MR. WILKES RESPONDS

If folks are interested, they should check out the comments to my post below: "Right Wing Identity Politics Take Hold." Brent Wilkes of LULAC has responded.

He also sent an email to Michael Avery where he criticized parts of the column I had published last week. Here is the text of that letter:

Mr. Avery:
 
Thank you for thoughtful response to my email to you. I agree with your conclusions that we should agree to disagree about the Gonzales issue, while at the same time work together on other issues on which we have a community of interests. However, you should know that it was not so much the National Lawyers Guild’s opposition to Gonzales that LULAC objected to as much as the tone of your initial release. You certainly have the right to oppose Gonzales’s nomination based on your analysis of his record as other groups have done. LULAC, on the other hand, has the right to support his nomination based on our analysis.
 
What I am concerned about is that some elements of the progressive community, of which LULAC is a proud member, appear to be adopting the “ends justify the means” mentality of the far right even when it comes to dealing with minority constituencies.
 
For instance, a favorite tactic of the far right is to belittle the importance of the opinions of Hispanics and Hispanic organizations. I can’t tell you how often I have heard the phrase that this or that politician was “pandering to the Hispanic community” by supporting a pro-Latino position. In their view, apparently, anytime the opinions of our community are taken into consideration no matter how infrequent, this is pandering, whereas the opinions of business leaders and religious conservatives is perfectly legitimate.
 
Unfortunately, your statement that "the suggestion that has appeared in the media that Democrats may be afraid to oppose Gonzales because he is a Latino is offensive” sounds eerily similar to this kind of reasoning. Why is it offensive for the views of Latinos to be taken into consideration?
 
Or consider the following statement made by your Carlos Villarreal, NLG Executive Director of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the article below:
 
“But it is troubling that both of these organizations have made access to power so central to their support for Mr. Gonzales, while glossing over his faults in their press statements. Indeed, the statements from both NCLR and LULAC had little to say about Mr. Gonzales' jurisprudence. He may support the Patriot Act, but at least these groups have a seat at the table. He may oppose the most basic of human rights for Mexican Nationals accused of capital crimes, but at least these groups will have access to the White House.”
 
Heaven forbid that LULAC or NCLR have a seat at the table or have access to the White House (which itself is inaccurate). Never mind that if Alberto Gonzales did not have a relationship with the Latino community and Latino organizations that he would have been lambasted for being elitist and a coconut. Never mind that if LULAC or NCLR had not had a longstanding relationship with Gonzales then we would have been accused of supporting someone we knew little about (in fact this was implied anyway). No, in this case, a positive that Gonzales has had a long and close relationship with Hispanic organizations and has worked directly with the Latino community (he was the Director for Catholic Charities and Big Brothers and Sisters in Houston, Texas) is turned into a negative and LULAC and NCLR are publicly ridiculed for it.
 
Or perhaps you should consider another statement by Villarreal:
 
“Mr. Gonzales has done a better job protecting the mostly white, male, wealthy politicians who have rewarded him than defending the rights of those communities of color who have suffered under the Bush regime. This is exactly why conservatives in power today love Mr. Gonzales so much, and why they have embraced this new brand of identity politics. He has protected Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and others in powerful positions. He is far more effective in a post Civil Rights era at promoting right-wing ideals than rich, white men, ever could be.”
 
Never mind that Gonzales is not loved by the far right who are in fact adamantly opposed to his possible nomination to the Supreme Court because they believe he is too moderate. In the view of the National Lawyers Guild whose own record on Hispanic diversity is questionable, Alberto Gonzales is a Latino Uncle Tom. It all sounds rather hypocritical to me.
 
I suggest that at the next National Lawyers Guild board meeting that you read through the initial press release that you sent on the Gonzales nomination and the article published by Carlos Villarreal on various progressive web sites and ask yourselves if these items could not have been worded better. Ask yourselves how LULAC and the overwhelming number of Latino organizations that have endorsed Alberto Gonzales would look upon these statements. If NLG is truly serious about moving the progressive agenda forward, it will need to develop a rapport with a broad cross section of the American public, not just the handful of progressive organizations sighted by Villarreal’s article.
 
Carlos Villarreal does have a point about the Republican agenda, however. After years of being on the defense on racial diversity issues, the Republicans are attempting to turn the tables on the Democrats and point out the inconsistencies in the Democratic record on diversity. The last thing the progressive community should do in response is to lash out in a clumsy manner at every minority candidate appointed by a Republican President. That’s not to say that you should support them or stay neutral either—just be careful that the statements that you make don’t fall into the Republican’s trap.
 
Brent A Wilkes
National Executive Director
League of United Latin American Citizens
2000 L Street, NW, Suite 610
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 833-6130
FAX (202) 365-0851
 
P.S. I am curious why NLG has not come out in opposition to Condoleezza Rice’s nomination to be Secretary of State. While Alberto Gonzales’s role in the Bush administration’s pursuit of the war on terror is indirect at best, Rice, as National Security Advisor, was right in the thick of it. She ignored intelligence prior to 9/11 that if acted upon might have prevented the war on terror from even beginning, she helped exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq on many occasions to justify our preemptive attack on that nation which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, and she has no doubt been a central player in developing the strategies to extract information from the “enemy combatants.” Your own web site mentions its opposition to her positions many times, while with Gonzales the only mention of him came in the press release opposing his nomination.