Shades of race

J. Keirn-Swanson writes in:

From personal experience, I'd have to take issue with at least part of the following statement posted on your site this morning:

"I gather there is plenty of Hispanic homophobia and hatred of blacks for them to find common cause with the GOP base."

The perception of a monolithic bloc of Hispanic homophobia is not as nuanced as your comments on race usually are. While I've found that Cuban-Americans tend to be more likely to act/react in this fashion, younger generation Mexican-Americans are more likely to respond to someone's sexual orientation with a shrug. This, like other issues, remains more problematic for older communities than younger ones and the dominant voices in the Cuban community still remain the '60s generation who wheeze on about Castro being the devil. The machismo attitude is probably more dominant in the Cuban community than in others, the Mexican being more laissez faire, with Puerto Ricans somewhere in the middle (while not counting all the other Hispanic communities (South Americans, other Caribbean nations) who display a range of reactions along this continuum (Brazilians seem to be faily open minded but not as significant a voting bloc as the above Big Three).

As for hatred of blacks, this possibly goes too far (white southerners are more prone in that extreme). Puerto Rican/Black intermarriage is far more prevalent than in any other racial-ethnic match-up. Brazilian intermingling of the races is near legendary. The GOP strategy of pulling Hispanics off of the Democrats with these tactics is not a sure winner (and is very likely to backfire). Apart from some photo-op Hispanic appointments (Gonzales, attempts at Estrada), the GOP outreach has done poorly.

Excellent points. I don't think Richard Einhorn (who actually made the remarks you cite) was suggesting any kind of monolithic view of the Hispanic community, but simply commenting on the existence of a faction within the community prone to anti-black or anti-gay sentiments. To what extent the GOP is hoping to appeal to such voters is hard to assess, but I wouldn't put anything past Karl Rove and Co. I certainly agree with your analysis of its chances of success.

For what it's worth, I've observed similar behavior among Asians, particularly those who grew up in Asia, where attitudes about blacks remain utterly appalling. Second- and third-generation Asian-Americans are likewise much more prone to holding a multicultural worldview.

In any event, I've seen no indication that the GOP is hoping to court those voters -- possibly because there isn't a widespread perception that Asians are the victims of prejudice (though as I've remarked previously, this is in many ways a false perception). Remember: The whole GOP "inclusiveness thing" is purely a cosmetic ploy designed to attract votes not from the minority community but from the fence-sitting soccer moms in the suburbs. Touting their Asian "inclusiveness" probably isn't as cost-effective, as it were.