Play the Race Card At Your Own Peril

It’s conventional wisdom that American racism is an inexhaustible well that cynical politicians can always dip into if they want to sink their opponents in a campaign. That’s what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Hispanic pollster, Sergio Bendixen, seemed to be doing when he told a reporter last month that Latino voters haven’t generally “shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.”

But modern racism isn’t like the water in a well. It’s more like the scum in a pond: It might settle to the bottom if left alone, but it can also be whipped up into a froth. And that’s what Bendixen was really doing.

Clinton went on to win a resounding 67 percent of the Hispanic vote in California on Super Tuesday. But her victory didn’t prove her pollster’s drastically overstated point (many black candidates — Charles Rangel, David Dinkins and others — have enjoyed significant Hispanic support) so much as illustrate how today’s race-baiting tactics do more than just tap into preexisting racial animosity: They actually create and inflame it. And this in turn creates a problem that can last long after the election is over.”*

*From: www.washingtonpost.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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