Ever
since the election results of 2012 revealed a gaping disconnect between the
Republican party and people of non-caucasian ethnicity, we have heard a great
deal of discussion about GOP soul-searching and trying to figure out what went
wrong. Republicans seem to be absolutely baffled at the poor performance among,
essentially, all demographics except for white men and old white people. The
answers that continue to elude them seem glaringly obvious to someone like me,
a 2nd generation Mexican-American women, who is a product of LBJ’s
Great Society. While the views expressed here are my own, I know my perspective
on this issue is shared by many of us who, until recent decades, were on the
outside looking in for so long. So, as CPAC convenes this week-end, here are my
reflections on their current state.
Before
I go any further, I want to establish that I do not hate Republicans or
conservatives. I do not hate white people. I am married to a white man whose
only vote ever cast was for Ronald Reagan. The father of my only child has a
strawberry-blonde complexion, and our son was born with a fuzzy red head. I
know that this won’t stop the accusations of racism or liberal bias from my
conservative friends and readers, but I offer these facts in an effort to
demonstrate an open-mindedness that I find very liberating. For while I may be
unable to understand a particular viewpoint, I acknowledge that it makes sense
to somebody for whatever reasons that are beyond my grasp. People just do what
makes sense to them.
Moreover,
this social blindness is not unique to the Republican party. Many groups that
have been traditionally dominated by the white male establishment, country-club
crowd, are experiencing a similar lack of diversity; and, consequently, a
decline in membership and membership dues. Such was my experience as a Rotarian
for several years. What I found most puzzling was how such educated,
intelligent and community minded, good and decent people possessed little or no
understanding of basic demographics, and how best to use them in order to
maximize the group’s potential. Hence its membership rolls would continue to
drop, as there were not enough younger, darker and more female faces to replace
those who were, literally, dying off.
What
I find even more puzzling is how tone-deaf conservative Caucasians are when it
comes to humor; or even non-conservative ones, as Oscar host Seth MacFarlane’s
tasteless jokes reveal. Even Newt Gringrich commented after the election that
there seemed to be something that he and his fellow Republicans were not
seeing. So what we can all agree on is that there seems to be something very
much amiss in GOP efforts to reach out to ethnic-American voters.
As
an avid history buff and occasional activist, I think a lot of it has to do
with the fact that Caucasians don’t know the American history of the
Indigenous, most of whose ancestry predates European presence on this
continent. I remember being taught in school about Kitt Carson and John C. Fremont,
and how many Indians they killed; but not until I was much older, and largely as
a result of my own curiosity rather than any curricular requirements, did I
learn about how these frontiersmen are viewed from the perspective of the
Native American.
We
learned about slavery and lived through the Civil Rights Movement, and were
told that we are all equal now. And yet, my dark-skinned brother was advised to
enlist in the army in 1969, instead of thinking about college, even though he
was 3rd in his class in high school. We learned to tolerate the
insensitive humor of the Caucasians because we needed the jobs, college
admissions, scholarships and all the other opportunities from which we had been
previously, and often brutally, excluded. So we put up with it all, and learned
about our own, and each other’s ethnic American pasts, almost of all of which
was filled with brutality and betrayal. We began to reach out to one another
and support each other’s efforts and causes.
When I was in law
school at UCLA, there were very few of the wealthy white crowd in our midst
when, every spring, we protested the abandonment of real diversity as we had
once known it on our Westwood campus. And every year, Black, Latino and Asian
alums would come and talk to us, and support us and inspire us to continue our
demands for equal opportunity. It was at one such demonstration that I heard
words that I will never forget. They were spoken by an African-American alum
whose name I do not recall and who I have never seen again; but his words
resonate with me still. “None of us have made it, until all of us have made
it,” was what he said. That sentence said it all to me. For even though I have
been told that I could “pass” for white if I wanted to, and leave other victims
of discrimination to fend for themselves; I had to speak out or else I would
just be as bad as those who do the discriminating because I know better. I know
what it feels like. And I think this is what Caucasians don’t understand about
us. They don’t know us. They don’t know our history. And they don’t want to
know.
I say this because I
have witnessed countless examples of white persons who are successful and
advanced in their fields that know little or nothing about race relations or
any American history that is not something of the Manifest Destiny variety. For
example, I have a very dear friend who is also UCLA Law School grad, and who
went on to clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice; as well as serving as an
officer in the U.S. Navy. He is white and conservative and we disagree on many
things, including the movie, ‘The Help.’ I found it woefully lacking in truth
and reality, in its omission of crucial facts regarding the daily torture,
murder and brutality of the ever-present white-on-black terrorism of the KKK
that dominated Jackson, Mississippi in 1963, and for decades previous and
subsequent to that time.
I found this deficiency
disgraceful. However, my friend revealed to me that, until he saw this movie,
he never realized how prevalent and all-encompassing the racism in the south
really was at that time. What? I was absolutely incredulous. For how could
someone with an outstanding professional education, at a “liberal” school no
less, and who had served as a Naval officer; and especially who had clerked for
a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and therefore had to have read Civil Rights cases
of the greatest import, be in such a state of unknowing about one of the
pivotal issues in our entire national history?
So you see, white
people don’t have to know anything about us, and they can do just fine. But we
have to know even more about white people than they know about themselves, much
less about us, to be truly competitive in what is still to this day, a very
white man’s world. Look at who has been empowered from the beginning – white
men with property. Those of us who do not fall into that historically empowered
group, have to work harder and be more resourceful in order to compete because
we can’t take anything for granted.
So, if Republicans
really want to understand the real lesson of the election of 2012, perhaps they
should learn more about us, and about the causes of, what appears to be, an
inherent mistrust of one another. We’ve read all your white history; now why
don’t you read some of ours?
Here is a suggested
reading list to get started on the enlightenment of the white tribe:
1. Coming
of Age in Mississippi, by Ann Moody;
2. The
Devil’s Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea;
3. Anything
by Howard Zinn;
4. Bless
Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya.
That should be good for
starters, and these are just suggestions. The point is, if you want to see what
we see when we see you, perhaps you should learn a little bit about what our
lives have been like when only white people are in charge. It’s not pretty and
we don’t hate you, Republicans. But we don’t trust you either, and there is
plenty of reason for that. There is also plenty of opportunity to change
perspectives, but not if we continue to be invisible to you.
After all, we’re all
only human.
