Barack Obama hit a wall with Latino and Asian voters last night, despite concerted efforts to court them and despite a surge of Obama support from whites. In California, his biggest loss of the night, white men overwhelmingly favored Obama over Clinton, according to exit polls, while Latinos voted against him 2:1 and Asians 3:1. In a state where Latinos and Asians were more than one-third of the voters, it was a tough blow, and one repeated in states like New Mexico and New York. It would be naive to blame minority-on-minority hate for all the Latino and Asian opposition to Barack Obama; after all, in California he ended up losing among whites, as well, thanks to strong Clinton support among women. But the stark political numbers make it much harder to deny the harsh reality and growing importance of anti-black racism among minorities, and should also be unsurprising to anyone who has closely followed American popular culture over the past two decades.
As usual, the culture got there first, and politics is following. Movies like Do The Right Thing and Crash and rappers like Ice Cube have been tackling the topic for years with a bluntness not seen in American journalism.
The news media still approached the topic gingerly prior to Super Tuesday; articles on the matter in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, among others, acknowledged "tensions" but held out hope that Obama could build support among Latinos before the election. They also repeated the usual arguments against significant racial conflict in the election: Latinos have previously voted for black mayors and Congressmen in Los Angeles and other large cities; Bill Clinton's presidency was extremely popular among Latinos; and Hillary Clinton's campaign courted Latino leaders early and aggressively, and won five of seven Latino Congressmen as well as LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and union leader Dolores Huerta.
Still, these answers seem pat for a large and diverse Latino population numbering in the millions. Bill Clinton maintained good approval ratings among whites and other races as well; Hillary has done her homework and amassed more than her fair share of endorsements among white politicians as well.
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<http://gawker.com/5002888/the-racial-conflict-behind-obamas-losses>
.d.
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