally with its pernicious decision in Citizens United that unleashed the power of corporate greed that distorts the value of an individual vote.
These are not good days for the republic, and they are potentially worse for HispanicLatinos. Still, however the court rules on 1070, possibly in June, America will need as never before new leadership anchored by a new vision that must incorporate the convergence of HispanicLatinos from many places into one, unified population to focus on the immediate future. To help create the new leadership their country needs, HispanicLatinos must forge a new sense of common purpose that incorporates their individual experiences and places of origins to create a new identity – and lay down the foundation to oppose whatever laws stem from a faulty Court decision.
Religion: Critical but Dangerous to HispanicLatinos (Just Ask the Nuns)
Followers of this blog know it focuses on the need to build a new intellectual framework for the development of a new HispanicLatino identity that is critical to the country’s future. A HispanicLatino community – fortified with a new sense of self – might be able to accelerate its current economic, social and political standing to help the country remain fiscally and demographically viable. How a new HispanicLatino identity forms that incorporates their new nation-saving mission depends on HispanicLatinos themselves. But in undertaking a reformulation of their personal selves that can lead to new self-development and self-determination, HispanicLatinos must be on guard to not fall prey to religions – especially hierarchical ones – that threaten the creative potential of the individual. Dogma wrecks self-expression and stunts personal growth. Corroding the status of the individual is but a small step from jeopardizing the democratic concepts of self-government.
The Vatican made the danger of institutionalized religion come alive startlingly last week when it landed on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents the vast majority of Catholic nuns, who in the modern age have evolved – unlike the current set of bishops and so many priests.
Santorum as the New Buchanan
Watching the race for the Republican presidential nomination come to an end when former senator Rick Santorum effectively pulled out of the race, I had two thoughts. The first: I would have loved to see how Catholics would have voted in fairly Catholic states like New York, Pennsylvania and California for, in effect, the GOP primary contest had turned out to be a referendum on the Catholic bishops and their attempts to inject themselves more in the affairs of state and, as important, the affairs of women.
Needed: A New People with a New Plan — Now
Regarding their common – and to many, worrisome – future, neither the country nor HispanicLatinos have a plan. The much ballyhooed “bridge to the 21st Century” that Bill Clinton talked about in his re-election campaign is no more than a plank walk at the moment.
America – until now – never needed a plan. In its earliest years, the nation fought great political battles over a national banking system and government involvement in the development of a young country’s infrastructure that included canals, national roads and bridges. Once settled, these initial disputes opened up a continent to the economic energy thrown off by the Industrial Revolution that ultimately hurled America into the forefront of nations in the 20th century.
Marco Rubio, the 33-percent Solution and The New York Times
Years ago, a city editor in the newsroom taped a piece of paper on the monitor on my desk with the proper spelling of the city’s mayor. I consistently misspelled it. The New York Times should do the electronic equivalent for whichever of its writers report on the HispanicLatino vote this year.
Individuals across the land who put out a daily newspaper 365 times a year make as many mistakes. One of those 365 mistakes is when a newspaper gets wrong the share of the HispanicLatino vote that George W. Bush received in 2004. It was not, as the Times said in a story last week, 44 percent but 40 percent. Aside from the editorial integrity involved, the difference is of interest in this year’s election.
Attacks on Women and HispanicLatinos: One and the Same
I would imagine that women outraged by Rush Limbaugh’s comments denigrating the Georgetown student might now see why HispanicLatinos rejoiced yesterday when the Department of Justice ruled against the state of Texas’ voter identification laws targeting minority voters. Limbaugh’s people and the Republican majority of the Texas Legislature that enacted the punitive laws requiring photo identification are one and the same. In fact, they are one and the same throughout the country, including states like Wisconsin, whose law was also struck down this week.
These are the same GOP legislative majorities that are requiring sonograms and that have embarked on a jihad against contraceptive tools using President Obama’s health care as their stalking horse. As in other states, women who are under attack deserve and require defense. So it is with HispanicLatinos and other minorities whom Republicans would want to take back to the dark ages.
Anti-HispanicLatino Rhetoric – a Small Silver Lining
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.
Women Should Uncork a Knock-out Punch in November
Were I a woman, I would use the election in November as a blunt political tool: In one fell swoop, millions upon millions of women could send an unvarnished message to right-wing Republicans, the Catholic Church, the U.S. Supreme Court and gasbags like Rush Limbaugh to shut the heck up. What prompted this blog posting – okay, this is downright rant – is that, among other things, I have a niece, recently graduated from college, who is beginning to start building a professional career and, hopefully, a successful life.