“Black-brown coalitions are tough to sustain.”

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/03/roland.martin/index.html

Sure is when you have “the white man” working against your interests. What about white/brown coalitions? Are they anything like black/white coalitions?

If I'm white and I share political commitments with someone of a different color, does that mean we've formed a coalition, whereas if the other person were the same color as I, we simply have similar interests? Can only a "black" canidate represent a "black" constituency?

Have I got it all wrong this whole time in not realizing that my skin color and race inform my political interests?

“…neither group can afford to be egomaniacal and regard the other as irrelevant. Hispanics and blacks aren't going anywhere, and they better resolve their disputes, or watch both groups remain at a standstill.”

I’m sure Thomas Sowell would have a lot to say about this statement, but the excerpt does well to highlight the overhyped view that the only thing holding minorities back in America is underrepresentation and exlusion (white privilege), and the way to improve conditions and access is through political power.

“Blacks are not the enemy of Hispanics, and vice versa. The enemy is a lack of quality of education, being shut out of the economic levers, as well as poor health care. The resources of this nation should go where the need is.”

Wow, can’t get anymore implicit racism with that socialist statement. He means to say that black and brown people have got to band together to demand whitey open up the schools and the jobs to us.

The enemy of blacks, browns, or whites is a dysfunctional poverty of culture that doesn’t take advantage of educational opportunity, doesn’t prepare itself for participation in the work force, and makes poor life choices in diet, exercise, or family planning.

You’ll never hear a politician articulate that criticism. You know, because we’re all one people.