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Por Qué Es Latino Identidad no Noticias Ted Cruz?
I’m disappointed, albeit not surprised, at the media silence on the historical significance of America’s prospect of having its first Latino president, Ted Cruz. Not because I give a rat’s hind parts about identity politics. I don’t. I would just for once like a level playing field on race, where the media has made Republicans run uphill for the past 50 years.
When Barack Obama was a presidential candidate in 2008, there were endless references to how historic it would be to have our first black president. Some celebrities (and I surmise others) wanted it so badly they voted for Obama simply because he was black, and bragged about it.
I conceded Obama’s blackness on skin color and features. If I didn’t know of him and he walked into a room I’d see a black man, despite his Irish lineage. However, I never bought the “African American” label. That’s a sociological term of art for descendants of Africans who unfortunately can’t trace themselves to a country or tribe due to the ravages of slavery. Obama isn’t the descendant of African slaves. He is the descendant of slave owners, no different than other white presidents before him.
We are still waiting for the first president whose family rose from slavery to the presidency. It will be historic. The media wanted it so badly they just ignored that it didn’t happen with Obama and celebrated anyway.
Boy, did they celebrate. There have been constant reminders over the past eight years of the historic nature of having the first black president, and I actually have no significant qualms with it.
Yet you’d think we would see a similar wielding of historic significance in the news that Ted Cruz could be our first Latino president. It’s not in the news, except when a reporter is desperate to deny it.
Let us air our suspicions why.
My first suspicion is that media is heavily invested in portraying that one party in America as open to all and the other just for white people. They don’t journal events to be preserved for history. They journal their prejudices as history and Cruz will force them to say they’ve been wrong. There was a Republican presidential debate recently where the participants showed a Republican white minority. On stage were two Latinos, a black man, and two white men. This didn’t get mentioned in any news report I saw.
This brings me to my second suspicion: The media and the left don’t really care for identity politics or historic firsts. They care only for the Democrat party to claim these things. As proof I offer you this NBC report that holds it was a “cultural milestone” when a Latino named Bill Richardson briefly ran as a Democrat in 2008, but not so for Cruz who is a Republican. Good grief.
If Ted Cruz were a Democrat, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz would be slathering herself in media compliments of how accepting and forward her party is in contrast to the other. Yet I’ve never seen her strongly challenged on identity politics regarding the two old white people she has as candidates.
I also note we see the same pining for historical relevancy with Hillary Clinton being a woman. Madeline Albright went the full identity politics crazy and said women who don’t vote for Hillary will go to hell.
There is no denying that constant appeals to historic justice and equality by media and celebrities will bring a candidate votes, so it is very unfortunate that those things are really just a pretext to gather votes for the Democrat party, not history. It’s unfair, but a fact of life Republicans have had to put up with for 50 years.
On a personal note, I’m happy we Italians decided to assimilate and become American white people. Nothing would have been more displeasing to me than if I were compelled to support Rudy Giuliani due to some invisible genetic tie rod.
Published in General
Thank David
Well most hispanics are mestizzo. Partly white Spaniards and part Native peoples. The racial identity of being Hispanic encompasses both identities. Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley are full Indian.
Still, I think it’s mostly a political thing. No one on the left celebrates Asian-American Republicans.
Hispanic Uncle Toms are coconuts-brown in the outside…My father, who is as brown as they come has been labeled this. Of course, the fact that he proudly displayed a Bush yard sign in a neighborhood awash in Dukakis and Clinton signs contributed to that.
I think it’s up to Ted Cruz to say it. I don’t think he has, or if so not prominently. He needs to say he’ll be the first Latino president in a major speech. It would help in more than one way. Maybe he’s saving it for the general election. And you’re right, his supporters need to say it more forcefully.
The problem with this theory is that the Leftist Media did not celebrate Marco Rubio either. Rubio speaks fluent Spanish and was raised in Miami where Hispanic culture is pervasive.
From what I’ve seen he understands it. My own anecdotal experience (and maybe the same for some others here) is that naturally occurs during the assimilation process of families into America, which I understand we all support.
I can recall my grandmother speaking to my aunts in Italian and my aunts speaking back in English. Entire conversations would occur that way. It was like peeking into the evolution of assimilation right in my own family; a fascinating sociological observation.
While language may be part of a cultural identity, I don’t think the loss of fluency means the identity is necessarily, totally lost. But you could be right, John, that it is a huge step away from the prior culture.
I personally identify my whole family as completely assimilated (or I suppose I really should just say American, because the status of “immigrant family” is really gone as of the first or second generation born here).
The only vestigial culture I have left from my Italian side is my ability to make highly desired meatballs.
But with my last name, were I to run for office, I think many would identify me in some ways as “Italian” and straddle me with some of the enduring stereotypes, even though I have no real connection with that country or the ghettos that developed during early 20th century immigration (culturally I’m a beach bum).
I still get the occasional question, “Hey, this guy owes me money – I bet YOU know someone who can collect for me,” to which I reply, “Yes I can refer you to a good attorney.”
See, that’s serious assimilation right there!
One thing to add to this thread: to my knowledge, no one is really talking about the fact that Bernie Sanders is potentially the first Jewish president, either.
True, but I believe he ditched the religion years ago.
Is that because the media is in the tank for Hillary?
Additionally, is that also because Bernie Sanders doesn’t care to make the identity policy argument and instead makes the big government argument?
Ademas de todo esto, la Izquierda cree que si un Latino embrace la Derecha, y es Conservador, ha rechazado su herencia Latina, Cubana, o como sea. Clarence Thomas no califica como African American. Igualmente, Cruz no califica como Latino en la mente de los Izquierdistas.
El Gringo Viejo
Show off…
This sounds like real leftist conversation rather than conservative. Would you like to dissuade me from thinking that? Oh, and we had many here before the Revolution who didn’t like that process, so that is not a badge for this setting. Check with some of the Scottish Canadians.
The Left Media does and will celebrate the Castro brothers (the Texas ones) even though they do not speak Spanish either.
So the 50% Cuban, 37.5% Irish, 12.5% Italian guy (per Wiki) is now White Anglo Saxon Protestant due to his schooling and is hiding his true self? I see where one would argue he has blended into elite America culture through education, but what changes to his background would make him authentic? Barrack Obama came out of private school in Hawaii to spend time at three prestigious US universities and be, in the words of Joe Biden, “the first African American (candidate) who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy”. Is Obama authentic?
Also, regarding America becoming ethnic European, ethnic Asian, etc. What does that change mean practically and is it positive? I hear echoes of laws discussing what percentage of blood makes one white or black. Helpful if you are Elizabeth Warren checking “American Indian” to help Harvard Law celebrate diversity, but is scouring the past this way efficiently building our future? Will we all have to pitch our worth today based on some percentage of distant bloodline to vault us over the other candidate?
Being proud of one’s heritage is natural, but a country where life is based your forefathers is regressive, not inspired. Didn’t all American’s forefathers come here to avoid all that and be… free?
I appreciate your egalitarian sentiment, but it simply is not compatible with the way most people live their lives. Just talk to the folks at Ancestry.com and aficionados of “Finding Your Roots.” Ancestral heritage is a powerful part of people’s sense of identity and self. Who were my people and where did they come from? A question that resonates at a very deep level. Either we learn to embrace it and learn to integrate it into our culture (how can this be used positively and constructively) or we rip our culture apart.
Don’t be foolish. Conservatives are just as proud of their ethnic heritages as leftists claim to be. I’m beginning to understand why conservatives have so much trouble winning elections and governing. They are more focused on how people ought to be, how they ought to live their lives, and how they ought to think yet are so ignorant of how reality looks to the “common man”. You need to get out of the ivory tower more often and mingle with the hoi polloi.
I’m perfectly ok with people having connection with their ethnic heritage and celebrating it. My view is this is largely a family matter and when it extends beyond family into the larger ethnic group it may work against assimilation into the dominant culture which then will reduce individual opportunity outside the ethnic group. Those of a certain ethnicity are free to self-segregate themselves as a group within our society but that frequently works against individuals rising within that group. When that happens, members of some groups complain while members of other groups understand the effects of what they have chosen to do and accept it.
The bigger issue is culture, it is not easy to take a culture foreign to ours and isolate it within American culture and expect it to thrive. So, celebrating family ethnicity is great, thinking others need to help a foreign culture to thrive, not so much.
Wrong.