The Future is Now: California's Multiracial Challenge to America
Sixty years ago, Carey McWilliams, the well-traveled writer/activist and soon to be editor of The Nation, described California as "our nation's racial frontier." As the West Coast's multiracial makeup posed new problems and challenges, it also offered America "one more chance, perhaps a last chance, to establish the principle of racial equality." In this regard, it blessed California's residents and observers with "a ringside seat in the great theatre of the future."
In stunning fashion, the California Democratic primary signaled that the future has arrived with dramatic implications for the entire nation. There has never been an important election like this where a candidate failed to win African Americans and whites but won overall-as Clinton did in California. Once again, California flipped the script. Latinos and Asians carried Hillary to victory in California on their backs and quite likely salvaged her entire campaign. The national media has now come around to the idea of Latinos as a "sleeping giant," and the Clinton strategists deserve credit for their attentiveness to the Latino vote. While I am not holding my breath waiting for the media to overcome decades of ignorance of and marginalization of Asian Americans, the Clinton campaign has undoubtedly benefited from the significant involvement of Asian American donors, staffers, and volunteers.
This is a turning point in U.S. political history: no serious candidate for the presidency from here on out can ignore the mandate to build a multiracial coalition. Obama built an impressive biracial coalition in California, winning overwhelmingly among African Americans and splitting the white vote equally. As a result, California may help forestall the media's misguided obsession with Obama's failure to overcome the black/white racial divide. Obama may have lost, but it was not because of the "Bradley effect." Still, his defeat exposed the inadequacy of biracial thinking in the face of a multiracial reality.
Unfortunately, the pundits have already seized upon an equally divisive and reductionist theme. Interethnic relations are no longer a sideshow, but our understanding of them is severely limited. Everyone following the campaign has now read Clinton pollster Sergio Bendixen's remark, "The Hispanic voter--and I want to say this very carefully--has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates." Also surfacing less noticeably in places like online forums was the assertion that racial prejudice inhibits Asian Americans from voting for Blacks.
While prejudice and narrow-mindedness circulates in various forms within sectors of the Latino and Asian populations, crude thinking can blind us to the less sensational but more significant reasons why Clinton prevailed. She had built up a huge lead and enjoyed immense name recognition, which translated into a huge lead in absentee voting. In many places, Obama has overcome these obstacles with an excellent ground game that has attracted and energized new voters. Local observers, however, have remarked that his campaign lacked either the time or proper strategy to develop effective grassroots outreach to Latinos and Asians in California.
More than being pushed away from Obama, Asian and Latino voters were pulled to Clinton. It was during Bill Clinton's terms in office that Democrats solidified Latino and Asian "bloc votes" by paying some attention to their concerns, giving ethnic leaders a modicum of access to the party machinery, and distributing some symbolic spoils of victory. Jeff Chang helps us to understand the appeal of such "interest group" recognition to "emergent" minority groups. Hillary's campaign has elevated this recognition, such that the Asian and Latino "blocs" are now crucial to her traditional political strategy -- one that seeks to build a coalition by appealing to the self-interests of multiple constituencies, including gays and lesbians, seniors, environmentalists, and of course women as "the largest interest group." No doubt if she wins the nomination, she will hold out the promise of patronage and appointments to attempt to bring blacks as an "interest group" back into the fold.
But if Clinton's multicultural strategy is unprecedented, Obama's effort to transcend "minority" politics is historic. Casting Obama as a "colorblind" politician, the pundits and his left skeptics have largely missed the significance of what he represents. Getting "beyond race" today is not about ignoring the problem of racism or moderating ones politics to appease whites. Instead, it means thinking about America as a multiracial nation that dispels old notions of both white normativity and majority/minority identities. Culturally and demographically, millions of Americans -- especially youth -- already live in a world where that notion of white majority has been displaced by a multiethnic reality. Obama is helping us to envision what a new majority will look like politically.
For this reason, the Obama campaign is the only one with movement building potential and why we all have a stake in its efforts to build a multiracial coalition on new ground. Following the dictates of pollsters and consultants, traditional Democrats carve us all up into "interest groups," so they can push the hot buttons that reinforce our sense of victimization and vilify the other side. Obama has learned -- both from his study of what historian Charles Payne has called the black freedom struggle's "organizing tradition" and from his experience organizing against the depths of despair in Chicago's deindustrialized South Side -- that such an approach is not only ineffective but also spiritually bankrupt. If you are just a "minority leader," then you're not really a leader at all. If you are only fighting for your "fair share" of the riches controlled by those in power, you'll never address the root causes of oppression. Above all is the sense that none of us can be free in America or face the global crises of our lifetime until we change the whole country. That is why Obama has the "audacity" to think he is the best person to lead the entire nation.
It is clear from the California result that we will now be witness to a paradigm shifting clash between two consciously multiracial organizing strategies. Clinton's appeal is to give all minorities a seat at the table and a share of the pie. Obama challenges us to see ourselves instead as a collective majority. The fact that black voters have switched nearly wholesale from Clinton to Obama is far more noteworthy than the pundits acknowledge, signaling trouble not only for Hillary but for all black politicians who have pledged allegiance to the Democratic machine. Now we will see the degree to which Latinos and Asians will forego the certainties Clinton promises to embrace the challenge and hope Obama offers.
There is no reason to predict what will happen with the rest of the campaign. The choice is clear. This is a moment when critical ideas and actions will prove decisive not only to the future of the Democratic Party but also the fate of the whole nation.
Scott Kurashige is an associate professor at the University of Michigan and author of The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles (Princeton University Press, 2008).
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The Latino and Asian communities have not had time to get to know Obama. He had a monumental task ahead of him in introducing himself to all the various communities that make up this country, and he's done an amazing job so far, but the job is not finished.
Obama's competing against a long and effective legacy of pandering to minorities by the Clintons. As these communities grow out of the perception of themselves as victims they become less easily taken in by the red meat tossed at them by the Clintons.
Obama's more evolved vision is not only refreshing, it holds promise for an America that can lead the world in the 21st century.
"Getting "beyond race" today is not about ignoring the problem of racism or moderating ones politics to appease whites. Instead, it means thinking about America as a multiracial nation that dispels old notions of both white normativity and majority/minority identities. Culturally and demographically, millions of Americans -- especially youth -- already live in a world where that notion of white majority has been displaced by a multiethnic reality. Obama is helping us to envision what a new majority will look like politicall
Wonderfully stated. You say so succinctly what I've tried to convey clumsily on numerous occasions. Your whole blog is insightful and worthy.
Thanks for writing.
"Instead, it means thinking about America as a multiracial nation that dispels old notions of both white normativity and majority/minority identities
I'm at a loss for what the author means by "normativi
Sergio Bendixen's remark implying that Latinos don't have much afinity to Blacks is ludicrous and downright offensive to many latinos and blacks.
Latinos and blacks were denied the same rights back in the sixties.
Latinos are not monolithic as Texas will soon attest. The latino in California does not get along too well symbolically with the latino in Texas.
Obama has started to make inroads into this key demographic. The clinton machine is well prepared and organized, but it doesn't have the ability to stop perception about his momentum going into Ohio and Texas. I will believe he will do extraordinarily well there.
He has won the small key states, and is re-writing the definition of "bottom up politics".
Where Hillary has created major stabs, Obama is creating a thousand cuts.
Overall, the staying power and his message of inclusion will start to hit blue collar workers. Especially single mom women, whom he can relate to.
Obama is substantive, and offers the country hope in an economic depression.
Wholesale black votes to Obama means blacks are more interested in their ownkind, which is RACE, than substance or the nature of political portfolio each candiadates bring to the table.
All those years of dedication to the black courses by the Clintons finally did not reach to frutation.
Shame, shame, shame to racial voting anywhere.
Thank you Puddycat for a voice of reason.
When a black voters are turning out for Obama at 85%, then there is a problem. The problem is that they are voting based on race and race alone.
This simple fact negates the entire article written above.
Futher, unlike many of the fancy yuppie types or college professors of the left who like to talke about racial differences in generial and nieve ways... pretending to understand what is really going on with certain groups of people, I have firsthand experience with several ethnic groups.
Growing up in NY, I have close, CLOSE friends of several backgrounds (I don't just teach them in a classroom, or have them come to my house to clean it... and then claim that I know them). These are real relationships. And I can tell you this much with honesty, there is real tension between hispanics, blacks, jews, asains and eastern europeans.
This is reality. I know the Obama people like to ignore reality, but some of us cant. Hillary's practical approach is the only one that deals with reality and therefore the only one with a chance to work.
If this professor and author would like to believe that Obama will have some magic power over these people, I'd like to invite him to spend a day with me and get an idea of what is really going on in the world.
"the Obama people like to ignore reality": There's yer problem right there!!
You cannot take a group as large and as diverse as the people who support Obama and characterize them in that way. Ignoring subtleties and distinctions is not the way to improve tensions between ethnicities (btw, we are one race - human!) As poster jsarets said, below, Obama is not about what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country (kudos, J). And we are doing that by particpating, vocally! Chide us Obama supporters all you will, but I, and I think many others, am energized by both the positive tone of Obama's campaign and his ability to bring new people into the process. After all, the more people that participate, the more democratic we truly are.
oh yeah !; We all got into a room and decided right after the Iowa caucus that we could no longer vote for another white person or any non-black person for any office at any future time ever. You see, we'll sez a black face on the TV and lose all objectivity and are too stupid to know about political portfolios and such.. We can't wait until we get a chance to vote for Condi Rice or Clarence Thomas or even Ofari Hutchinson; Doo Dah Doo Dah
end-of-sarcasm
I think your point about 'All the Clinton have done for black causes' said it all. We know the difference between a candidate that panders to us via associations to black ministers, black politicians, and sports figures vs. a candidate that will basically make us take a new look at ourselves and improve within. We don't need new masters even if they have been 'Nice' ones.
Bill did play sax on Arsenio, didn't he. We belong to the Clintons forever.
I believe Asians and Latinos will eventually figure this out sooner or later.
Bottom line Bill Clinton killed the deal when he introduced identity politics into this campaign and obvious distortions against Obama after Iowa; and that really really pissed us off.
Obama political portfolio is larger than Hillary's. Constitutional Scholar and 12 years Legislative experience and inner city community organizer vs 12 Arkansas 1st lady ; 8 years 1st lady 7 year legislative experience; corporate lawyer; 1 year Childrens Defense Fund.
Like all Hillary Haters,Lefty, you dismiss HRC's 8 years as First Lady. Hillary traveledthe world, improving the lives of thousands upon thousands of women and children. Shame on you.
I've been thinking about this all weekend and I'm finally going to express these thoughts here.
Like many women, I have had to watch and train less experienced black males on the job due to Affirmative Action efforts by my employer. It's hard to watch other well-qualified women being passed over by someone who really isn't equipped to the the job. The results have been less than ideal.
If you have watched any of the 17 Democratic debates, it's clear that Hillary won all of them. Obama didn't seem to be a factor in the first 16 or so debates. That's a pretty steep learning curve for someone running for President of the United States. Hillary won the debates because of her experience, her grasp of the issues, and her deep knowledge of foreign and domestic policies. Her ideas and her vision, and her ability to get things done is what our country needs right now.
The last president promised to be a "uniter" and look what we got. The last president promisd to change the way things were done in Washington and look what we got. Obama gives a better speech than Bush, I'll grant you that. But I'm still concerned about the lack of real experience in Washington. We don't need an Affirmative Action president.
I believe one of the reason Republicans hate Hillary so much is because she knows how Washington works. She'll be able to get things passed in Congress. She will be able to clean up Bush's mess.
I like Obama but feel he's not quite ready for the job.
Oops I forgot to say great article Scott! You bring up many interesting questions. I also want to say that Barack Obama is my candidate.
I don't feel the news media should be digesting possible results and then feeding it to us as fact. I wish they would just show us the raw numbers and let us comprehend it for ourselves, without their over-simpl
Watch Rev. Samuel Rodriguez on Bill Moyers:
http://www
His point is very similar: On the one hand, the majority support of the Latino (and Asian) community for Clinton has been huge for her. On the other hand, many Latino community leaders would have expected their constituents to have a greater affinity for Obama's message of multiculturalism.
I think this disconnect is due to an extra layer of abstraction in Obama's message. Both Clinton and Obama (and Huckabee) feature a strong social justice agenda, which resonates with communities such as the Latinos who perceive the American experience through the lens of their distinct cultural identity.
Clinton's message is straightforward: she will work to right the wrongs and plug the gaps that prey upon these interest groups. Obama's message goes beyond the interest groups to speak to the systematic failures of a political system that disenfranchises a much broader cross-section of America.
This contrast lives at the core of the classic JFK rhetoric. Clinton's pitch is about what our country can do for us, whereas Obama's is about what we can do for our country. It's less about entitlement and more about empowerment. It's less about hand-outs and more about opportunities. It's less about safety nets and more about upward mobility.
It's the same pragmatic progressive platform, but the packaging has been inverted, shifting from preventing negatives to encouraging positives. It's a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Ideological conservatives don't get that same "nanny state" vibe from Obama as they normally associate with Democrats. He doesn't seem to threaten freedom of choice, a Democratic tendency that often alienates moderate independents.
(continued
(...contin
Say what you will about Obama's experience and institutional connections, but he's run exactly the kind of campaign that progressives need to gain mindshare among Americans and challenge the balance of power within the Democratic Party. Experienced or not, he's demonstrated shrewd and effective judgment in his campaign strategy. His campaign sends the message that the conventional wisdom is not the unassailable monolith it's made out to be. It can be defied by an empowered and engaged citizenry.
And that, I believe, is a message that should be ringing true in the Latino community, which has come into the fold of American politics only in the last couple decades. Get involved, and your voice will be heard. If we had 90% voter turnout in America, we'd be much further to the left and much closer to the social and economic justice that ought to be a benchmark of a post-industrial nation. Obama puts us on a path toward greater participation in politics.
I enjoyed reading your comment, which is not a common experience here these days.
Hmmm, if I were a poor or working class member of a minority other than African American, which would I choose, the certainty of being given "a seat at the table and a share of the pie" or the "challenge and hope" of being part of "a collective majority" i.e. an American? Note that unlike the former, the latter doesn't indicate any material benefit. Prof. Kurashige has I think drawn the wrong conclusion from the switch of black voters from Hillary to Barack: it does not signal trouble for the Hillary and the Democratic machine so much as it indicates that Obama is a beneficiary of the politics of identity as much as if not more than Clinton, the difference being that unlike her he claims to transcend it.
I grew up in multiracial southern California. While I was the daughter of middle class, white, protestant folks, my friends were Catholics and Buddhists, they were Japanese, Italian, and Latinos who were both recent arrivals and first settlement families. Our parents never raised the issue of bias and it didn't exist for us. Looking back on my childhood I realize what a gift I was given.
Now that I live in rural Kansas, I see what it's like to be raised in a society that does draw clear lines on race and other criteria, starting at an early age. I see kids missing out on the wider sense of the world that having friends from other cultures gives us. I see intolerance preached and practiced. I'd like to see it change.
I don't see how limiting people to "interest groups" is going to do that. I get asked all the time by the young people that I count as friends: "Is Obama really black? His mom is white!" and I don't have an answer. We can put him in a box because it's convinient, but we lose something ineffable in the simplification.
I have a deep and very frightened hope living in my breast these days. Some part of me sees the opportunities that President Obama would have to rebuild bridges both within our nation and with the world at large. I see someone who could model the unquestioning acceptance I was privileged to experience as a child. The possibility exists, but everytime I hear of new road blocks being thrown up I grow more frightened. I hope we don't throw away this gift.
Thank you for the wonderful article.
I think it is too early to tell if the results in California were the start of a trend or just an anomaly. There is another trend in the exit polls that you didn't mention. Working class voters (lower income, less education) were voting for Clinton at about the same rate as Latinos. I've been wondering if it was for the same reason.
The 20% contrast between the results in Maine and the results in New Hampshire one month earlier are striking since the are from the same region and have roughly the same demographics. One explanation for this shift is the phrase being heard more and more that the longer Obama campaigns, the better he does.
It is possible, perhaps likely that it is taking Obama longer to reach working class voters, Latinos, and Asians. Especially in regions such as California where the Democratic machine is strong. I haven't seen exit polls from Maine but clearly Obama must have made inroads in at least one demographic that he did poorly with in New Hampshire.
It could well be that as his campaign progresses, Obama will be able to make better inroads in appealing to the working class and to non-afro-American minorities. If so, then the strange results in California would have been due to differing time lags for Obama to get his message across to different groups thus making California an anomaly instead of a trend.
I don't know which model is more accurate but I will sure be watching the exit polls from the upcoming states.
Great article! Very insightful, and informative
Let me amend the blurb for this report on the Politics home page. It should read as follows:
"The fact that black voters have switched nearly wholesale from Clinton to Obama signals trouble not only for Hillary but for" the future of American democracy.
Why are Black voters a threat to the future of American democracy? Please explain.
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