Yesterday's primary voting laid bare a profound racial and ethnic divide among Democratic voters, with African Americans overwhelmingly preferring Sen. Barack Obama and Latinos largely favoring Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The results of preliminary exit polls in nine key states indicate that Obama attracted the support of two-thirds to nine-tenths of black voters, except in Clinton's home state of New York. That pattern suggests that the first-term Illinois senator's strong appeal among African Americans -- first on display in the South Carolina primary last month -- is more widespread. It also means that Clinton is not the automatic heir to the wide popularity her husband enjoyed among black voters as president.
Yesterday's contests, however, featured several states, including California, with large Hispanic populations, and they selected Clinton by smaller but consistent margins.
The divergent choices by minority voters reflect broad issues of loyalty and identity, observers said, rather than specific differences in the candidates' stances on issues. "There is so little distance between the policies, it comes down to personality, style and name recognition," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, based in Los Angeles.
Why do we still group people into "minority" when hispanics and african americans are very different in a lot of ways. Minorities are all very different, some share closer cultural ties to the majority, such as african americans
No comments:
Post a Comment