The Identity Politics of Identity Politics
Who gets to claim Latino heritage?
As I get back in gear as my cold wears off, I wanted to touch on a NYT report (“Hochul’s Lt. Governor Pick Says He Is Afro-Latino. Some Latinos Object.“) that I didn’t get to over the weekend.
Here’s the setup:
In New York’s Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, one goal had unified two outsider candidates, Diana Reyna and Ana Maria Archila: vying to be the first Latino elected to statewide office.
Achieving that objective has now gotten more complicated.
This month, Gov. Kathy Hochul named Representative Antonio Delgado as her new lieutenant governor and running mate, replacing Brian Benjamin, who resigned in April after being indicted on federal bribery charges.
In announcing the choice, Ms. Hochul heralded Mr. Delgado’s Afro-Latino ethnicity, and noted his membership in both the Black and Hispanic congressional caucuses.
Prominent Latino Democrats, who lobbied Ms. Hochul on the decision and have long pushed for greater representation in state government, were quick to celebrate an appointment that, once it becomes official, will make Mr. Delgado the first Latino to hold statewide office in New York.
But as the congratulatory statements began to circulate, so did questions about Mr. Delgado’s background, putting a spotlight on issues of ethnicity, self-identity and representation in advance of the June 28 primary.
Even though he is a Member of Congress, I had never heard of Antonio Delgado before he was tabbed to be New York’s lieutenant governor. But, judging from the photo, he appears Black. And his name is “Antonio Ramon Delgado.” By the standards used in the United States as long as I’ve been paying attention to such things, he would seem to check the necessary boxes to claim Afro-Latino heritage.
Apparently, things have gotten more complicated.
Asked about his Afro-Latino heritage at the news conference where he was introduced as Ms. Hochul’s choice for lieutenant governor, Mr. Delgado gave a winding answer. He said people had surmised that he was Afro-Latino because of his name, or perhaps because he briefly lived in Puerto Rico, where he played semipro basketball. He then seemed to suggest that his Latino heritage stemmed from his family’s ties to Cape Verde, a small island nation off the west coast of Africa that was once a Portuguese colony.
The answer mystified some of his supporters, and created an opening for his opponents to scrutinize his claims of being Latino.
Luis A. Miranda Jr., a founding partner of the MirRam Group, a political consulting firm, posted celebratory comments on Twitter about Mr. Delgado’s appointment when it was announced. But after hearing his remarks at the news conference, Mr. Miranda said he was “puzzled by his explanation on ethnicity.”
So, yeah, Cape Verde is African, not Latin American. But, then again, the people speak Portuguese. Which, while originally the language of European colonialists, has become so overwhelmingly associated with Brazil that Portugal has adopted the Brazilian offshoot as its official language. Does that change anything? Hell if I know. Further, while it doesn’t convey ethnic status, he did play professional basketball in Puerto Rico for a bit. Presumably, this deepened his affinity for the culture.
Mr. Delgado, in an interview with The New York Times, described the complexity of how he views his ethnicity. He said his mother grew up at a time when she felt safe identifying only as Black or white, but eventually embraced the Mexican, Colombian and Venezuelan ancestry of her father, whom she did not know.
“She became someone who identifies as a proud Black woman with Latino roots,” Mr. Delgado said in the interview. “And as I’ve tried to orient myself and my sense of identity through her, that is the entry point.”
Asked how he identified himself, Mr. Delgado said: “I am a Black American man with Cape Verdean roots and Latino roots. When it pertains to my Latino roots, that comes from my mom’s side, whose own story around her identity is multifaceted and complex.”
Presuming his maternal grandfather is of Mexican, Colombian, and Venezuelan origin, surely Delgado is within his rights to claim partial Latin origin?
Ms. Archila, who has been endorsed by Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to the House, and Ms. Reyna said they understood why Ms. Hochul would want a Latino running mate. Latinos are the second-largest ethnic group in the state and make up 19 percent of the population. But the two women questioned Mr. Delgado’s rationale for describing himself as Latino and cast Ms. Hochul’s decision as a political ploy.
“Gov. Hochul is being extremely opportunistic and simplistic,” said Ms. Archila, who immigrated to the United States from Colombia and whose running mate is Jumaane Williams, New York City’s public advocate. “I think he should say more than, I have an ancestor who once was born in Colombia.”
I mean, in fairness, there are only so many times one can be born in Colombia.
Ms. Reyna, whose running mate is Representative Thomas R. Suozzi, said at a recent campaign event that a “last name does not make you Latino.” The first statewide Latino official should be “authentic,” have “lived experience” and a record of helping Latino communities, she told Encuentro New York, a Latino advocacy group.
“She tells us that her lieutenant governor is a member of the Latino community,” Ms. Reyna, who is Dominican, said of the governor. “This is not about identity politics. This is about being truthful.”
I have no idea how Latin Delgado’s “lived experience” is. His father (Wikipedia tells me he went by “Tony Delgado” and does not list his son as a “Jr.”) had a Latin surname and passed it on to him. He tells us that his mother increasingly identified with her father’s Latin roots and passed that on to him; I have no reason to doubt him. Regardless, while it’s perfectly reasonable—and certainly politically expedient for his more deeply Latin opponent—to challenge just how Latin Delgado is, it’s absurd to call him a liar given that he clearly meets any technical definition of Afro-Latino one can conjure.
Ms. Hochul and her campaign have said little about the questions surrounding Mr. Delgado’s ethnicity. They referred to him as Afro-Latino in the third line of a news release announcing his appointment; an email sent out the next day about a fund-raiser did not mention his ethnicity.
“He identifies as Afro-Latino,” Jerrel Harvey, a spokesman for Ms. Hochul’s campaign, said.
So, he’s not even flogging it. Which makes sense to me: he’s extraordinarily accomplished regardless of his heritage. He’s a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate. Somewhere along the way, he played semi-pro ball. He’s in his second term in the House and knocked off an incumbent Republican to win the seat the first time.
Regardless, opponents and activists are doubling down:
The focus on Mr. Delgado’s ethnicity adds a new wrinkle to the primary for lieutenant governor, which was upended after the resignation of Mr. Benjamin, the presumptive favorite. For weeks, it appeared that he would remain on the primary ballot despite the criminal charges, but state lawmakers ultimately passed a bill allowing him to remove himself.
It was then that Ms. Hochul chose Mr. Delgado to succeed Mr. Benjamin.
Camille Rivera, a Democratic political strategist who identifies as Afro-Latina, said Ms. Hochul had missed an opportunity to energize an important voting bloc that could help decide the general election. Among the issues Latino leaders say they want state government to address are affordable housing, child care and inequalities in health care.
“You have no statewide Latino representation, right?” Ms. Rivera said. “Here was an opportunity to actually lift up Latinos in a real way.”
There has been little scrutiny of Mr. Delgado’s Latino heritage. Several news articles over the years have identified him incorrectly as Puerto Rican. Some articles from 2018, when he defeated John J. Faso, the Republican incumbent, to claim the House seat representing the Hudson Valley and Catskills regions, referred to him as Black.
Asked whether he had ever corrected the record about being Puerto Rican before the news conference where he was introduced as lieutenant governor, Mr. Delgado said in a statement that he was “raised as a blend of heritages,” including “Latino roots.”
“That’s the background I grew up with and how I identify,” he said in the statement. “My mom’s maiden name is Gomez and she grew up identifying as having Latina roots.”
Racism and colorism may also play a role in how Mr. Delgado’s description of being Afro-Latino is being received, said Representative Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, who identifies as Afro-Latino.
“I find it curious that those of us with Black skin often have our Latino identity questioned,” said Mr. Torres, who supports Mr. Delgado. “As an Afro-Latino, I have been told repeatedly that I do not look Latino, whatever that means, and therefore, I must be less authentically Latino than those with lighter skin.”
Zaire Z. Dinzey-Flores, an associate professor of Latino and Caribbean studies at Rutgers University, said she understood why some Latinos were upset about the appointment. Being Afro-Latino in the United States, she said, involves a complicated mix of race, language and culture.
“Experience informs what you see, how you perceive things, how you bring in issues that might go unseen or unrecognized,” Professor Dinzey-Flores said. Choosing someone from an Afro-Latino background so that constituency is represented in government, she added, should be about “authentically” capturing that experience and not “checking a box.”
Melissa Mark-Viverito, a former New York City Council speaker who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, concurred, saying that Mr. Delgado’s claim of Latino heritage “raises the question and the concern of people loosely taking on certain identities and not being completely honest.”
“That concerns me because as someone who fully embraces the importance of representation, we have two qualified Latinas running and a chance to make history,” Ms. Mark-Viverito said, referring to Ms. Reyna and Ms. Archila. “Yet it feels like we are being duped. It’s all very messy.”
To paraphrase Eddie Murphy, I come from a predominantly white family. I don’t have a dog in this fight and am not well-positioned to arbitrate in these disputes. But historically, we’ve accepted someone with a Latin surname as “Hispanic” or “Latino.” Maybe that’s a bad thing and we should let the community judge authenticity, in the way we do with Native tribal membership. But that strikes me as more divisive than useful. (We’re also seeing a lot more of this in the Black community, with some questioning whether, for example, those with Afro-Caribbean ancestry who didn’t live through slavery and Jim Crow are truly members of the community.)
Days after Ms. Hochul named him as Mr. Benjamin’s successor, Mr. Delgado gave a 15-minute speech at the Harlem headquarters of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Mr. Sharpton said he was surprised that Mr. Delgado did not address the confusion about his Afro-Latino identity.
“I think it’s something he can’t ignore,” Mr. Sharpton said in an interview after Mr. Delgado spoke that day.
Instead, Mr. Delgado reminisced about growing up in a Black Baptist church and drew hearty amens and nods of approval from the mostly Black crowd. He talked about why he pursued a career as a rapper after graduating from Harvard Law School, an issue opponents tried to use against him when he first ran for Congress.
“I know the power of the culture,” Mr. Delgado said. “I am the culture.”
I’m not sure what “I am the culture” means. Regardless, Delgado seems like a talented fellow with a range of interests and a complex family history. Latino voters in the Democratic primary who are interested in voting for a member of their community who share their lived experience are of course free to judge his authenticity. But I would sure hope that this would just be a small part of how they evaluate Delgado or any of the other candidates on the ballot.
This is the exact type of BS that I refer to when I say that the Democrats are idiotic when it comes to focusing on what matters. I’m in New York City right now.
There isn’t baby formula on any shelves.
There are random shootings happening that have the city on edge.
Crime is up, and many residents don’t feel safe.
And Dems are arguing about whether someone with the last name “Delgado” isn’t latino enough? Seriously?
Idiotic. Just idiotic.
From the quoted NYT article, compare and contrast:
And
Is it so much that Dems push this sort of thing, or is it that their Republican opponents and the supposedly liberal MSM take anthills and amplify them into mountains?
@gVOR08: Dang, no edit and I could swear I blockquoted, “Ms. Hochul and her campaign have said little … did not mention his ethnicity.”
ETA – after Scott commented I got edit.
This is kind of silly. I like Tiger Woods’ formulation when he called himself a mutt.
@Scott:
As are most of us.
The whole race/ethnicity thing is kind of silly. Democrats are guilty of playing identity politics. But liberals are more or less defined by wanting to defend equal rights for those who don’t have them. So isn’t the real problem that conservatives persist in committing identity based discrimination? We’ll stop if they will.
@EddieInCA:
It’s almost as if identity politics was stupid from the start. Of course it would be fought over. Of course we’d get into Jesuitical debates on the nature of identity. Of course we’d end up arguing over quadroons and octoroons like some Haitian planation owner in the 18th century. And of course it would end up being divisive and fucking pointless.
@EddieInCA:
You beat me to it.
Outside of the small group of activists, this debate means nothing, but it reinforces R messaging that Dems are all about equity and purity.
@EddieInCA: You know, I ‘m pretty much on your page.
I do think it’s possible that if one was a person of Hispanic origin you’d be kind of cheesed that the pick wasn’t Puerto Rican or Dominican or Mexican or something like that. You know, somebody like them. (I’m not sure, are there a lot of Mexicans in NY?)
@gVOR08:
The two correct responses to, ‘what race are you?’ is, a) human and b) WTF business is it of yours? We don’t stop the Republicans from playing the game by playing the game ourselves.
@Sleeping Dog:
This is a contradictory statement.
Y’all are overreacting to this nonstory as much as this “small group of activists” is overreacting to Delgado himself.
99.9999% of Americans are never even going to hear about this.
@Michael Reynolds: The correct response to what race I am is black or African-American.
As a target of white supremacy, I don’t have the luxury of playing stupid. I have to be crystal clear about what’s going on in America.
@DK: I think some time ago, I would have said what Michael said. Only because of people like you speaking up have I changed my vision for how I’d like things to develop. Thank you for enhancing my understanding.
I can best describe my vision by telling you about an interaction I had once. Having learned from another black American speaking up (in this case Ta-Nehisi Coates) I noticed that a receptionist at one of my doctor’s office – a young black woman – had done her hair in corn rows. It was quite striking.
So when I had a moment, I asked her, “how long did it take you to do that?” She was so brightened and delighted by the question and the ability to decribe the several hours she and a friend spent on the project that I knew I had received good advice.
This is not color-blindness. Color blindness as a policy would lead me to never mention it, never take notice of a difference that is quite real.
So the vision I have is of a world where we see differences and we cherish them, rather than fear them, mock them or ignore them.
@DK:
I don’t think wars are won by letting the enemy pick the battlefield, especially when the numbers are against you to start with. Either way you’re taking the position that Black people should not be discriminated against, but you’re either starting from the position that race is irrelevant, or agreeing with the enemy that it is very relevant, and in the process validating their notion of a distinct White identity.
Identity is a big deal in American politics. Almost every Republican leader identifies as or with the white/Christian/Protestant clade. Senator Cruz calls himself “Ted” rather than “Rafael.” Trump gets his picture taken with evangelical ministers despite spending Sundays on the golf course not in church. Yes, Democratic politicians play the same game. I think that Aaron Judge stating that he should be considered a black man is a positive because Judge is not using this for some personal advancement; he advances by his bat. Bernie Madoff used his ethnicity to draw in victims which shows us a warning about people heralding their identity; they might just be selling something.
I think we’d (we=the world) be better off if we paid less attention to this stuff. While ethnicity gives us warm feelings of belonging to a group, it divides us from the world as a whole.
A lot of identity politics is about localism and neighborhood. Due to segregation, the question Where Are You From is a good substitute from What Race Does America Think You Are. If you tell me you grew up on the Lower East Side, I’m going to guess you are Latino without knowing anything else. I’d also guess Puerto Rican. Whereas if you said Morningside Heights, I’d say Dominican. There are just place that are super-tight because of segregation, and you can’t pretend that doesn’t affect what it means to be Latino for someone who grew up in the public housing in the Lower East Side versus growing up in Schenectady.
And of course the people who get really upset about identity politics–suburban white Americans–are sitting on the good side of forces they’ve never had to acknowledge.
My grandmother was born in Hawaii. Does that make me part Hawaiian?
I lived in Japan for over 10 years and will still answer the phone (if woken out of a sound sleep) in Japanese. Where does that fit into my background?
“polyglot mutt” is the best description I have of myself….
@Michael Reynolds:
Holy false dichotomy, Batman!
How about the proposition that racial (and ethnic and religious and cultural and …) differences are part of what makes each of us individuals and diversity should be valued but all humans, of whatever blend, should be valued and treated with dignity and respect as a starting point?
I am Jewish. I don’t have to pretend that doesn’t matter to who I am to demand that I not be discriminated against for being Jewish.
@Jay L Gischer:
I would disagree. I can be “color-blind”* without being blind to differences in culture or such things as a striking hair style. Too many people focus on the skin color or race, instead of paying attention to differences (and similarities!) in culture, background, and experience. Are those things shaped by a person’s race? Absolutely. But it’s not an absolute where “race x == culture y”.
Mexicans who are born and raised in Wisconsin are not going to share the same culture with those who were born and raised in New Mexico.
So I would comment on the corn rows not because the woman is black, but because I’m appreciative of the time and effort that goes into such things, and am old-school enough to believe it’s polite to compliment someone on appearance in a positive way.
====
* I dislike the term color-blind, but I don’t know of a different term that explains my views. I don’t ignore a person’s race and I fully acknowledge that race shapes so many things in this world. But too many people use it as a short-hand for “they’re all the same”. It would be utterly inappropriate for me to treat my friend Emily–who’s from Zimbabwe, and has never been to the US–the same way I treat Vince who grew up in Madison and loves DC comics, or Madison who grew up in Texas with wealthy parents.
@Michael Reynolds:
White people get the luxury of believing that a White identity doesn’t exist. That “identity” is something that only happens to other people. They get to live out their lives believing that White, Christian, Straight are the default and not three reinforcing identities.
You know who one of the strongest identity groups in this country is? Mothers. Except White people don’t think of Mother as an identity.
Similar to (but markedly different from) what @DK: said, I generally don’t worry about being a victim of a general crime because its part of my White identity. But my Trans identity tells me I have to be extra vigilant to not be hate crimed. I also have a fun bit of work reconciling my former identity of a Masc presenting person and how I didn’t worry about about being sexually assaulted and I really should pay more attention to it now.
Your arguments about identity assume that we either have no identities or that Identities are things that only happen to other people. Instead the truth is closer to that we are a melange of identities that co-exist (or in some cases don’t) within us and are part of what makes us who we are. Many of these things change over time.
and this so much:
@Modulo Myself:
@Jay L Gischer:
Exactly this.
@EddieInCA:
You just noticed this tendency?
@DK:
Likely true until FTFNYT made a thing out of it. How many people read NTY? At a guess a few million. What percent of them will read this story? Maybe 20% at least the headline? Still not a big number, but significant. Way more than .00001%. And the GOPs will try to keep it alive.
My point is not that Ds shouldn’t be better at messaging, but that it’s really hard when they have nothing like FOX and the Rs do. And on top of that the Rs get so much help from the supposedly liberal MSM.
@Michael Reynolds:
No, that’s a false and reactionary choice. The answer is C: Race is relevant Because Reality, and also, racial discrimination is unethical and morally repugnant.
I don’t do reactionary politics, left- or right-wing. I start with facts, reality, and data then form opinions around those based on my personal values, priorities, ideology, ethics, experiences etc.
When we instead lead with ideology, we end up in a world of deception, Twitter-brained extremism, and no solutions. If the GQP started with facts instead of with its “own the libs” ideology, it wouldn’t be a cult of lying whackjobs staring into a post-Boomer electoral abyss.
So. It’s a mere fact that race is highly relevant in American life. Because we all carry different ideologies, experiences and values, our opinions may diverge on why that is, whether the primacy of race is good or bad (or indifferent) for America, and what the US might look like were racial identity flattened here as in Brazil.
But it’s not helpful to lie and deceive based on how racists react to truth. The data are what the data are, and haters gonna hate. Whether bigots feel validated is not a part of my calculus.
@gVOR08: The number of NYT readers whose voting preference is going to change from Democrat to Great Replacement Theory based on what two random activists said about Kathy Hochul’s running mate’s last name is 0.000000%.
But yes, there’s a lot of right wing garbage floating around the New York Slimes news desk and the corporate media.
@DK:
I think being ‘colorblind’ has become a thing for a class of people who believe that most of what racism suggests is true. It’s not surprising that of all what MLK said about race, it is one line that has resonated for white america after he was murdered. If black people are genetic inferior then the best case is to pretend that race doesn’t exist. Treating the truth as a taboo which nobody should talk about for the utilitarian good is the strategy here. And it accounts for why we have different levels of respectable racism. A good moderate can cite Andrew Sullivan, but not Steve Sailer.
And also it accounts for the increasing level of racial hysteria. If the truth is a taboo, then of course you will go around thinking that you are being repressed for not telling the truth, even if the repression is useful. It’s like going to the bathroom. Obviously, we do it. But we have closed doors; we don’t have advertise it, and there’s a certain squeamishness regarding it. But it must be done. The ‘colorblind’ person believes that, in the end, the word ‘n—-‘ is true and it has to be said in a certain way for society to function, but we need to have a closed off room for it leaving the rest of the world ‘colorblind’.
@gVOR08:
I’m going to play the contrarian here (quel suprise!) It is neither silly nor not silly, because it is just a part of human nature and there is no way around it. Setting this incident aside (because I strongly suspect it is all about opposition strategy with virtually no one genuinely giving a horse’s ass about it), the fact that different groups are “owed” positions has been an incredibly important part of politics since the beginning of consciousness. In the 80’s I read a book by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (“Loyalties”?) in which he very casually discussed the various appointed and elected positions in NYC and how they were divvied up by religion and ethnicity. One particular judgeship was Jewish and a particular deputy commissioner position was designated Puerto Rican, and on and on. He talked about the careful balancing this took, and then the meticulous rebalancing as the cities neighborhoods and ethnicities changed. And it was perfectly clear that any blunt tinkering with this system would result in a huge internecine battle, throwing everyone’s power base into chaos.
Bemoaning this characteristic of human nature is as useful as bemoaning people wasting money on fancy restaurants because plain oatmeal is more nutritious than duck a l’orange , or people being more concerned about their own children than someone else’s because all functions in society could be filled equally well by anyone’s children. In this case, human beings see themselves as part of groups, and they get angry if they feel their group is slighted. Short of mass lobotomy, no one is going to be able to change that.
The whole race/ethnicity thing is kind of silly.
Considering how central The Godfather (and everything else with the mafia and Italian-Americans) is to American pop culture, I would say it’s about as silly as the idea of the frontier.
@Modulo Myself:
Also, I think the main problem with Steven’s theory about primaries and the GOP is that he thinks the differences in the GOP is between factions rather than what can and can not be said.
If your party flows from David Duke -> Pat Buchanan -> Charles Murray-style-‘race science’-as-policy it is captive to the fact that the Charles Murray class wants to say what David Duke is saying, but can’t. The difference is in the virtue signaling of the person who wants to hear both sides of the IQ-argument vs the person who states we should redo segregation because black people need it.
@Michael Reynolds:
First, we’ve made huge progress on minority rights since, say, the 50s. We didn’t do it by pretending there wasn’t a problem.
Second, what you seem to want is for Dems to act like GOPs and worry only about winning. In your view that means not talking about minority rights. You need to consider the asymmetry of the game. GOPs play any dirty trick to win while keeping their real agenda, regressive taxation and indifference to the environment, secret. They can do that, and have to do that, because even the MSGAt base wouldn’t support that agenda if they understood it. Minority rights are a major D policy goal. But that is very popular with our voters. The majority of Ds are White, but we can’t win without minority voters. How are we to keep them on board if we pretend we don’t care about their interests?
This is not to say Ds don’t suck at messaging. Just to point out it’s harder for us than for Rs. They have captive media (OK, it’s more like they’re captives of FOX) and blood and soil nationalism is the easiest thing in the world to sell. In any case this thing about whether Antonio Delgado is really Hispanic is a tempest in a teapot. You want a messaging problem, this is a messaging problem. The Republican Party has abandoned democracy and we can’t get people to see it.
@Mu Yixiao: You know, I don’t want to get into a discussion of what “color blind” means. That doesn’t seem valuable to me.
What I am interested in is what you think of this:
I mean, I think you agree, but you are the authority on that subject.
When I started down this road, it was kinda scary. I mean, I was going to notice someone’s race, and that, at least in my head, risked them taking offense, and thinking me racist, or maybe just kind of a nutcase. I would spend a fair amount of time considering what to say and when to say it. I would turn my words over in my head rehearsing them and looking for potential problems with my phrasing.
I was really, really lucky to have had a group (The Golden Horde) I could observe and learn from. And they, in turn, inspired me to do this. It has worked out well. I enjoy doing something, saying something that makes people perk up a bit, particularly in situations where they are under no obligation to perk up.
@Beth:
This.
Everyone has an identity (indeed, multiple identities) and they are powerful. And the most powerful identity of them all is thinking that one is the default (with all that goes along with that).
@EddieInCA:
Seems like it isn’t Democrats arguing about that, but Latino Democrats arguing about that. In fact, racist Latinos who don’t want to share a broad identity with someone darker.
The rest of the Democrats don’t really care, which might really annoy the Latinos.
@EddieInCA: On the one hand, overall point taken. On the other, to what degree is this a major issue in the campaign versus some story in the NYT? (I don’t know for certain but am guessing it isn’t a dominant issue, but I could be mistaken).
@Modulo Myself: FWIW, my analysis of primaries is not just about Republicans.
Also: I am not sure how what you describe isn’t a manifestation of factions.
@Michael Reynolds:
When was the start? I’m pretty sure it’s been an issue in every multinational empire in human history. As soon as you get past the single extended family tribe, you’re dealing with these issues.
@gVOR08:
You want a messaging problem, this is a messaging problem. The Republican Party has abandoned democracy and we can’t get people to see it.
The bigger messaging problem is the daily life one. There was a random shooting on the NYC subway yesterday. The shooter had been pacing and back forth before pulling out a gun and shooting a man he had no connection with. If we’re to believe the NYPost, he had 19 prior arrests. He then managed to walk out of the Canal Street station without getting stopped and is currently at large.
What’s going to happen is what happens with everything. We have guns everywhere, cops everywhere, huge police budgets, a high incarceration rate, and overcrowded inhumane conditions in prisons, and yet somehow a guy with 19 arrests ends up on a train with a gun where he kills somebody and then walks out without being caught and it will be the fault of defund the police and progressives. The Democrats just seem unable to push back against this hysteria at every juncture now.
@Drew: I think it’s more you having not paid any attention until it came time to score a pseudo-point than him not having noticed until now. But I probably listen more and talk less than you do, too.
@Jay L Gischer:
We’re in agreement–even if we might express it differently. My feeling is basically “People are people”
Ironically, I think my absolutely white-bread up-bringing aided me in this. I’d never been exposed to racial animosity, so I never thought to treat people who didn’t look like me any differently than I’d treat anyone else.
In grade school, a family from Vietnam moved into our neighborhood. One daughter was in my class. And while I could obviously see that she looked “different”, my primary thought was “Wow! She has really pretty hair.” Aside from that, there was “Old Man Newton” and his wife–a black farmer who raised horses. I never thought about the fact that he was black, I thought of him as old (he had an amazingly wrinkly face that lit up when he smiled).
By the time I got out into the world and started meeting people that were very different from me, I’d been so ingrained with the “people are people” idea that I mostly ignored race–which, of course, meant there were more than a few occasions where I put my foot in my mouth. 🙂 But I learned (and still am!) how to look at people from the “what is their experience” viewpoint rather than “what is their race”.
I find that most people are welcoming in sharing their experiences and explaining the history behind them. Currently, I’m talking with a young black woman who is excited to teach me about soul food (never had it), and another woman in South Africa who’s going to send me some recipes from the Cape Town area. And I, in return, will teach them about cheese curds and pasties. 😀
Rock On!
@Modulo Myself:
I was on that same train an hour before the shooting. I can’t stress enough how frazzled NYC is regarding these shootings. My cousins – lifelong residents of Manhattan – won’t go into the subways. Each of them has purchased a scooter and are using that to tool around the city. This trip I minimized my time in the subways and took more buses. Between the shootings and the people pushed off platforms for no reasons, it’s definitely not normal.
On the E Train this morning, I was aggressively confronted by a homeless person. Very aggressive. I kept my cool and my distance but he was crazy and angry that I would not give him money. Had he been armed, I’d have had no chance.
The guy who got shot yesterday had NO connection to the shooter. He hadn’t engaged him in any way. He minding his own business and got shot in the chest. And, as you said, the shooter just walked out.
Im old enough to remember Bernie Goetz. NYC today feels like 1984 again.
@Mu Yixiao:
This is lovely.
@EddieInCA:
The description of that guy angrily pacing back and forth struck a nerve. I’ve lived in NYC for a long time and it’s not the crime that seems to be increasing (though it is) but the aggression and erratic behavior. I’ve not seen anything like it. It’s new and alarming because it’s so unpredictable. I can figure out lots of behavior, but not whether or not a man who is marching back and forth talking to himself is going to pull out a gun and start firing.
That said, it’s not like the 80s. They are not open-air drug markets, for one thing. The gangs do not fight to control the drug trade. You don’t have to carry a 20 in your pocket so if someone mugs you have something give them that isn’t in your wallet. I feel like our criminal justice system is so stuck in the past that they’re incapable of dealing with whatever is happening now.
@Mu Yixiao: You know, even if everyone in your community is white, there are still going to be differences. And some will cherish those differences, and others will be hostile toward them. That’s a thing that’s passed down in families, either way. Good for you.
@Modulo Myself:
From where you explain today’s NY subway shooter will be seen as Democrat’s fault. Probably true. You were replying to me at @gVOR08: . I linked to a post by Tom Sullivan at Digby about the futility of six, count ’em six, public hearings as the D response to 1/6. (What is that, abouut .01 Benghazis?) He references a CBS poll in which “The Democratic Party is more apt to be described as “weak”, a label applied to a majority of Americans, than it is as “strong”.” I’m going to pitch into the OTB is it structural or is it messaging? debate. I’m going to fearlessly take the side of YES, and NO.
Short term the D problem is they have to fight uphill against the privileging of small states, gerrymandering, and locked in extreme partisanship. And no amount of ignoring BLM or CRT or bragging about Obamacare is going to make any real difference.
Long term, why are we even in this position? GOPs have nothing to offer 99+% of the country except pandering to the basest prejudices of their base. They’re gone crazy, visibly head trauma, nuts. They used to have a big money advantage, but they seem to have driven away enough donors that they don’t anymore. How can we be losing to these Bozos? Messaging. Long term messaging.
It’s a commonplace that people vote on a perceived tribal affiliation. Republicans, and their fellow-traveler media, have spent the last few decades creating a very successful tribal identity. A lot of it revolves around white identity and religion, but I think the way Republican voters see themselves is “Real Americans”. Democrats have done nothing similar. I’ve been a Democrat for 50+ years and I don’t know what we’re supposed to be. We used to be the party of labor, of the common man. Paul Begala described it as, “Somehow, in my lifetime, the Democrats have gone from being the party of the factory floor to the party of the faculty lounge.” And labor didn’t just bring votes, they brought money and boots on the ground. By default, Dems have allowed the GOPs to define us as the party of minorities, LGBT, the poor, elite pinheads, and other weirdos and losers. Not to mention socialists, maybe pedophiles, and the real racists.
It’s really hard to change anyone’s partisan identification. But long term a few voters can be changed, and Ds need to make sure they keep a large majority of the new voters coming in the fold. Dems need to craft a tribal identity to rival the GOPs’. What identity? GOPs have a good one. It’s not copyrightable. Let’s steal it. Let’s be the “Real Americans”. After all, we are. We represent the majority. We represent what America really looks like. Blue counties produce the bulk of GDP. We are America.
It would take decades for Ds to recreate an identity, it took the GOPs decades. But it sure worked for them. We have enough money. We have essentially all the intellectuals and creatives. Unfortunately what we don’t have is captive media like FOX or anything like the Kochtopus to provide long term planning, coordination, and funding.
@gVOR08:
Republicans are despised by youth voters, elite pinhead, and minorities, and thus since 2018 have lost control of the White House, House, and Senate with Arizona and Georgia flipping from solid red to voting for Democratic senators and a Democratic president.
Democrats might wield power more effectively, deliver more on behalf of its “weirdos and losers,” and begin fixing their messaging problem by actually acting and talking like winners when they win.
Attend a Columbus Day parade and can claim Italian too !
Or a Chinese New Years Celebration etc !
“Which, while originally the language of European colonialists, has become so overwhelmingly associated with Brazil that Portugal has adopted the Brazilian offshoot as its official language. ”
This is a myth (and, yes, is largely irrelevant to the rest of the article) – what was approved is that, in words who are pronounced in the same way in the two coutries (or, more exactly, in the eight) but written in a different way, they will be written in a phonetic way (with some exceptions); yes, in practice this mean that in most cases the Brazilian orthography is now the official, but not for being the Brazilian