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Lee Davis's Blog

What do you want from your presidential candidate?

By Latisa from Houston, TX - Jun 18th, 2007 at 11:54 am EDT

Hello everyone! I have a comment based on events this past weekend.

The opposition research put out about Sen. Clinton’s ties to Indian outsourcing. The information that I read was interesting, provocative, and informative, as I suppose was the plan by the Obama camp. The document was not, however, stereotypical or xenophobic as was the accusation by several news sites that cater to the Indian community. Here are my questions: If you’re running for the presidency of the United States, shouldn’t you be more concerned with the citizens of the United States and their jobs? Shouldn’t you be concerned when Americans lose their jobs to outsourcing (whether in India or China or elsewhere)? Does that make you bigoted against India? Is it possible to be for Americans and not against India?Here’s my theory: there are people who emigrated to this country who have a residual loyalty and love (understandably) for the “old country.” It’s also understandable that they’d want to see their former countries prosper and thrive because of that love. But here’s the main point. Barack Obama or any presidential candidate cannot formulate their policy on a particular group’s desire to see their former country or the country of their heritage prosper. In other words, Barack has to be loyal to the American workers and as such, work to minimize outsourcing of their jobs as well as stand up for them in the public square. Otherwise I don’t know what you’d call him, but I wouldn’t want to call him President Obama if he weren’t willing to stand up for the American workers. I know that we all want every person in the world to be happy and successful, etc, but that’s not going to happen. It’s not often that you can craft a “win-win” situation. Sometimes it has to be win-lose. Which side do you want to be on? Which side should the president choose for the citizens of this country? I think that any decent president or candidate would choose the winning side for the people that he wants to represent.

What’s stereotypical or xenophobic about that?

I think that there are unintended consequences to our deliberate multiculturalism. I think that when we refer to ourselves as a hyphenated-American (i.e. African-American, Asian-American, Indian-American), it’s quite easy to begin to see life through “ethnic-colored glasses,” as opposed to looking through the prism of being a citizen of the United States of America (i.e. American). This is just my opinion...as a black female.

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