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The election of Barack Obama forces the country to look at people of color and ethnicity in a new light and to begin a new conversation about dropping old labels and adopting new ones.
Barack Obama’s White House win signals more than just a break from “old politics.” It is the start of something bigger — the cracking of the shell of ethnic stereotypes that too many people of color or certain ethnicities still find themselves encased in courtesy of a national attitude that relies on assumptions rather than facts.
For the first time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s infamous words, “I have a dream…where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” rings practical and achievable.
Yes, there have always been Latinos, African-Americans, Asians and Native Americans who have achieved great accomplishments — graduated from Ivy League schools, attained top positions of influence in government and the corporate world, were Olympic athletes, media celebrities, community leaders, etc. — but Obama’s win serves as the prime example for everyone that it’s time to take a fresh look at how people of color and ethnicity are viewed.
And we can start by discarding the old tag of referring to people who fall into these categories as “minorities.”
The sociologist Louis Wirth popularized the term “minority” to mean “a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.”
As a result, it hasn’t taken long for the use of the term to gain negative connotations. Seeing that the term is used to describe members of those communities that are suffering the highest assaults from crime, poverty, low educational levels and high pregnancy rates, it’s a no-brainer that people associate the negative with the term.
However, there are valiant efforts being made to make the term a positive one.
At the University of Michigan, there are two types of student lounges — “Minority-Cultural” lounges and “Multicultural Theme” lounges. The reason for retaining the distinction between the two, according to University housing officials, is that minority-culture refers specifically to “federally recognized students of color.” Also, university officials think that multicultural is too broad a term that would result in students of color not getting their needs met if they were all lumped under the multicultural banner.
As it stands now, each “minority-cultural” lounge caters to a specific student of color group and serves more as a base of support for these students. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that and definitely fulfills a need for those students who need to find solace with peers who share similar life/culture experiences.
But even in this scenario, the usage of the term “minority” doesn’t add to the prestige these students should feel for their particular culture/ethnicity. It just emphasizes the fact that their group is separate and not the majority.
Something that census figures show is changing rapidly.
Last year, the U.S. Census reported that more than 300 counties across the country were “majority-minority” and this year four states and the District of Columbia garnered that distinction. The U.S. Census reports that in 34 years the whole country will be “majority-minority.”
But why wait till 2042 to decide that the term “minority” isn’t the descriptor for these times?
A popular alternative is “multicultural.” It more accurately reflects that within people of color/ethnicity there is another culture in addition to “American.”
There are signs already that people are taking the initiative to spearhead this change. NAMME, formerly known as the National Association of Minority Media Executives kept their call letters but officially changed their name last summer to the National Association of Multicultural Media Executives.
Neil Foote, NAMME chairman, says the reason is to better embrace the group’s cultural heritage and history. Also, Foote observed, “It’s not about being a minority anymore.”
In fact, it’s all about taking the first step into leading the national conversation away from saying things like Barack Obama is an African-American who happens to be President to — Barack Obama is President who happens to be African-American.
Comments (1)
The problem with this idea is that minorities are not just "separate but equal." They are actively kept down by those in power who know that "divide and conquer" works well for them to set middle class and poor people of different ethnicities against each other.
Until Latina/os are no longer targets of racist hate speech and state violence - ICE raids - it seems to me there is value in self-definition as a minority. It helps in getting organized to defend one's humanity and human rights.
Speaking of which: now is the moment to get organized to defend the needs of Latina/os against the members of the new Obama administration who say immigrants will just have to wait - the economy is much more important. Prominent among these people is a man who just ascended to a very powerful position as chief of staff of President-elect Obama: Rahm Emanuel. He and his like (Nancy Pelosi) have said that immigration reform is politically not advantageous for Democrats so let's put it at the bottom of the to-do list.
In denying the human rights emergency inflicted on immigrants in this country by the Bush administration and its underlings Chertoff and Myers (=Homeland Security Secretary and ICE director only recently deposed), Emanuel and Pelosi deny that the lives of Latina/o children are as precious as those of majority-white (or black) children. They are saying that children with an undocumented parent - 3 million of whom are US citizens - must continue to live in a shadow of abject fear of the family being torn apart. They are saying that it's ok for a four-year-old to wait for the second Obama term and spend the second half of their life in the shadows.
Will we allow this to happen?
Why not use the vaunted organizing techniques we learned from the Obama campaign to mount a campaign of our own? Representative Luis Gutierrez of Illinois has started a petition drive for immigration reform and to stop the ICE raids. Do we have a programming expert who can put that campaign on the web? Do we have email lists that can inform people of this campaign? Can we extend this campaign nationally? I am far away from Illinois and so are many Latina Lista readers. But that can be a strength since we are spread all over the country.
I am ready and willing to start collecting signatures for this petition. Can someone help us with their skills? Can we bring the fierce urgency of now to bear on stopping the ICE raids and implementing immigration reform?
Posted by laura | 9 de Noviembre 2008 a las 12:57 PM
Posted on 9 de Noviembre 2008 12:57