Latin@ voters help make history

There are many beautiful examples of the rich history of solidarity that exists between the Latin@ and Black communities in this country.

The indissoluble ties between national-liberation organizations, like those between the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords and the Brown Berets from the Southwest, are such examples. Cooperation between civil-rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez are also great examples.

But the capitalist ruling class of this country uses not only racism as a tool to drive a wedge among the working class, but the age-old “divide and conquer” tactic as well. As a result, tensions between the Black and Latin@ community often erupt as part of the strategy emanating from the ruling class to have the most oppressed fighting among themselves for a bit of crumbs.

You need only witness how pundits and reporters play up divisions, real or imagined, between African Americans and Latin@ immigrants today.

Early on during the recent presidential primary season, the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, whether overtly or covertly, often fostered these divisions. Tragic stories of fights between Latin@s and Blacks in Nevada before the primary, for example, were the result of these forces having fostered those tensions.

Many in the political leadership had wanted the vote from the Hillary Clinton base to go to McCain. Fortunately, this view, which would have been a gain for reaction, was smashed.

So Latin@s voting for Sen. Barack Obama for president in overwhelming numbers is a tremendous step forward for Black and brown unity.

Just as white workers pushed aside their prejudices and racism and instead let their economic interests drive their decision, these developments lay the basis for class unity.

Texas: barometer of change

Texas is a state as backward and reactionary as you can get in the United States. More people are executed in Texas than in any other state in the country.

President-elect Obama did not do much campaigning there after the primaries. But a close look at the vote in Texas shows a sea change among the population that demonstrates a progressive turn among the electorate of this country.

Every major city in Texas—Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio—voted for Obama.

South Texas, which is called El Valle (the Valley) and borders Mexico, went overwhelmingly for Obama as well.

The Latin@ vote also helped turn Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico into “blue states” from “red” ones.

Lorenzo Cano, a long-time Chicano activist who teaches Chicano Studies at the University of Houston, said this about the elections: “The overwhelming support by Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Latinos in general is due to the ‘hope’ that Barack Obama symbolizes and has conveyed in his campaign. It is also due to the negative reaction and bad administration of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. .... The anti-immigrant bashing by Republicans during the Bush administration was a factor in the Democratic candidate getting so much support as well. ...

“The Obama administration will have to be lobbied and pressured into doing the right thing in the area of immigration reform since this may not be one of his priorities in the first year of his presidency. The first thing he must do is to call for a moratorium on the raids inside of the country and then proceed to call for a new amnesty program.”

It is not a revolutionary act for so many Latin@s to have voted for Obama. Class relations of oppression and exploitation have not been overturned. Nor is it a revolutionary act if Texas in the future goes from a red Republican state to a blue Democratic state.

But what is important and gives revolutionaries a basis for optimism is the changing character of the working class that lays the basis for radical and even revolutionary struggles in the coming period. If Texas turns blue it is a progressive turn for an area where the white ruling class promotes racism and reaction in their ugliest forms.

A blue turn would mean a population that is becoming more Third World is in turn becoming more progressive–and that is a welcome development, especially for Texas.

The economic crisis, coupled with the historic election of the first African-American president, has opened a door. Latin@s flexed their muscles. Although they were flexed in a ballot box and not in the streets or through revolutionary acts of struggle, they were flexed nonetheless.

During the last 30 years the working class, including Latin@s, has not flexed its muscles very much, with one huge exception: the spring upheavals of 2006 among the immigrant sector of our class.

President-elect Obama has recently made statements against the vicious, cruel and racist raids that Immigration and Customs Enforcement—ICE—has been carrying out in the immigrant community. His statements against the raids are a progressive gesture toward the Latin@ community, whose top concerns in the election were the economy and immigration.

The door has been opened and the tide of reaction has lifted slightly. It is a perfect opportunity for communists and revolutionaries to step up and open that door even wider and lift the tide of reaction once and for all. Now more than ever, the working class and the oppressed need a class perspective and revolutionary analysis for the period to come.