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Progressives commonly categorize Latinos as people of color, no doubt partly because progressive Latinos see the group that way and encourage others to do so as well. Yet in our survey, only one in four Hispanics saw the group as people of color.
In contrast, the majority rejected this designation. They preferred to see Hispanics as a group integrating into the American mainstream, one not overly bound by racial constraints but instead able to get ahead through hard work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote-strategy.html
I don't identify as Hispanic, so I cannot speak to this issue with the same level of authenticity as these authors, but their survey result echoes the past "integration" of other ethnic minority groups into the US (White) mainstream. There was a time when German, Irish, or Italian heritage was much more salient than it is today. Now these European peoples are part of the White polyglot category in the US. It seems most Hispanic people would also rather identify with the White polyglot than the POC polyglot.
The oversimplified categories of White and POC don't work the same way for everybody. Even the US Census recognizes that there are White Hispanics and Non-White Hispanics -- and according to the Census a majority of Hispanics in the US identify as White.
If I arbitrarily threw most men into the category "women" and addressed them as "she", they would probably get pissed off. But on the Left we arbitrarily throw most Hispanics into the category of POC, even though most of them identify as White. Why are we doing this? What purpose does it serve?
And is a White Hispanic today part of the supposed 400-year-old White Supremacy project in the US? Should a White Hispanic feel guilt over the behavior of their White ancestors in the US?
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How would we begin to assimilate the Black identity into the mainstream? How can we diminish the salience of black skin, the way we've diminished the salience of German ancestry?
We don't call anybody in the US a German-American the way we call people African-Americans or Cuban-Americans. How did that happen?
It requires both the ethnic/racial group, and the rest of us, to stop focusing on their group identity, instead focusing on their individual accomplishments. That's what happened with Germans during the first half of the 20th Century, that's what's happening with Hispanics now. But we seem to be going the other way with respect to Blacks, focusing even more on their group identity now than we did 10 years ago.
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Personally, as a Leftist, I'd rather we focus on each individual's rights than each individual's accomplishments. Because if we're playing a game of accomplishments, then we're creating a class society in which some people are greatly rewarded for being better than others in some arbitrary way.
The concept of "work ethic" is abused by our ruling classes to keep the vast majority of the population in wage slavery (or unemployment) with only a fraction of their fair share of the country's wealth.
I mean, we do have Black billionaires in the US now. We've had a Black President and the odds are we'll soon have a Black Vice President. We have Black Senators, Black CEOs, a Black Supreme Court Justice. It is possible for a Black person to play the game of accomplishments and win.
I'm more concerned about the rest of us, the 99% who don't win the game, regardless of our skin color or ethnic heritage. Too much of our national income and wealth goes to the winners. I think more of our national income and wealth should be shared by everybody, regardless of accomplishments.
People on the Right argue that Socialism will destroy the work ethic, that the only way to motivate people to work hard is to reward them for hard work.
But can't we do both? Can't we both reward hard work and share more of our income and wealth with the 99%? Why is this presented as an either/or situation? Either Socialism or Capitalism, you must pick one extreme or the other. I advocate for more sharing, not to eradicate the rewards for hard work.
Sure, reward people for working longer hours. Reward people for taking risks. Reward people for coming up with great ideas. Reward people for leadership. But our current rewards system has gone completely bonkers, handing out extremes of wealth over $100 billion to the top three winners, while one in six children lives in poverty -- 12 million children live in poverty. This is an unimaginable number of children living in poverty in the US, the richest country in the world as measured both by total income and by total wealth.
If you lose the game, your children grow up in poverty. Something's not right about this game. Way too much goes to the winners. Not enough goes to the losers.
Yet on the Left we're consumed by the application of racial and ethnic identities to each other, sometimes to people who don't even want them applied on their behalf. Most Hispanics don't want to be treated as POC. Most Hispanics identify as White. I think there's a lesson for all of us on the Left --> a lot of people care more about improving their lives than about the labels we apply to them.
In contrast, the majority rejected this designation. They preferred to see Hispanics as a group integrating into the American mainstream, one not overly bound by racial constraints but instead able to get ahead through hard work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/opinion/biden-latino-vote-strategy.html
I don't identify as Hispanic, so I cannot speak to this issue with the same level of authenticity as these authors, but their survey result echoes the past "integration" of other ethnic minority groups into the US (White) mainstream. There was a time when German, Irish, or Italian heritage was much more salient than it is today. Now these European peoples are part of the White polyglot category in the US. It seems most Hispanic people would also rather identify with the White polyglot than the POC polyglot.
The oversimplified categories of White and POC don't work the same way for everybody. Even the US Census recognizes that there are White Hispanics and Non-White Hispanics -- and according to the Census a majority of Hispanics in the US identify as White.
If I arbitrarily threw most men into the category "women" and addressed them as "she", they would probably get pissed off. But on the Left we arbitrarily throw most Hispanics into the category of POC, even though most of them identify as White. Why are we doing this? What purpose does it serve?
And is a White Hispanic today part of the supposed 400-year-old White Supremacy project in the US? Should a White Hispanic feel guilt over the behavior of their White ancestors in the US?
-----
How would we begin to assimilate the Black identity into the mainstream? How can we diminish the salience of black skin, the way we've diminished the salience of German ancestry?
We don't call anybody in the US a German-American the way we call people African-Americans or Cuban-Americans. How did that happen?
It requires both the ethnic/racial group, and the rest of us, to stop focusing on their group identity, instead focusing on their individual accomplishments. That's what happened with Germans during the first half of the 20th Century, that's what's happening with Hispanics now. But we seem to be going the other way with respect to Blacks, focusing even more on their group identity now than we did 10 years ago.
-----
Personally, as a Leftist, I'd rather we focus on each individual's rights than each individual's accomplishments. Because if we're playing a game of accomplishments, then we're creating a class society in which some people are greatly rewarded for being better than others in some arbitrary way.
The concept of "work ethic" is abused by our ruling classes to keep the vast majority of the population in wage slavery (or unemployment) with only a fraction of their fair share of the country's wealth.
I mean, we do have Black billionaires in the US now. We've had a Black President and the odds are we'll soon have a Black Vice President. We have Black Senators, Black CEOs, a Black Supreme Court Justice. It is possible for a Black person to play the game of accomplishments and win.
I'm more concerned about the rest of us, the 99% who don't win the game, regardless of our skin color or ethnic heritage. Too much of our national income and wealth goes to the winners. I think more of our national income and wealth should be shared by everybody, regardless of accomplishments.
People on the Right argue that Socialism will destroy the work ethic, that the only way to motivate people to work hard is to reward them for hard work.
But can't we do both? Can't we both reward hard work and share more of our income and wealth with the 99%? Why is this presented as an either/or situation? Either Socialism or Capitalism, you must pick one extreme or the other. I advocate for more sharing, not to eradicate the rewards for hard work.
Sure, reward people for working longer hours. Reward people for taking risks. Reward people for coming up with great ideas. Reward people for leadership. But our current rewards system has gone completely bonkers, handing out extremes of wealth over $100 billion to the top three winners, while one in six children lives in poverty -- 12 million children live in poverty. This is an unimaginable number of children living in poverty in the US, the richest country in the world as measured both by total income and by total wealth.
If you lose the game, your children grow up in poverty. Something's not right about this game. Way too much goes to the winners. Not enough goes to the losers.
Yet on the Left we're consumed by the application of racial and ethnic identities to each other, sometimes to people who don't even want them applied on their behalf. Most Hispanics don't want to be treated as POC. Most Hispanics identify as White. I think there's a lesson for all of us on the Left --> a lot of people care more about improving their lives than about the labels we apply to them.