Although I'm not really into politics, I try to keep abreast of the news (shoot, I should go get an absentee ballot). I just read an interesting AP article on the importance of the minority vote in the Democratic race for president:
Voters in both groups are energized: Blacks by the early successes of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Latinos by the intense, sometimes xenophobic debate over immigration. But it's far from clear how those influences will play off each other.It's pretty interesting to see how the Latino and black vote may determine which Democratic candidate goes further. But then, what about the Asian vote? Guess we're since we're the smallest minority group, (Latinos at 15%, blacks at 13.4%, and Asians/mixed at 5%) we still have to wait to have influence.
When South Carolina Democrats hold their primary on Jan. 26 -- the state GOP contest is Jan. 19 -- the choices of substantial numbers of black voters will be tallied for the first time in this election.
80/20, a nonpartisan group political action committee working to ensure equal opportunity for Asian Americans, was against Obama because of his lack of support for 80/20's questionnaire (on how he would support Asian American equality). I saw this posted on a blog called hsuperpolitical while browsing around (see the entery 1.4.08):
80-20, the group headed up by former Delaware Lt. Gov. S.B. Woo, has come out actively against Sen. Barack Obama, calling for all concerned with the status of Asian Americans to vote for Senators Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards or Gravel in the Democratic Primaries.
Which brings to mind the question: who would you rather vote for, as a minority? How much do you consider race, and how much do you consider the party values and track record of the candidate? Then again, you can never know what candidate will really do until they are in office.
It's also interesting to read that, duh, "the conventional wisdom has been that as the nation's population moves toward a minority majority, its political complexion will become more Democratic. Or, as Grofman puts it, the 'browning of America will result in the bluing.' "
I generally agree with this, but there are caveats. It may be balanced by the religious or more affluent minorities who will vote Republican; for example, the article mentioned many Latinos identifying themselves as white and thus helped George W. Bush win with their Republican votes. And, as the article showed, minorities still lag behind whites in registering to vote. I think now because the country isn't doing well, and because of all these immigration debates, minorities will use their vote this year.
1 comment:
I, for one, though I am Asian American, am not primarily an identity politics type of voter. I won't vote for somebody just because (s)he's Asian, or Christian, or whatever. I try to put the issues first.
However, I do have to admit that in this race, identity politics is playing a bigger factor for me than otherwise. For instance, I am more inclined to vote for Obama and/or for Clinton solely because of the symbolic and historic significance of having a black or a woman president, aside from their specific stances on issues. Of course, I also tend to agree with those candidates on many, though not all, issues. Of course, there are other reasons for liking those candidates, too. Obama is a great speaker, hearing him speak evoked flashes of JFK greatness. And I like the idea of him being outside the Washington system and wanting to clean up the govt from corporate special interests. Clinton, being part of the system, does not have that advantage. She, however, does have a lot more experience, and in the debate on 1/5, her responses had a lot more substance to them compared to Obama and Edwards' rhetoric. So I'm kind of torn between them right now. In any case, certainly if it were an Asian Republican candidate, I wouldn't vote for them purely because they are Asian.
Besides, while I agree that we as a minority have had our share of discrimination, concentration camps and glass ceilings, as a race we've had it much better of than Latinos or African Americans. It's like that comic (there was that Asian comic strip) where the Asian guy was comparing our historic injustices compared to the others. It's not quite on the same level. Yeah, we've been wronged, but since the '60s, we've had it pretty good, so I wouldn't really complain too much. Given how small our numbers are in comparison with the other minorities, I feel like we're better off forming a coalition with the other minority groups to fight for minority rights than being all militant about being Asian and feeling like whitey owes us something like they do to blacks. One thing where I do feel like we should work on separately, however, is our portrayal in the media. All those American made kung-fu movies where non-Asians (and worse, black people!) make the Bruce Lee noise every time they do a martial arts move is, quite frankly, pretty offensive. Partly because of our less oppressed status, the media and Hollywood gets away with way worse racial stereotyping than they ever could with blacks. There's definitely a double standard when it comes to who you can get away with not being PC to.
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