Social Cohesion

Six weeks ago, 29-year-old Culver City Internet copy writer Christian Lander started a blog, stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, on a whim, thinking he'd poke fun at himself and fellow white people. Spending roughly two hours a day writing satirical posts about "stuff white people like," Lander had no idea how much his little inside joke would catch on. In the first week, the site received about 200 hits a day. The next week it jumped to 600, and then 4,000 the next. By… more

When the Kentucky-based Yum Corp. was looking for a city in Mexico in which to open a Taco Bell, it must have figured it couldn't go wrong with this ultra-modern, hyper-Americanized metropolis 125 miles from the Texas border in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. Regiomontanos, as Monterrey residents are called, wear their pro-Americanism on their sleeves and see little shame in the fact that their streets are as overrun by corporate American retailers as any suburban town north… more

I imagine he said it as if he were confessing a deep, dark secret. And, of course (wink, wink), he had no idea his little confession would make the rounds. But when Sergio Bendixen, Hillary Clinton's pollster and resident Latino expert, told the New Yorker after her win in New Hampshire that "the Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates," he started… more

If a Hillary Clinton campaign official told a reporter that white voters never support black candidates, would the media have swallowed the message whole? What if a campaign pollster began whispering that Jews don't have an "affinity" for African American politicians? Would the pundits have accepted the premise unquestioningly?

A few weeks ago, Sergio Bendixen, a Clinton pollster and Latino expert, publicly articulated what campaign officials appear to have been whispering for months. In an interview with Ryan Lizza of… more

Is Barack Obama a crossover candidate? And, if so, where is he crossing over from and to?

Over the past year, Obama has been called a post-racial candidate and has been praised for his ability to transcend race. But such idealistic observations are not only wrongheaded, they fundamentally misconstrue the Illinois senator's complex identity as well as the new understanding he brings to America's ongoing debate over how best to unify our wildly diverse nation.

Last February, in an interview… more

Farai Chideya (Host): In a country that long defined itself in black and white, this past decade marked a watershed moment. Latinos surpassed African-Americans to become the largest ethnic group in America; Mexican immigration was just one driving force behind the change. According to cultural critic Gregory Rodriguez Mexican immigration will transform the way Americans view race. It's the premise of his new book, "Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds." And Gregory joins me now. ... So you kick off your… more

As Ward Connerly prepares initiatives to abolish race-based affirmative action in five more states, New America Foundation fellow Gregory Rodriguez, no fan of Connerly's movement, has published an eye-opening book that nonetheless reinforces deep questions about the nation's racial assumptions and categories.

Connerly is the Sacramento businessman and ex-regent of the University of California who drove the successful campaigns overturning race-based preference policies in public education, employment and contracting in California, Washington and Michigan. He's now planning similar campaigns in Arizona,… more

It couldn't have been more than a few months after the 1992 riots. I was seated in the office in the back of the Son Shine Missionary Baptist Church on Nadeau Street in South L.A. talking with the Rev. Leroy Shephard about how Mexicans and blacks in his neighborhood did and did not get along.

"We all know about the tensions," he said in his preacher's cadence. "But there are also plenty of budding friendships. You see, when blacks moved into… more

In 1519 a group of Spanish soldiers who had been sent to explore Mexico heard an extraordinary rumour. A sailor, Gonzalo Guerrero, had drifted there on a wrecked ship eight years earlier and was living among the Indians. He had married an Indian woman, with whom he had raised three children, and was tattooed and pierced. Odder still, he intended to stay put. Hernán Cortés, the leader of the expedition, was furious. "It will never do to leave him here,"… more

The influx of Mexicans into the United States will change how race is perceived in American society, says Gregory Rodriguez, [director of the California Fellows Program at the New America Foundation]. ...

Author of a new book, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America, Mr. Rodriguez said at a Washington press conference this week that Mexican-Americans have been "racially categorized" for centuries and that integration is a must for American society.

His… more