by Mafoot Simon, Straits Times, Singapore, October 29, 2004
sangam.org/articles/view2/627.html
Dear Ehsan,
It’s been many years since you migrated to the United States. Quite a long way from Jalan Ismail to Los Angeles, isn’t it? Your accountancy business doing OK?
I’ve been following the presidential contest, and it strikes me that it truly is the Christopher Columbus syndrome all over again. It was TV anchor Jorge Ramos who used the term in the 2000 election to describe the sudden attention given to the Hispanics. This year, it’s not just Hispanics being ‘rediscovered’; it’s all minorities.
Now that you and the other minorities – Hispanics, African-Americans and Asian-Americans included – account for more than one-third of the US population, your votes are quite critical. At the same time, I believe, you are also rediscovering yourselves – and the power you wield as citizens.
With both candidates – Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry – running neck and neck, the minorities’ votes will probably decide who gets the White House. By all accounts, the minorities are for Mr Kerry – provided the Republicans don’t use dirty tricks to suppress the minority vote.
Tell me, is it true there are bogus notices appearing in minority neighbourhoods – predominantly black – urging the residents to ‘vote Nov 4’, which is two days after election day? And notices that advise voters to report to the police department ‘to make sure your record is clear’, and pay up things like traffic fines, before going to the polls?
I thought I had seen the worst in the Serangan Fajar (literally, attack at dawn) during the recent parliamentary election in Indonesia. In that incident, activists from political parties spread out in the kampung to distribute all sorts of things on election day.
I’m glad that the minorities are so keen to make their votes count, going by the voluntary organisations that have sprung up to get the minorities to vote.
Almost every minority group in America seems to be saying theirs will be the group that swings the vote. Do you think the Hispanics will, since they are the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the country? I gather Mr Bush managed to attract 35 per cent of the Hispanic votes in 2000 against Mr Al Gore’s 62 per cent.
What about the four million Asian-Americans? Will they vote for Mr Kerry too? A survey by polling agency New California Media last August suggested so: 43 per cent against 36 per cent for Mr Bush. I guess Mr Kerry is depending a lot on the African-Americans who in 2000 gave the Democratic nominee, Mr Al Gore, 90 per cent of their votes. That’s 18.9 per cent of all those who voted for him. Quite extraordinary, isn’t it?
Do you think the Republican push in black churches and the party’s backing of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages will bring Mr Bush some extra votes? Some said it might just double the 8 per cent he won in 2000.
The only minority group which doesn’t really care who wins the White House is probably the Jews, and that’s because Jews believe neither the Democrats nor the Republicans threaten American support of Israel. ‘Two sides of the same coin,’ someone said.
What about your fellow Muslims? I don’t know how you feel about the post-9/11 Patriot Act. But when I was in the US recently, I could sense Muslims’ unhappiness – especially over the ‘sneak and peak’ provision in the Act. I can’t understand why security agents need to enter and search a home without informing the owner when they can do it openly.
That’s why some American Muslims today are saying they are being treated like second-class citizens. It’s no surprise that they want to back Mr Kerry instead of Mr Bush, which they did in 2000.
All this makes me wonder: Have you thought of returning to Singapore? How long has it been now? Almost 30 years? Or do you prefer to remain in the US and build up your financial consultancy? Since it carries your family name, Khan CPA Corporation, that could be your legacy.
But I’m digressing. Coming back to the minority votes, have you heard of demographer William H. Frey, who coined the term ‘the Minority Myth’?
‘Despite the hoopla over minority votes, demographic facts would indicate that this emphasis is overstated. One such fact is that minorities, Hispanics particularly, have a ‘translation problem’,’ he wrote in a recent article in American Demographics.
What he meant was for every 100 Hispanics, only 18 will show up at the polls, while for African-Americans, it’s 37 out of every 100. Among whites, 47 out of every 100 will vote.
Mr Frey, however, made no mention of the suppressed votes, so he could be proven totally wrong in this election when the Democrats are doing all they can to get voters out to the ballot box.
If they succeed, it’ll prove on thing: that the minorities have finally ‘rediscovered’ themselves – and the power to make the difference.
All the best for Nov 2. I am as keen as you are about the result.
— MS