Barak Obama's victory is due in great part to his "youth appeal."  Youth culture is a consistent trope of American popular culture.  The Obama campaign was able to capture the American imagination though this youth appeal.  In part, the Obama campaign was able to facilitate this popular culture thematic through technology.  The avant-garde use of technology through face book, YouTube, email, info-mercials made the Obama campaign a 21st Century model for political campaigning.  Obama and his campaign managers were not only able to employ technology, but they were able to juxtapose this technology as an inherent part of the Obama phenomenon.  This was created by the media "buzz" over Obama's Blackberry, his "personal" appearances on the email videos, etc.  Obama's face and the platform he incarnated were ubiquitous.  His "rapid rise and widespread interest" may perhaps be a misnomer, since the 2008 presidential campaign was the longest in American history.

Additionally, Obama's victory and appeal was also due to the demographic shifts of the American landscape.  The historical gatekeepers or constructionist of identity were subverted by the enigmatic Barack Obama persona.  He wasn't Black; he wasn't White; he wasn't "Civil Rights"; he wasn't "Christian."  Yet, he was able to carve out a "new" American identity in the American popular culture mainstream.  He came to represent the "new" America - what ever that means to the varying American imaginations.  Obama and his pundits were able to create a space of ambiguity and thus created an attraction to the difference of it all.  Obama de-centered hegemonic mainstays.  Obama represented emerging constituents in the United States:  citizen born children of immigrant parents, naturalized citizens, etc.  Obama, like many of these new "United Statedians" have family outside the United States.  He has a very diverse immediate family.  He has step-brothers and sisters.  He has lived outside the United States.  He does not come from a wealthy background.  For many, he represented a reflection of self in the United States political landscape and thus the attraction and support. 

Popular Culture and the Obama Campaign 

Based on last week's discussion and the articles handed out in class, what popular culture factors caused the rapid rise and widespread interest in Barack Obama's campaign that may have facilitated his election to the United States. 

As it was discussed in class and also it is mentioned in the articles, one of the most important factors that played a key role in the election of Barack Obama as President of the U.S.  was the understanding of the popular culture and the use of technology that none in the past was able to use in the way  Barack Obama did.

What we saw with respect to the emergence of Barack Obama that may have facilitated his election to the United States Presidency, was his ability to tie with the cultural generation and move over the traditional gatekeepers, and also move over the Democratic Party at the beginning.  One of the most remarkable things that Obama did in terms of spreading his message to traditional cultural generations that historically had been frustrated by past political processes was to use their vehicles of mass communications such as television, music, and the internet with the you tube. Another thing that made Barack Obama different to the traditional candidates is that he was the first candidate to say that he had and I pod, a blog, and email, and also he started to use the popular culture language that made him even more popular.

In relation to the same topic, the article by Cokly (Racial(lized)…African American Identity, 2005) discusses the study of the acceptance of African American and Afrocentricism in the context of American society. One of the things discussed in class was  how Barack Obama was very smart to deal with the race issue in his political campaign by framing himself in the context of ethnic identity versus racial identity since it is clear that there is a very distinct difference between racial identity versus ethnic identity. 

M.S.    

The problem with both cases is that they both are focused on a very narrow view of Black/Brown relations. Hernandez (2008) seems to have a very pessimistic perspective informed by tragic and rare events of violence. Whereas, Barreto and Ramirez (2008) seem to ignore any conflicts that arise throughout the country surrounding these groups and instead use voting behavior as a measure of sentiment. Both are isolated examples of a more general reality yet to be discussed. First of all Latino people are not racist or hostile toward Blacks simply because they were socialized to hold prejudiced attitudes, just as all White Americans are not racists or hostile toward Blacks. This socialization is an essential factor to address in dealing with this problem, but it is not the only source of hostility. Therefore presenting this argument as the typical Latino engrossed in animosity toward all Blacks is quite limiting and offering only an extreme view of the problem. Though Barreto and Ramirez (2008) are also limiting in their study based on voting behavior, when we know that many Latinos do not vote, and those that do are more likely to have higher level of education and income. This other factors influence their conclusions and limit the ability to generalize the conclusion to the rest of the Latino population. The answer may be instead a combination of both views to create a more balanced and realistic view of Latinos in regard to their attitudes toward African Americans.

 Lindsay Harris

The two New York Times articles distributed in class offered varying perspectives on Anti-black sentiment in the Latino community. Discuss the validity of these articles and assess whether they offer a rational basis as a legitimate national race issue, or whether they simply represent isolated incidents of localized conflict.

During the lecture, we discussed many reasons why it appears that Latinos and Blacks should be forming coalitions and working together.  Although we discussed a few policy disagreements amongst the groups, we mostly focused on the shared histories, the affinity, and the shared policy needs.  The two articles we were given at the end of class draw two very different conclusions about Latino-Black relations, but the articles are also about two very different subjects.  One focuses on gang violence, fights over territory, and the animosity between Latinos and Blacks; whereas the other article is about voting patterns.

In regards to whether these articles offer a basis for a legitimate race issue, or whether they simply represent isolated incidents of localized conflict, I think it is a combination of the two ideas. Often times, an isolated incident of localized conflict can hint at larger truths about race relations; and in this view, there is no such thing as an isolated incident.  I definitely think that Los Angeles is a microcosm of national race relations, and the Latino/Black interactions that take place in Los Angeles are a model of a larger relationship.  On the other hand, one example of one gang in Los Angeles and their war on Blacks in the area does not prove that Latino and Black relations are doomed.

In the article, “The Roots of Latino/Black Anger,” the focus is on Latino ethnic cleansing of Blacks from multiracial neighborhoods.  According to this article, there was a six-year plan to kill Blacks in what is perceived to be a Latino neighborhood of Highland Park by Latino gang members.  Several of the people murdered were innocent civilians, completely removed from gang affiliation.  The article explains, “Anti-black racism in particular – is a pervasive and historically entrenched reality of life in Latin America and the Caribbean…” This history is supposed to explain the Latino animosity and current difficulty in coalition building.  The article also discusses how it is assumed that Blacks harbor some anti-Latino sentiment, but “Ironically, African Americans, who are often depicted as being averse to coalition-building with Latinos, have repeatedly demonstrated in their survey responses that they feel less hostility toward Latinos than Latinos feel toward them.”  The gang violence and power struggles between Latinos and Blacks could be a localized incident in Los Angeles, but likely have national implications.  Rather than restricting this incident to the Los Angeles area, it should be understood as depicting the race relations happening all over the country between struggling minority groups – struggling for resources, for jobs, for housing, and so on.

The article “The Latino vote is pro-Clinton, not anti-Obama,” is very different than the first article and regards voting propensity in the Latino community. It concludes that “…there are many reasons why Clinton enjoys a large advantage among Latino voters, and none of them has anything to do with racism.”  The Clintons had been courting the Latino vote for sixteen years before Obama attempted to do the same, and this is a lot of ground to make up.  According to this article, all the claims that Latinos will not vote for Black candidates have been disproven again and again all over the country. At the end of the article, it says: “The point is to be careful of assuming that racism shapes Latino vote preferences.”  This article uses examples and data from all over the country, so it certainly is a rational basis for understanding race relations rather than a localized incident.

These two articles don’t have much in common, besides that both point to different understandings of the relationship between Latinos and Blacks.   The way I understand it, both articles reveal truths about Latino-Black relations, and both are localized incidents that explain national race relations. The articles are different in that they focus on different samplings of the Latino community, the people who perpetrate the gang violence aren’t the same ones going to the polls for Black candidates, but this doesn’t mean both articles aren’t about rational explanations of national race relations.

The Black church has historically served as a place to recover one’s humanity from the hostile world of a white hegemonic America.  The Black church has consistently constructed safe spaces in which African- Americans could engage each other’s full-humanity.  Despite this distinctive church history, according to Eric McDaniel, “the power of the minister versus the power of the congregants” is an internal and differentiated negotiation from congregation to congregation.  In “Black Clergy in the 2000 Election,” McDaniel found that there are also denominational differences.  For example, the “Church of God in Christ has never been considered an activity denomination.”  Nevertheless, 97% of clergy approved of publicly (not preaching) taking a stand on a moral issues and 92% approved taking a stand, while preaching, on moral issues.

Christopher Ellison examines the “power of the congregants” in terms of “rational choice.”  In short, what are the rational benefits to engage politics within the context of the church?  Thus, specifically for the Black congregation and community who have viewed their church as a power broker for political leverage, “rational choice theory offers a fresh and stimulation perspective on religious life.”  If what the pastor preaches on Sunday is so relevant, it will affect my every day.  If what the Bible says remains true, it will be manifest in my life.  Thus, a hybrid religious/rational choice emerges extending power to both minister and congregants alike.  The pendulum may swing, yet the church remains a power broker of sorts for both the minister and the congregants.

In terms of the “validity,” of the articles, Barreto and Ramirez offer a convincing argument contesting the “anti-Black” Latino political construct.  Although they do not mention the media as a major producer of this social construct, they do historicize the public perception and qualify it and note that it “is incorrect to equate Latino support for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) in 2008 with anti-Obama or anti-black voting patterns.”  In other words, the “pro-Clinton” sentiment is attributed to a “16-year head start.”  The Clinton brand-name had a greater affect on voter perceptions and vote projections than any substantial or visceral claims of racism and /or animosity between the African-American and Latino communities.  Additionally, they note that Obama has also built name recognition within the Latino community.  Barreto and Ramirez cite Obama’s 2000 bid for a senatorial seat in the state of Illinois where Obama “won more Latino votes than African American votes.”  He won more votes than the Latino candidate in the senatorial race.  In their brief and concise article, Barreto and Ramirez create a fissure in the pervasive, albeit erroneous, public sentiment of Latino racism as manifest in the Obama campaign.

The Hernandez article, however, is much more problematic.  She begins her article with examples of Latino and Black violence.  This juxtaposition serves to engage and already established trope meant to engage the reader in an “all too familiar” narrative.  She amplifies the social tension by describing these acts as “an increasingly common trend: Latino ethnic -cleansing of African American from multiracial neighborhoods.”  This intensifies an already tenuous situation.  After having “established” a violent description of ethnic relations, Hernandez sites studies from various disciplines (history, politics, anthropology, sociology) which “speak” to this social dynamic.  Yet, she offers no reflexive consideration of the affects of the prison industrial complex (which is largely segregated) upon the youth who act out or experience the violence.  She does not mitigate these acts as outliers nor does she offer convincing examples for employing the terminology she chooses.  And although Hernandez presents various historical “facts,” she employs them to equate Latin American racism with U.S. racism.  Although these two may manifest some of the same effects and/or results, they are different.  In Latin America, the notion of race and Blackness are challenging negotiations.  Yet, these negotiations are far more fluid than in the U.S.  In other words, in Latin America dark skin does not equate Black identity.  Black identity is not fixed, thus the notion of “Latino ethnic cleansing” is problematic within social/political countries where miscegenation and mestizaje have been engaged in the national narrative.

The two New York Times articles distributed in class offered varying perspectives on Anti-black sentiment in the Latino community. Discuss the validity of these articles and assess whether they offer a rational basis as a legitimate national race issue, or whether they simply represent isolated incidents of localized conflict.


    The two articles from the Los Angeles Times are indicators of the larger race hierarchy that exists within the US and the world. Throughout the semester we have seen the various ways that both gender and race relations intersect and react to create complex power issues that manifest in a variety of ways. We see this specifically with intolerance and hostility between Latinos and African-Americans on many levels, including the manifestations that the articles highlight, from isolated neighborhood incidents to national voting patterns. While these specific articles may lack in terms of legitimate scholarly citations that back up the author's claims, their observations of these race issues remain important and eligible fro examination.
     Both articles point out that Latinos seem to have less tolerance, or positive views, of African-Americans than vice-versa. This attitude can be traced to various roots. Author Tanya K. Hernandez writes that, "...anti-black racism in particular - is a pervasive and historically entrenched reality of life in Latin America and the Caribbean" dating back to the trans-Altantic slave trade when the vast majority of African slaves were brought to Central and Latin America. Anti-black sentiment is reinforced in Latino culture and carried to the U.S. through immigration. Once in the US, Latino immigrants, and subsequent generations of American Latinos compound this historical racism with the complicated race relations that exist within US popular culture and society. The intersections of these attitudes, along with strenuous socio-economic and political burdens can exacerbate race issues. This situation allows, for example, race motivated hate crimes and difference in voting patterns. The Black community also carries complex race issues that add to the Latino/African-American hostility in different ways. As Hernandez points out, "...perhaps black Americans are resentful at having the benefits of the civil rights movement extended to Latinos." And then there is the competition theoretical approach, as discussed by Professor Pantoja in class, that says all minority groups will seek to protect the  limited resources they do have. In this sense, Blacks and Latinos intolerance stems from the two groups being forced into fierce competition for the limited resources that are allotted to minority groups.
     Overall, we see that all forms of race motivated discrepancies, from voting patterns to single incidents of crime, are part of a larger picture of race hierarchy and injustice that exists in all levels of society and government in the US. Many complicated paradigms contribute to this larger picture of power struggles and the two Los Angeles Times articles are good examples of such varying manifestations of race.

Molly Berger

Discuss the validity of this articles (The Latino vote is pro-Clinton, not anti-Obama, and Roots of Latino/black anger) and assess whether they offer a rational basis as a legitimate national race issue, or whether they simply represent isolated incidents of localized conflict. 

After reading the article The Latino vote is pro-Clinton, not anti-Obama, where Matt Barreto and  Ricardo Ramirez make reference to article by Raoul Contreras,  “The Bradley effect still in effect”,  I agree with Barreto ans Ramirez when they mention that Contreras is wrong on his claim that Latinos are not willing to support a black candidate. I read the article by Raoul Contreras, and he mentions places where black candidates didn’t win, and just based on that results of the elections, he assumes that Latinos didn’t vote for the black candidates. Also seems like his assumptions are also based on isolated incidents when he mentions his grandfather who according to him, expressed that he would never vote for a black candidate for governor.  

On the other hand, Barreto and Ramirez defend their claim that Latinos are willing to vote for black candidates and support their claim showing percentage of Latinos voting for black candidates. Also they show how Obama in 2000 won more votes from Latinos than African Americans in the Democratic primary for 1^st Congressional district in Illinois, and then in 2004, when Obama ran for the U.S. Senate Democratic nomination, in Illinois, Latinos voted more for Obama than for a Latino candidate (Gery Chico).  Later in the Democratic elections according to the article, some of the exit polls gave some advantage to Hillary Clinton over Obama, however we have to take in consideration that Hillary was well known among Latinos because her time as first lady and all the campaign she was doing in spanish radio and television. 

 In relation to the “Roots of Latino/black anger”, I don’t think we can make a generalization about the two ethnic groups just based on some incidents that are mostly the results of gangs because rots between gangs can happen between any race and not necessary only between African Americans and Latinos; however since Latinos and African Americans share similar socioeconomic deprivations, they might see each other as competitions for job opportunities but not necessarily as an enemy. 

Finally, I think that more research is needed in order to understand better the Latino population in the United States because the new generations of Latinos in this country and the continuous immigration from Latin America to the U.S because it is true that Latinos in general share some similarities but they are also different in some cultural traditions.

MS

The two Los Angeles Times articles distributed in class offered varying perspectives on Anti-black sentiment in the Latino community. Discuss the validity of these articles and assess whether they offer a rational basis as a legitimate national race issue, or whether they simply represent isolated incidents of localized conflict.

The two articles not only provide varying perspectives on anti-black sentiments within the Latino community, but one seeks to examine the roots or causes of the strained relationship, and the other provides examples of the outcome or effects of the relationship in the political arena.  Though the overall point is to show that the Latino and African American communities have had more of a strained relationship than an amiable one, it is not so simple to compare their perspectives since the emphasis is different for each (one being a macro examination and the other more of a micro examination); nevertheless, they both make important contributions in seeking to understand why certain animosity exists between Latinos and African Americans.  In terms of examining each article individually in its particular context, the arguments for their validity are both strong.  It could be argued that they do both offer a rational basis for a legitimate national race issue, as well as a representation of isolated incidents of localized conflicts.  It all depends on the interpretation of the arguments presented. 

In the article by “Roots of Latino/black anger,” the author, Hernandez, provides a very brief historical account of the Latino/black tension, bringing to light the slave period in Latin American and Caribbean.  Going back over two hundred years reveals the entrenchment of anti-black sentiment among the Mexican population, and the author reveals how the culture of “white supremacy” manifested itself in Latin American sentiment.  Having lighter skin and European features was equated to being superior and having upward social mobility; whereas darker skin was a constraint on social status and mobility.  Hernandez asserts that this deep entrenchment finds its way into Mexican politics, and migrants from Mexico, areas of Latin America, and the Caribbean carry “the baggage of racism” with them when they come to the United States.  To provide a justification for her argument, she cites survey data collected and conducted by sociologists.  By providing a historical examination and seeking to pinpoint the root of the Latino/black tension, Hernandez’s argument is rational in making the claim that this is a legitimate national race issue.  Her argument would have obviously been greatly enhanced and strengthened by providing more specific historical data, but since this was merely a newspaper commentary/article, she does well in making her case.  Grounding arguments in a historical framework not only shows the overall big picture of a social problem, it helps one understand the underpinning motivations and attitudes.  Ideas, perceptions, and deep seeded resentment are learned and can be passed down generation to generation.

The shorter article on “The Latino vote is pro-Clinton, not anti-Obama” is a micro examination of the relationship between Latino voters and their support for Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama.  I would argue that this article is representative more of an isolated incident of localized conflict based on the fact that it is focusing specifically on the support of two particular candidates.  How the authors have chosen to frame their argument also contributes to the assertion that this is an isolated incident.  Convincingly, the authors provide an explanation backed up with facts and stats why Latinos were more willing to put their support toward Hillary Clinton.  The Clinton name is very well known having dominated the political scene for eight years, and considering Barack Obama was the junior Senator from Illinois and did not have much notoriety until the primary season, provides a reasonable justification for why Latinos flocked toward Clinton.  Political Scientists who study political behavior and the voting electorate have proven over and over again that the general voting public does not take the time to study issues and policies, let alone to know who is running for office.  Barreto and Ramirez provide examples of Latinos supporting African American candidates in various elections, but all they have is raw data, not an in-depth attitudinal and motivational analysis.  Their claim that people need to be careful in assuming racism shapes Latino preferences is logically sound given the position they take, but what would really strengthen their position is if they could have provided empirical studies that have measured the political attitudes and motivations of Latino voters.