During his final episode of the season, Bill Maher asked if race continues to be a genuine problem in America. A fair question. One fair answer: Race is nothing like the problem it was in my childhood.
Back then, even alleged liberals (white liberals, I should add) stuttered like Porky Pig when confronted with the inevitable question: "Would you let your sister marry a non-white?" In discussion after discussion, the issue ended up as a below-the-waist concern, as ever seems to be the case in this sexually-obsessed culture.
Today, interracial couples are seen at many a mall here in Los Angeles -- and, I am happy to report, nobody cares. In 1970, even in 1980, a young black/white couple would have caused murmurs and surreptitious glances. Now, nobody gives a damn. I wonder if those lucky kids know just how hard a lot of people had to work in order to achieve this who-gives-a-damn moment.
So: Is the race issue closed?
Before you answer, take another look at a race of a different sort: The Los Angeles mayoral contest between James Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa. That confrontation shall find its conclusion within mere hours.
This election reminds me of that old Star Trek episode (classic Trek, of course) in which Spock turns to one beautiful female robot and says: "I love you." Then he turns to her (its?) identical twin and adds: "But I hate you." The contradiction causes the robots' computerized brains to fry. That's how we all thought computers worked back in the 1960s.
Today, some Angelenos love Hahn and hate Villaraigosa, and vice-versa. But the two candidates are really twins, politically speaking. They have few real differences, if any. Hahn, the son of old-school liberal icon Kenny Hahn, may, in fact, turn out to be the more progressive of the two men, if only by a smidgen.
And yet...and yet...
The Republican party in Los Angeles has recently embraced Hahn as though he were Rush Limbaugh. Local Rovians even sent out brownshirts to harass John Kerry when Kerry spoke in favor of Villaraigosa. The harassment was quite ugly and thuggish, or so reports my ladyfriend. (See the post below.)
Why do Republicans support Hahn so fervently, when Hahn has never been identified with their interests? Why do they instinctively rail against Villaraigosa? Why do they love one twin and hate the other?
Try to think of a reason. I suspect that an answer will occur to you before your brain fries.
3 comments:
I'm not so sure that it is race. I think it might be the "devil they know" attitude that is having the repubs pick him. Since the right is forced to choose between two candidates falling over themselves to secure the union vote, it might seem like a no-win pick.
That said, with Hahn you get a certain amount of corruption and general inaction. With Villaraigosa, who knows? He is buyable, as the Florida campaign donation scandal showed us (http://informedsources.blogspot.com/2005/04/not-caught-on-tape-yet-villaraigosas.html#comments). But beyond that who knows? Between those, I'd say that most repubs would go with inaction which it what it seems they are doing.
I don't know much about LA politics, but if Rove was backing Hahn, I'm relieved to heaar that the other guy won. We elected a Democratic mayor here in Pittsburgh by an overwhelming margin, and another democrat trounced the republican candidate in a special election for a seat in the state senate.
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