War Cabinet, Taino Dreams

What can I tell you? The fact that the Wall Street Journal has called this the "war cabinet" doesn't make me feel very comfortable. I don't understand, am I part of a radical far-left fringe for wondering why someone who is on the board of Chevron or "that one," an ex-CIA director and blowback-creator represent "change?" 

           So far we got Clintonianism after Clintonianism. We might have well elected Hillary. 

While we're (not) on the subject, I'm kind of irritated by the last two Damien Cave pieces about Puerto Rico. They kind of reek of this being a "downtime" thing for Cave, who has spent a lot of time covering Iraq. He's a nice writer, but his superficial analysis of Puerto Rican politics really are a disservice, and this last one about Taino "syncretism" is also lackluster. 

                When Cave quotes archaeologist Miguel Rodriguez Lopez saying "There is a feeling that [Taino culture] represents our primary roots" without any balancing statement about Puerto Ricans' African roots, and then references Brazilian carnaval without mentioning its African origins, the piece becomes a farce. 

                  I'm not against identifying with Taino per se. Some kind of Afro-Taino mix is certainly central to puertorriqueñidad. And I'm all for embracing our Spanish roots, most of which are Moro/arabe/judío, and sometimes I think when I go way back in my gene pool I must have had some roots on the Catalán waterfront. But let's not get into over-simplified "home-coming queen, Halloween, 'Last of the Mohicans' and Las Vegas showgirl syncretism."

Also, curious about why Plaxico Burress was so driven to go to LQ's "Latin night." 

Race Baiting Spikes, Critique of Pragmatic Politics pt. 2

The narrative is all-too familiar. Group of pimply-faced adolescents get drunk and decide to go out and smack down a scapegoated victim, whether it's Bensonhurst, Howard Beach, or Jena, Louisiana. Fueled by racism absorbed through family circles, backyard parties, locker room chatter, and maybe now video games and internet neo-nazis, they take to the streets in a search and destroy mission to erase perceived blight. 

            But as they televise the above-pictured perp walk again and again, you can't help but thinking, what's wrong with this picture? The lead goon, Jeffrey Conroy, looks the part, and there are always a couple of undersized wannabe thugs trailing in the ringleader's wake, but check out the two black (one half-Puerto Rican) faces bringing up the rear. How do we explain Jose Pacheco and Anthony Hartford? 

               "It's tragic to see our youth of color adpoting the racist anti-immigrant culture," writes a veteran anti-racist activist in an e-mail. 

              Long Island has had a noticeable recent history of anti-immigrant hysteria, and one town's case even prompted a well-known documentary. But is it also becoming a site for a new melting pot, where even people of color can band together with racist whites to act out against newly perceived others? 

              This is actually the second time in a year that someone with partial Puerto Rican ancestry was involved in a race-baiting controversy. The late Daniel Cicciaro Jr. was killed by John White, an African American man who came out of his house to defend his son, who had been chased by Cicciaro and friends flinging racial epithets. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that a neo-Nazi group bent on making a martyr out of Cicciaro backed off when talking to his mother, who informed them that she was Puerto Rican.

                Perhaps some of the facts regarding Pacheco and Hartford's involvement will come out during the grand jury process. And of course this is a great opportunity for the well-meaning members of Long Island's highly segregated communities to make something out of the healing process. 

                 But those of us complacent with the idea that the Northeast, or even the New York metro area is a "safe" multicultural zone should revisit some basic presuppositions. Racial incidents in Staten Island, as well as across the country may be seen as temporary spikes caused by the shock waves from Obama's election, but they also might signal a troubling future.

Critique of Obama Pragmatism, Pt. 2

Well all this smiling and sitting down with previous political foes, this "reaching across the aisle" as it were is all well and good. Still I wonder how Obama (we?) can do this in a way that doesn't assume "all things being equal." How much did the Bush administration concern itself to reach across the aisle? How many Democrats did they put in Cabinet positions (I'm jumping the gun on this, but there is much chatter about Secretary of Defense Robert Gates staying and there was at least a hint about Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar up for the cabinet)? Today's new stuff about some disturbing CIA connections for individuals picked to head Obama's Intelligence Transition Team doesn't sit well either. 

          I'm not talking revenge here, nor am I presuming to "descend to the level" of the one-party state Republican thugs that tried to hijack the constitution permanently. It's just that this country was pushed so far to the right in the last eight years, it's not exactly time for meeting people who relentlessly race- and communist-baited you halfway. 

          Is the essential contradiction in ObamaLogic that the more important "change" to be brought about in his administration is the "break from politics as usual," meaning "partisan politics," rather than a complete break from the catastrophically undemocratic policies imposed by the Bush administration? 

           Okay, it's true, the guy isn't even in office yet and I'm giving him a hard time. It was pretty great to see the happy couple on 60 Minutes last night.

Rahm Emanuel Update

Apparently Rahm Emanuel or someone close to him reads the Living in Spanglish blog. Well, maybe they read some Time magazine blog or an ABC News blog or, I don't know, Gawker. Of course all those entries were published the day after mine. At any rate, Obama's recently anointed Chief of Staff has apologized for his father's profoundly inappropriate remarks. 

           Maybe this is a good sign.

Party Over?

Okay it's time to stop snickering at Sarah Palin. Don't want to be a party pooper, but the bad news is starting to trickle in from Iraq, Pakistan, and Gaza. And I'm not even going to get into the economy, or even Madonna and A-Rod. It's time to face reality, and it isn't all that pretty, notwithstanding the promise of presidential puppy. (Could it be? Puppy politics becomes another form of playing the "mixed" race card?)

             The first of several matters that may stand in the way of our unconditional love for the "skinny kid from Hawaii with a funny name" (but does he have game?) are some controversial cabinet selections:

1) There are concerns about some crazy stuff Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's father apparently said, with no word so far on Rahm's desire himself to distance himself from these remarks. Ewan MacCaskill and Suzanne Goldberg of the Guardian UK write:

In an interview with the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said he was convinced that his son's appointment would be good for Israel. 'Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel,' he was quoted as saying. 'Why wouldn't he be? What, is he an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House.'" 

Hopefully something was lost in the translation.

2) Another touchy subject is Lawrence "Larry" Summers potential nomination as treasury secretary. You probably remember his strange comments on the intellectual inferiority of women while president of Harvard University. Perhaps more important was Summers' central role in the implementation of NAFTA which he did at under-secretary of the treasury under Bill Clinton. U.S. labor activist Peter Cervantes-Gautschi writes that Summers "engineered the destruction of Mexico's economy through forced increase of interest rates to unmanageable levels--business and farm loans went from 11% to 56%, credit card rates from 7% to 61%, home loans from 5% to 615, car loans from 7% to 91%. The result was massive human suffering and the forced migration of millions of economic refugees to the U.S."

3) Finally, Eric Holder, of the prestigious law firm Covington and Burling, has been mentioned as a possible attorney general candidate. It turns out that Holder is a lawyer for Chiquita Brands International, which has admitted to paying $1.7 million and supplying arms to Colombian paramilitary death squads, leading to the death of 4000 Colombian civilians in the banana growing regions of that country.  So much for Obama's enlightened remarks during the debate on why he was cautious about the Colombia free trade agreement? 

To give Obama credit, he has not given in to Bush on tying the Colombia free trade agreement to a bailout of US auto makers. And the Holder appointment is not a given.

But it remains to be seen just what all this talk of "post-partisan" politics really means.

Change Has Come

Barack Obama’s critics have long been skeptical of his main campaign slogan, “change you can believe in.” They have tried to render the idea of change as meaningless, claiming Obama’s promise is vague and unsubstantial. Instead, they have made vague and unsubstantial attempts to paint him as a posturing neophyte, or worse, a danger to America.

           Now, with the election of the Senator from Illinois as President, America will finally know what change means.

            The most important change brought about by Obama’s victory is the end of the conservative Republican era. It dates back to Ronald’s Reagan’s ascension to power in 1980, an election that was also seen as groundbreaking. This Republican hegemony culminated in the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, one that brought about a tragically unnecessary war, the destruction of the middle class, and the deterioration of America’s standing in the world.

             Obama’s victory, as well as the increased Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, are a clear mandate that repudiates the Republican policies of reckless militarism and the redistribution of wealth from the majority of middle and lower-class Americans to a small, wealthy elite.

             Voters have expressed a desire to change foreign and domestic policies so that wars are not entered into cavalierly, government spending does not wind up in the pockets of political cronies. They also want the next administration to prioritize education, health, and environmental issues.

            Another change that Obama’s election brings is equally important. Despite the Senator’s own campaign’s minimizing of the importance of his race, the election of a black president is a change that this country has long needed.

             Since the Civil Rights movement of the ‘60s resulted in the elimination of overt discrimination against blacks, Americans have often disagreed over whether the problem of racial prejudice has been resolved. Much has been accomplished, and people of color have made great strides. But the continued impoverishment of the majority of black people, as well as an atmosphere of inflammatory racially tinged attacks on Obama demonstrate the persistence of racism in our country.

                Barack Obama’s election goes a long way to address this issue.

               He seems uniquely qualified to speak from the perspective of a black American, while at the same time he has a direct connection to the white majority. And while it may not happen during his lifetime, he can play the most important role in helping this country deal with the transition to a multicultural, multiracial society.

                 In a significant way, Obama’s unorthodox background as a biracial man from Hawaii is a refutation of the conventional wisdom that has dominated America’s historical narrative. When someone who is not “apparently” American becomes this country’s most powerful leader, the entire idea of America changes, and in a way, we begin a new American era with a clean slate.

                As Obama prepares to take office, many progressives will wonder whether the candidate who won in part due to massive corporate campaign contributions will stay true to his lofty idealism and be a true president for the people. But for this moment, we can afford to keep our hopes high that a real change has finally come.

              

No Bama Becomes Yes It's in the Can

"If he were white, this would be a blowout," says former Jesse Jackson presidential campaign adviser Harold Ickes in today's Times. The story rightly points out that race remains an ostensible elephant in the room, with neither McCain nor Obama bringing it up overtly. Still, many of McCain's recent smears of Obama have racial elements embedded in them. From the fear-mongering "Obama-is-both-a-black-and-Arab-with-ties-to-terrorism" drivel pushed by various websites and Fox News-legitimized extremists to the above-ground association-game tying Obama to Bill Ayres, the subprime mortgage crisis and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the more recent phony Acorn voter fraud charges, the American voter is being bombarded with a chronic "othering" of the Democratic presidential nominee. 

         But the strange thing is, the race is becoming a blowout. If so, then a variety of factors is helping to nullify the perception of Obama as black. The economic collapse, while ineluctably tarring McCain with a conservative Republican free market brush, is apparently the biggest reason for Obama's ascension. Obama appears to be the calmer, more intelligent mind in the face of crisis, with more articulately crafted solutions. While this may seem like a simple case of one candidate rising to the occasion and outclassing another, it may be an indication of the moment that Obama has passed into the realm of the "accepted" black man.

               In his Huffpost column, Eric Deggans interestingly cites a line of dialog from Spike Lee's classic film Do the Right Thing. When Lee's character asks John Torturro's Pino Frangione why he hates his Brooklyn neighborhood's black people while at the same time accept celebrities like Eddie Murphy and Magic Johnson, Pino responds:

"Magic, Eddie, Prince are not niggers...They're not really black. They're more than black. To me it's different."

                Could it be that Obama's explicitly stated colorblind strategy has worked? Or does all of this prove that race prejudice is intrinsically tied to class prejudice, and once you transcend class, race doesn't matter? Can Obama get a taxi to stop for him in Manhattan? 

           No matter what outrage you may have over his campaign workers combing states like Montana and highlighting the fact that he is half-white, the Senator from Illinois now seems, barring a national-security-level October surprise, a lock to become the first black President. Ever. Probably because he's "more than black." 

Or maybe, as Chocolate News insists, something else entirely.

Latino Auto-critique department:

I got an e-mail from NALIP today about WETA, the Washington-area PBS Channel, failing to air a documentary "Latinos '08" last week. While I'm willing to express my outrage that this station is turning its back on a program that offers a Latino perspective on national politics, of which there are precious few, I can't say I'm impressed by this particular one. Distorted to the point of absurdity with an overload of Republican-friendly talking heads, this doc reduces the "Latino" perspective to the Mexican-American one in a way that is almost insulting to the rest of us Latinos. Not to mention that the lavishing of praise on McCain (followed by faint cries of disappointment over his recent reversals) and barrage of attacks on Obama were right out of Karl Rove's playbook.

        From the beginning, the talking heads talk about "Latinos" when they should really be talking about "Mexican-Americans." A detailed history of the UFW and Chicano movement segued into the Reagan Hispanic era and beyond, and you would never know that Puerto Rico is a colony of the U.S. and that there was a Cuban Revolution, or that these Caribbean folks are represented by several elected officials (in the U.S. House of Representatives).  As the "favorable" New York Times review suggests: "Even after suggesting that Latino voters are a varied lot, some of these experts go right on referring to 'the Latino community' as if it were a monolithic entity." Any serious documentary on Latino politics must begin and end with an analysis that identifies three major constituencies: Mexican Americans in the West, Puerto Ricans in the Northeast, and Cubans in Florida, then touch on the mixed communities of Chicago and the Midwest and the new immigrant areas in the South.  

Now the Wall Street Crisis Is Our Fault

I'm not even going to go into the slime attack from the McCain/Palin team over the last few days. Palin in front of a beerhall putsch crowd screaming "terrorist!" "treason! and "kill him!" in reference to the Democratic presidential nominee. Nor will I spend any time on the infamous "that one" remark from last night's debate, which seemed like a "meds running low" moment from McCain. We should all be inured to this by now. If the Republican Party can't bring about a Permanent Republican government, they're going to brand everyone not on their side as Permanent Others. 

         But this "hate piece"  from Ann Coulter really breaks some new ground. It inspired the following op ed piece, which was somewhat edited by the Progressive Media Project and hopefully will appear in a newspaper near you in the next few days:

Bailout Blame Game Unfairly Targets Minorities

Leave it to conservatives to inject a racial component into the current economic crisis. Over the last week, leading conservative commentators like Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter, Lou Dobbs, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page have been trying to blame the crisis on minorities getting subprime mortgages.

The conservatives blame the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which was enacted to address a practiced called “redlining,” in which banks deliberately withheld credit from minority communities in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The act was intended “to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs…in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.”

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has written that the CRA has fostered granting loans based on “nontraditional measures of creditworthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named ‘Caylee.’”

While Coulter’s words can be dismissed as crudely racist, they echo a line of thought that asserts that since many of the subprime mortgages were given to minority borrowers, this “affirmative action” measure is at the root of the current crisis. But this attack on victims of predatory lending is as flawed as calling Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama a terrorist.

First, if the CRA was crafted over 30 years ago, why is it that only now subprime mortgages have created a crisis? Secondly, most of the disastrous subprime loans were made by mortgage brokers and disreputable lenders unregulated by the CRA. Third, according to data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, white and affluent borrowers took out 58 per cent of higher-cost loans, with blacks and Latinos accounting for 18 per cent each.

Just last week The New York Times reported that the Nehemiah housing program, which provides housing for minorities in that city’s outer boroughs has reported 10 defaults on 3900 households in the last 27 years. Hardly what you’d call an irresponsible group.

The true culprit in our current financial crisis is the policy of the Bush administration that rewrote rules for our lending and banking institutions that have enriched high-rolling financiers and bankrupted powerless average Americans. Current regulations allow institutions to charge higher fees to sell debt if loans fail, giving them an impetus to create the conditions for default in the first place.

These facts have implications for the recently signed bailout package, in which the government has agreed to purchase blocs of toxic subprime mortgages whose values are decreasing as a result of the crisis. The bailout also includes little aid to homeowners still trying to pay the predatory loans.

Now more than ever, it is clear that this country needs to reassess its domestic economic policy in a way that serves the majority of its hard-working citizens, rather than blame them for the excesses of a privileged few.