{"id":3738,"date":"2008-09-20T09:39:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-20T15:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/09\/gop-leaders-racially-tinged-comments-are-wrong\/"},"modified":"2008-09-20T09:39:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-20T15:39:00","slug":"gop-leaders-racially-tinged-comments-are-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/09\/gop-leaders-racially-tinged-comments-are-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP leader’s racially tinged comments are wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chairman of the Bernalillo County Republican Party<\/a> is facing heavy criticism from within his own party and elsewhere for saying that Hispanics won\u2019t vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama<\/a> because they consider themselves above blacks.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Fernando C. de Baca was quoted as making the comments to a BBC News reporter in a blog posting<\/a> published on Friday.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors,\u201d C. de Baca was quoted as saying. \u201cAfrican-Americans came here as slaves. Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won\u2019t vote for a black president.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The campaign of Obama\u2019s Republican opponent, John McCain<\/a>, was quick to denounce C. de Baca\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cMr. C. de Baca\u2019s comments are extremely offensive and insulting. We believe that Mr. C. de Baca\u2019s comments in no way reflect the beliefs of New Mexico Hispanics,\u201d McCain spokeswoman Ivette Barajas said. \u201cHe has no affiliation with our campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

C. de Baca hasn\u2019t responded to an e-mail request for comment sent Friday evening. Democrats, including the Obama campaign, the state party and the office of Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> have also not responded.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Republican 1st Congressional District candidate Darren White<\/a> put out a statement denouncing C. de Baca\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cChairman Fernando C. de Baca\u2019s reported comments are reprehensible, ignorant and completely unacceptable,\u201d White said. \u201cSomeone who holds these beliefs has no business holding a leadership position in any political party.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Comments came as Obama spoke in Espa\u00f1ola<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

C. de Baca\u2019s comments came the same day that Obama spoke to 10,000 people<\/a> in Espa\u00f1ola, the heart of Hispanic northern New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. The BBC News reporter, Jon Kelly, wrote on his blog that he wasn\u2019t sure about C. de Baca\u2019s assertion because \u201cvirtually all of the Hispanic voters I spoke to told me they were supporting Obama.\u201d So he asked Gabriel Sanchez, assistant professor at the University<\/st1:placetype> of New Mexico<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>\u2019s department of political science, what he thought about the GOP chairman\u2019s comments. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI doubt there are more than 10 percent of Latinos who think that way — and half of them probably won\u2019t even go out to vote,\u201d Sanchez told him.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Matt Reichbach<\/a> at NMFBIHOP wrote Friday that he is \u201ca Hispanic with family from the Spanish north. I was at a rally yesterday in Espa\u00f1ola with nearly 10,000 people who would disagree with C. de Baca\u2019s statement. And it is truly a dumb statement to think and even worse to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Sanchez told Kelly that Hispanics aren\u2019t a homogenous group. Though the federal government defines Hispanics and Latinos jointly as people of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican and South or Central American descent, there is another difference many New Mexicans are familiar with.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Hispanics can be defined as people of Spanish descent. Many in northern New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> claim this heritage, and their ancestors largely were conquerors. Latinos can be defined as people of Latin American descent — the people who were, in many instances, conquered by the Spanish.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Adding my voice to the chorus<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Regardless of whether he had his basic facts about Hispanic history right, I\u2019m going to add my voice to what I expect to be a growing chorus of people denouncing C. de Baca\u2019s comments. While others have expressed in the context of the presidential race that there are some racial tensions between Hispanics and Latinos and blacks, C. de Baca\u2019s comments were largely erroneous and out of line.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Sure, some Hispanics, apparently including (assuming he was quoted accurately) C. de Baca, hold such racist views. There are people with racist views in any culture group. But the polling and other evidence, regardless of what C. de Baca says, shows that the majority of Hispanics and Latinos support Obama. I have come across many conservative, Democratic Hispanics and Latinos who support McCain, but it\u2019s usually because of his stances on the war, abortion or other policy issues, not because of some belief that they\u2019re better than Obama.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

While there have been some racial tensions between \u201cblacks and browns,\u201d as Sen. Mary Jane Garcia<\/a> recently pointed out in a Rocky Mountain News article<\/a>, the Obama candidacy is helping change that. Garcia, who originally expressed doubts about supporting Obama, now has an Obama bumper sticker on the back of her vehicle.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It seems C. de Baca is out of touch with reality. The opinion he expressed and which he apparently holds is outdated, racist and sad. I agree with White: Someone who holds such beliefs has no business holding a leadership position in any political party.<\/p>\n

\n

Update, Sept. 21, 10:40 a.m.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

White\u2019s Democratic opponent, Martin Heinrich<\/a>, said in a news release that he finds C. de Baca\u2019s comments \u201coffensive, short-sighted and horribly racist.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cSpewing such bigotry proves once again that the GOP leadership of Bernalillo<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place> is far too out of touch with New Mexican voters, who — regardless of political party — are a proud people who celebrate our cultural and ethnic diversity,\u201d Heinrich said. \u201cGOP Chairman de Baca (sic) should step down and apologize to all New Mexicans for his disgusting display of intolerance. And if he fails to do so voluntarily, then I would hope that Darren White and the rest of the Bernalillo County GOP party leadership oust him immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, C. de Baca said his statement was taken \u201ctotally out of context\u201d in an interview<\/a> with 770 KKOB-AM reporter Peter St. Cyr. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the course of talking to (Kelly), I explained that some of the older-generation people, like my grandfather, would always tells us as youngsters that Hispanics came here, I guess it was there way of having us, lifting our spirits, and they would say, \u2018Remember your ancestors came here as conquerors.\u2019 And those were his words,\u201d C. de Baca told St. Cyr. \u201cAnd then they would draw the comparison of the other groups, the Native Americans and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

As for the comment Kelly quoted, C. de Baca said, \u201cThe point I was trying to make was that there is a generational difference between those folks who were born before the civil rights and those born in more recent periods. Young people today, whether they be Hispanics or some other race or ethnicity, they can\u2019t relate to any of that, and so that\u2019s what I was trying to convey. The point I did to make to him was that, in my humble opinion, the older set of Hispanics would probably not vote for a black for president, but that the younger ones would flock to vote for (Obama), conceivably.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Reichbach wrote this<\/a> about the possibility that Kelly misrepresented C. de Baca\u2019s words:<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, I can see that I can see C. de Baca\u2019s side of the argument. Anyone who has attempted to explain the oddness of New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>\u2019s Hispanics to others (the Norte\u00f1os as some call them) knows it. And with the way the BBC writer portrayed it, it\u2026 looked like those were C. de Baca\u2019s personal views,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIf Jon Kelly really took it out of context as C. de Baca claims, then Kelly needs to not only issue an apology — the BBC needs to consider firing him. It pretty much ruined C. de Baca\u2019s career.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to track down contact info for Kelly to seek comment.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chairman of the Bernalillo County Republican Party is facing heavy criticism from within his own party and elsewhere for saying that Hispanics won\u2019t vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama because they consider themselves above blacks. Fernando C. de Baca was quoted as making the comments to a BBC News reporter in a blog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}