fwsweet
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Joined: 26 Nov 2004
{Posts: 5376 }
Location: Palm Coast, FL
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 Posted: Mon 23 Nov 2009 16:28 Post subject: |
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Ordinarily, I have great respect for Haney-Lopez's work. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York: New York University, 1996) is a standard reference in my library. But this essay contains two serious examples of muddled thinking: He equates "Chicano" with "Mexican-American" and he equates "group benefit" with "individual benefit."
He equates "Chicano" with "Mexican-American." The essay repeatedly depicts the defiant, in-your-face, anti-White ethnopolitical self-identity of Los Angeles Chicanos as common to all Mexican-Americans, indeed, to all "Hispanics." His picture obviously fails for Cubans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans whose rank-and-file overwhelmingly self-identity as White. But his picture also fails for the large number of Mexican-Americans of Arizona and New Mexico who are ensconsed in the White political power structure, and who see the Chicanos as anti-White racists. In short, he is drawing conclusions about a vast population of assimilated Americans of Spanish ancestry by studying a tiny urban population who have adopted confrontational tactics.
He equates "group benefit" with "individual benefit." He writes, "Claiming to be white achieves measurable advantages for some individuals and communities, but these advantages come at a steep price for others. The Latino community, to remain a community, must reject the lure of white identity and instead adopt a solidarity based on being nonwhite." He finds that becoming White is advantageous to those who choose to assimilate. And he finds that rejecting assimilation is disadvantageous to those who so choose. From these two findings, he concludes that choosing assimilation is harmful to those who reject it. The scholarly term for such a conclusion, which is flatly contradicted by the evidence cited, is "bullshit." |
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