Letters to the Editor
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It's not just black and white
My wife is a Polynesian-American journalist (I'm white). Since meeting her, I've become much more aware of how severely both the mainstream media and the general population couch all racial issues literally in black and white. She says that brown people, as she calls them, meaning Latinos, Pacific Islanders, South Asians, and Middle Easterners (i.e., pretty much anyone who isn't of European, African, or East Asian descent) get fed up with the constant focus on black-white issues, to the exclusion of brown issues (other than immigration). She also cites the historic, undeniable mistrust and unease between African and Latino Americans as a significant factor that Obama must overcome if he is to become the Democratic nominee.
In addition to Joan Walsh, I've seen a few other people writing about this issue, while most of the media ignores it completely. Some mainstream media types, in a remarkable display of ignorance, have even called it "surprising" that Obama didn't get all of the minority vote. A few weeks ago, my wife correctly predicted that Clinton would dominate the Latino vote and win California as a result. We both support Obama and consider it unfortunate that the Obama campaign didn't pay much attention to this problem until recently. But more than that, it's downright pathetic that so many supposed "journalists" are so ignorant of the greater complexity of race and ethnicity in the United States, beyond the simplicity of black and white.