(Disclaimer: I currently don’t support any of the Presidential candidates right now, so don’t take the conjecture below as my political beliefs, rather I like to call it how I see it.)
1. He’s black.
Now being black myself (not African-American, but Black) this may seem like an odd comment. I’m not talking about the hordes of white people who won’t vote for him because the color of skin, I’m talking about another racially classed group: Latinos.
Many in news media automatically assume that minorities will stick together, but they either are a) clueless or b) don’t want to talk about what many already know — many “browns” don’t like “blacks” and the feeling is often mutual.
I have a Puerto Rican fiancee, whom I met in the Dominican Republic, so let me speak a bit about my experiences. In the DR, they didn’t like me at first sight, because I am black, and in Puerto Rico it was the same story. In fact many of my Boricua friends tell me that their parents and grandparents often told them to never marry a black person.
Heck, my own fiancee didn’t like black people when she was a child and once claimed, “I’ll never marry a black person.” How things easily change when we get to know each other.
The director of my school in the Dominican Republic is Mexican, born and raised in Mexico, but went to work in his late teens as a laborer in the state of Georgia. Many of his friends ridiculed him for marrying a Brazilian, because a lot of Mexicans think that all Brazilians are black.
They wanted to know why he’d marry a black woman.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t claim to lump a whole group of people together. I am fluent in Spanish, and that I think learning the language is one key in breaking down the walls between black and brown, but hear me out: never assume that minorities group themselves together, because most times they don’t.
I have good Mexican friends from L.A., from South Texas, from Chicago, and even from Colorado, and many of them allude to the racial tension that exists between Mexicans, or Latinos in general, and black people.
Black Americans have problems with not only Latinos, but often times Koreans, Chinese, and even African immigrants.
Clinton won the ‘Latino vote’ 2 to 1 in Nevada, and the polls have her at 3 to 1 in California, a state heavily populated with Latinos. (Read the HuffingtonPost article)
I don’t think this will be as much of an issue in the North East U.S. where there are hordes of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, but as for California, Texas, Florida and the whole west/south west, I don’t think we’ll see many Latinos voting for Obama.
2. His full name is Barack Hussein Obama, which happens to rhyme with Osama.
Be it trivial as it may, the Republicans were certainly holding back the Muslim trick if/when Obama won the democratic nomination.
How a man whose middle name is strikingly similar to the deposed (and now decapitated) former Iraqi dictator, and rhymes with U.S. enemy number one, is going to be elected President of the United States of America, I don’t know.
Whether he went to a madrassa or was raised as a Muslim is immaterial, the fact of the matter, it’s not about America being ready or not for a black president, or a female president for that matter, it’s all about image.
Each candidate says they stand for change, from McCain to Obama, Huckabee to H.R. Clinton, but this election is not about change, its not even about the economy or the war.
It’s going to come down to image, and whose candidate image will win out in the majority.
Remember that old Sprite commercial — yah, it’s still true.
“Image is Everything…Obey your thirst.”
This election, we shall see which group’s (evangelists, economic conservatives, “liberals,” etc) thirst wins out, but I’m telling you now — don’t bet on Obama.
