Except, of course, Latinos. And, as we discovered November 4th, as well as back in 2006, Latinos haven't taken too kindly to the way Republicans have talked about them (shocking, I know). I'm not sure what it's going to take for the GOP to get the message, since they've just been slaughtered in all but one of the competitive states in the Southwest (Arizona being the one, and they probably only won it because McCain was the nominee). Still, they'll keep going. Maybe they can really go all-out and give us Texas next time.
It helps that Latino immigrants have a reputation for being extremely hard-working people who, by the time their kids come into young adulthood, have fully integrated into American society. It's impossible to successfully hate on a group of people about whom the rest of us have such favorable opinions.
Now on to Europe: I appreciate that Obama's victory has sparked this huge discussion in the European press, but I think the press is being much too harsh to the point that it has reached silly-season levels of teh stoopit. If Obama and McCain had been running for Preznit of Yurp, Obama would've carried 65-70% instead of 53%. (He probably would've hit 75% in France, which ironically seems to be getting the worst of the beating.) The fact that an American politician was able to strike up such excitement there -- the huge crowd in Berlin, the many (and very large) parties across Europe on Election Night, etc -- says a lot more than some prick columnist in a Murdoch paper.
There's racism everywhere, and huge portions of the population will inevitably maintain some racist assumptions. What that bit from the Independent describes is really just a British version of the White-Flight mentality found in American suburbs. Replace the South-Asian cab-driver with a black guy, and Mason is every middle-aged dumb white woman in Gwinnett County, Georgia, or Martin County, Florida.
And it's not as though electing Obama has somehow magically cured us of racism. We're being given too much credit on that. Not to say it isn't a big deal. I think Americans deserve a rare pat on the head for it. But it just means the sane side can win when they show up. But you need only look at the numerous stories of people hanging Obama in effigy in small-town ("Real") Ohio, or the disgusting things shouted at the McCain-Palin rallies, or the however-many plots uncovered by the spooks -- and those are only the ones we know of -- to assassinate him to know that racism is still plenty real here, even if the majority can get beyond it in the voting booth. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
If Obama and McCain had been running for Preznit of Yurp, Obama would've carried 65-70% instead of 53%. (He probably would've hit 75% in France, which ironically seems to be getting the worst of the beating.)
You might very well be right, but Obama would never have made his way to the top of a major political party in the first place... "Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
We do value experience and time served, so he'd have to have been around a few years. Race hasn't been a factor here so far in elections - and might have been helpful in some instances for novelty factor alone. This may change if/when racial minorities become big enough to threaten the dominant "indigenous" culture. notes from no w here
The French approach forces minorities to act as if the playing field were equal and delegitimizes attempts at political activism that is based on the reality of an unequal society, rather than the ideal of a colour blind one. It is sort of similar in mindset to the nineteenth century classical liberal rejection of [working] class based activism, and at any state or social attempt to counteract class inequality. The obstacles in the way of racial/ethnic minorities aren't as high as the class ones in the nineteenth century, but they certainly do exist. And the most insiduous and powerful ones are not deliberate racism, but the unconscious networking of people with others like themselves, a sort of naive and unacknowledged form of white (and predominantly male) self promotion system that is denied to others in the name of a non-existent equality.
And Bérégovoy. And Lauvergeon. And Ghosn. And Royal. And Lagarde. And Seguin. And Kron. And Gallois.
Are those names or something?
(I kid, I kid.) Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
In the UK we'd say they're mostly middle class.
Then again, political leadership doesn't necessarily translate into policy leadership - only policy implementation.
Pols are front people for various interests, and the real battle is between these interests.
Why does everybody like to think that it won't also work for this generation? Like nicta noted in the OT, the kids of the most recent immigration are largely entering the mainstream, almost unnoticed.
We only talk about the minority left behind and in trouble, but the thing is - it's a minority and it's main problems are the same as that of the other, non-immigrant population in the same neighborhoods, and it's largely economic. The racial capegoating is largely a consequence of the vicious politics of hate of the hardright (Sarkozy included in that repect) to scapegoat them as a distraction for other antisocial economic policies. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
