I have spent nearly 20 years in politics working on local elections in Puerto Rico, engaging in community organizing in Los Angeles and New Haven, and, most recently, working as National Adviser on Hispanic and Latino Issues for General Wesley Clark during his 2004 presidential campaign. If there is one thing that I have learned from my time in politics, it's that, while African Americans and Latinos do not agree on everything, we do have a shared history and legacy. The civil rights movement that was so inspired by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. ignited the emergence of a Latino political conscience whether in the farms of the Southwest or the urban neighborhoods of the Northeast. In fact, many Latinos like me view themselves as the raza cosmica, or for short, la raza, a term meant to capture the pride we share in our blended European, African-American and Native American ancestries.
In New Haven, for example, as in most areas of the Northeast, African Americans and Latinos have always tried to sustain a strategic, if fragile, alliance. Strategic, for our present and future civil rights depend on our ability to cooperate effectively. Fragile, for we come from different origins and have faced similar trials and tribulations from different perspectives. Whereas many African Americans were brought as slaves, Puerto Rico and the Latino Southwest - to take but two examples - were war bounties. But the process was the same - having to fight a long struggle for the recognition of our civil rights, despite our enormous contributions to American history and culture, not to mention the loss of countless lives in every major American conflict.
At a more personal level, many of the people with whom I worked as a community organizer saw themselves as both African American and Latino. Why? Because they were both, not only from the standpoint of la raza, but also as a result of the sad reality that we have all shared the same history of poverty, neglect, lack of educational and professional opportunities, and systematic exclusion from the larger society. Unfortunately, this sense of unity seems to have eroded over the years, despite the hard work of community activists such as myself to find common ground and transcend the issue of culture and race in communities as diverse as Los Angeles and New Haven.
Given my experiences, I have been extremely saddened by the recent barrage of attacks (whether accidental or strategic) by the Clinton campaign against Senator Barack Obama: In December, Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire Campaign Co-Chair Bobby Shaheen made an issue of Obama's cocaine use as a teenager, something that is well known as it was included in Mr. Obama's book. Mr. Shaheen subsequently resigned, and Mrs. Clinton apologized to Mr. Obama.
Over the past week, however, we have seen more of these personal attacks: We have witnessed Mrs. Clinton debase the importance of Martin Luther King, Jr., who is a hero to all of us, including Latinos and African Americans. We have also witnessed Bill Clinton refer to Mr. Obama as a "fairy tale." New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo - a Clinton surrogate - alleged that Mr. Obama has been engaging in "shuck and jive" at news conferences. Then, the Guardian reported that an anonymous Clinton adviser said:
"If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool."
Afterwards, Black Entertainment Television founder and Clinton surrogate Bob Johnson insinuated the cocaine issue once again. More recent, the New York Post wrote a false story about Mr. Obama's use of a misogynistic song by rap artist Jay-Z at a rally.
So let's see: Mr. Obama is accused of being a misogynistic, cocaine sniffing, shucking and jiving, imaginary hip black friend... I fail to see the fairy tale here. Instead, it sounds more like every racial stereotype ever used to characterize African Americans - and Latinos, if you add the salsa dancing. It also seems to form a pattern of insidious attacks by the Clinton campaign on a man who has transcended race, campaigned with respect and dignity, inspired our country to get past partisan differences and come together, and restored hope in the hearts and minds of millions throughout the nation. More important, as a Latino, I believe Mr. Obama has finally reawakened in us the sense of urgency and possibility, that sense that anything is possible, que si se puede, if we only come together as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez once inspired us to do. Again, we are being granted an extraordinary opportunity that we thought was lost with King's death, an opportunity to make history by finding common ground in our shared experiences and by coming together to achieve change.
As a Latino, I have been deeply offended by the Clinton campaign's accusations over the past week. But what takes the cake is Mrs. Clinton's most recent analogy during a campaign stop with Latinos in Nevada. The Las Vegas-Review Journal a few days ago reported Mrs. Clinton as saying the following:
"We treat... problems as if one is guacamole and one is chips, when ... they both go together."
In her effort to relate to the Latino community, Mrs. Clinton ended up trivializing and insulting us. In the meantime, the Nevada State Education Association has filed a lawsuit with the support of the Clinton campaign that would disenfranchise many of the members of the Culinary Workers Union, of which approximately 40% are Latino voters, from participating in the Nevada Caucus. Not surprisingly, the Clinton campaign did not have a problem with their participation until the CWU endorsed Mr. Obama. While I often disagree with columnist Ruben Navarrette, I concur with him when he writes in a recent column about this subject that due to tactics like this:
"Clinton doesn't deserve (the 59% support) she has from Hispanics."
Mrs. Clinton's remark was incredibly condescending toward the Latino community, her efforts to disenfranchise Latino voters in Nevada are hypocritical, and I am shocked and outraged that the national media seem to be ignoring culturally ignorant comment after culturally ignorant comment.
Whether these remarks reflect a conscious strategy or are the result of plain incompetence on the part of the Clinton campaign, African Americans and Latinos should re-consider their support for her. The fact that Mrs. Clinton has called for a truce on race and gender is a positive first step, but it doesn't address why the Clinton campaign turned these matters into an issue in the first place. If a candidate can be that clueless about what may offend people of color and continue to offend people of color repeatedly in a week, she does not deserve the nomination from the party of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Had she been a Republican and made such remarks, we would have already asked for her resignation.
The chain of events that has unfolded over the past month or so forms a pattern that seems to be part of an orchestrated plan by the Clinton campaign to paint Mr. Obama as a race candidate and not the candidate of change his inspiring rhetoric has moved us to believe in. For African American and Latino voters, this election provides an extraordinary opportunity: Vote for someone who seems so disconnected from our needs, or vote for someone who shares our experience and understands the challenges we face. As a community organizer in Chicago, Mr. Obama worked with the African American and Latino communities to promote positive change. Although President Clinton has made important contributions to the African American and Latino communities, comments like guacamole and chips tell a different story about Mrs. Clinton. If Mrs. Clinton can make such insensitive comments, why should we trust her with our votes when she shows up in Nevada promising guacamole and chips?