Illegal
Immigration Threatens Tidal Change In Black Politics
By Earl Ofari
Hutchinson, BlackNews.com Columnist
The
tremor from the illegal immigration fight has shaken Democrats
and Republicans. But it also threatens a tidal change in black
politics. Though Latinos have displaced blacks as the nation's
biggest minority group, the popular notion lingers that they
are years away from packing the political wallop of black
voters and politicians. Language, citizenship, age, and lack
of education supposedly prevent millions of legal and illegal
Latino immigrants from muscling out blacks from the top spot
in ethnic politics. The illegal immigration battle has shattered
that myth.
In 2000, the 23 million blacks eligible to vote dwarfed the
13 million Latinos that were eligible to vote even though
Latinos then had virtually reached parity with blacks in the
population. More than one-third of the Latino population was
less than 18 years old. Forty percent of Latinos that were
of eligible voting age were non-citizens. Only 5 percent of
blacks that were of voting age were non-citizens.
But that is quickly changing. Since the 2000 election the
number of Latinos of voting age and that are citizens has
jumped. There are now an estimated 10 million Latino registered
voters. That compares more favorably and evenly with the 15
million black voters in the 2004 election. The surge in registered
voters is not the only shift that has changed ethnic politics
in America. In past elections, the majority of the Latino
vote was concentrated in California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico,
Arizona, and Colorado. In the 2006 national elections, helped
by the sharp increase in the number of legal and illegal immigrants
in the Midwest and Northeastern states, the Latino vote will
have national impact.
Democrat
and Republican strategists will dump millions into Spanish
language ads, pitches, and pleas for votes on Spanish
language stations. When, not if, Democrats and Republicans
cut an immigration reform deal, one of its features
almost certainly will include some form of legalization
plan that within a few years will turn thousands of
Latino immigrants into vote casting American citizens.
Democrats and Republicans will pour even more time,
money, and personnel into courting Latino voters. The
reasoning is that the potential political gain from
a massive outreach effort to Latinos is far greater
than putting the same resources into courting black
voters. It's sound political reasoning. That effort
worked for Republicans in 2004.
Bush got nearly forty percent of the Latino vote. The
Democrats, meanwhile, maintain a solid lock on the black
vote. In every election since 1964, blacks have given
more than 80 to 90 percent of their votes to the Democrats.
The sight of thousands of blacks fleeing for their lives
from Katrina floodwaters in New Orleans and Bush's initial
comatose response to their plight further infuriated
blacks. That wrecked Bush and the GOP's carefully micromanaged
effort to woo more black votes to the GOP. It would
take a political miracle for the next GOP presidential
candidate to duplicate the mild bump up in black support
that Bush got in the 2004 election.
With the tantalizing prospect of large numbers of newly
enfranchised Latino voters voting Republican there's
absolutely no political incentive for Republicans to
try to do more to get the black vote. That even includes
its relentless pursuit of the black evangelicals. Hispanic
evangelical churches have an estimated 20 million members
and those numbers are growing yearly. According to a
survey by the Hispanic Churches in America Life, the
majority of Latino evangelicals are conservative, pro-family,
anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage. Latino evangelicals
are GOP-friendly and they have political clout. They
got several mainstream evangelical groups to back the
Senate compromise immigration reform bill. And while
the National Association of Evangelicals stopped short
of backing the Senate bill, it still urged "humane"
immigration reform. The leap in Latino voting strength
and the likely prospect that Democrats and Republicans
can bag even more voters from the rising number of legal
and illegal immigrants comes at a bad time for black
politicians. Though the number of black elected officials
has held steady in state offices and in Congress, their
spectacular growth of prior years has flattened out.
According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies, the slight increase in the number of black
elected officials has been in only a handful of Deep
South states and Illinois. There is some evidence that
mainstream Democrat's de-emphasis on traditional black
issues has already happened. During the 2004 Democratic
presidential primaries the seven white male Democratic
presidential contenders were virtually mute on miserably
failing inner city schools, soaring black unemployment,
prison incarceration, and the HIV/AIDS crisis that has
torn black communities. It took loud grumbles from the
Cong ressional Black Caucus and other black Democrats
for Democratic presidential contender John Kerry to
make a few cautious and circumspect statements on some
of these issues.
The hard reality is that immigration, both legal and
illegal, has drastically changed American's ethnic and
political landscape. Black voters and elected officials
have no choice but to come to grips with that change
and try making it work for not against them.
Earl
Ofari Hutchinson is a columnist for BlackNews.com,
a political analyst and social issues commentator.
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