Now The Elections Are Over Lets Take Stock, Hispanics Interest May Not Line Up With Blacks…

According to Pew Research in the 2008 elec­tion cycle in which Junior Illinois US Senator Barack Obama was elect­ed pres­i­dent, whites made up 76.3% of the record 131 mil­lion peo­ple who vot­ed, while blacks made up 12.1%, Hispanics 7.4%, and Asians 2.5%.
We do not have data for the 2020 cycle; votes are still being count­ed, (yes I do have a prob­lem with the length of time it takes for states to fin­ish count­ing, tab­u­lat­ing, and report­ing out vote totals after elec­tion day).
Since the coun­try has embarked on ear­ly vot­ing before Election day, it makes sense to dis­pense with the idea of elec­tion day, and embrace elec­tion week.
The longer it takes for the process to be com­plet­ed, the more it gave liars and pro­pa­gan­dists like Donald Trump to stir up anger, resent­ment, and poten­tial vio­lence in an already over­heat­ed environment.
The con­cept of an “elec­tion day” caus­es Americans to cor­rect­ly expect to have elec­tion results by the end of elec­tion day.
It is incon­ceiv­able that after the débâ­cle of 2000 in which the Supreme court took it upon itself to stop the vote count, dis­en­fran­chis­ing God only knows how many vot­ers, and hand­ing the pres­i­den­cy to goof-ball George W Bush, America is no fur­ther along in cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing effi­cient elec­tion machin­ery, that allows peo­ple to vote, and have their votes counted.

There will be no short­age of lessons to be learned after this cycle is com­plete, not the least of which is that (a) America is not a Democracy, (in a democ­ra­cy, the win­ner is the per­son or polit­i­cal par­ty that gets the most votes) (b) African-Americans must wake up to the real­i­ty that its inter­est is not the same as that of Hispanics or Latinos.
Hispanics/​Latinos are now the largest minor­i­ty group in the United States, dwarf­ing African-Americans that have had that hon­or for a very long time.
On the issue of social jus­tice, polic­ing, and a raft of issues, Hispanics have either been eeri­ly silent or have thrown their cap in the ring with white Republicans, regard­less of how they treat them.
Cubans in south Florida are prob­a­bly the most trig­gered of all Hispanic com­mu­ni­ties. Whisper the word com­mu­nist or social­ist, and they will jump over a cliff in terror.
It is unfair for me to crit­i­cize them. I have nev­er lived in Cuba, but truth be told, not many of them have either.
I will expand on this as time allows.
In the mean­time, as we exhale from the ten­sions of the last four years, let us not lose sight of the fact that as the Latino com­mu­ni­ty grows in size, their atti­tudes toward social jus­tice and oth­er issues may not line up with that of black folks.
The most obvi­ous sign of that is that many Latinos see them­selves as white, not that they have been accept­ed as such yet. Still, if Raphael Cruz’s name change to ‘Ted” is any­thing to do with it, they are cer­tain­ly look­ing for­ward to being assim­i­lat­ed as the Irish and Italians wait­ed and were assimilated.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog mike​beck​les​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al websites.
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