The headline was simple and engaging. "Filipino Americans should vote for Kamala Harris in November," it read, topping a front-page piece by one of this newspaper's most distinguished columnists.
Hmm, I thought, that's interesting. I wonder what argument he's making?
Reaching its crux, however, nearly cost me my lunch. "During our people's bitter struggle with America...in 1899," the esteemed columnist wrote, "black troops sent to the archipelago freely elected to fight with our people...This should be enough to make some of us vote for Vice President Harris and help make her the second black president and first female president of the United States."
Wow, my rudely awakened soul bellowed loudly enough to cause indigestion, he can't be serious! Using exactly the same logic, couldn't Fil-Ams be urged to vote for Donal Trump because he's white like Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who, in 1944, liberated the Philippines from its Japanese occupiers?
At least one reader apparently agreed. "You're saying she is black, and she is female, so vote for her?" the reader wondered. "Isn't that racist and sexist?"
While I certainly believe the answers are yes and yes, I don't think this columnist, who otherwise seems relatively intelligent, intended it to be taken that way. No, instead, I think he was simply regurgitating something that, unfortunately, has become prevalent in modern America, namely so-called "identity politics."
Which simply means that the single most important and defining characteristic of anyone is their color. Or, if deemed more useful, what they have between their legs. Unless, of course, they are transgender, in which case such distinctions are not considered.
Is identity politics sexist? You bet! Racist? Certainly, by definition! About as racist as the Ku Klux Klan waving confederate flags in Alabama. It also was invented and is primarily used by Kamala Harris' own Democratic Party. In fact, Harris' race and gender were admittedly Joe Biden's primary reasons for picking her as his running mate in 2020, which catapulted her to where she is today. Apparently, he considered those factors the potential president's major qualifications for office, an assessment obviously shared by a certain Manila Times columnist.
Given the Democratic Party's history, actually, it's not so surprising they've made race the sharpest tool in their political shed. The Democrats, after all, were the party of slavery prior to the American Civil War. The southern "Dixiecrats," as they were called, not only supported those Ku Klux Klansmen waving flags, but often were them. It took Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican, to finally liberate the slaves.
As soon as the ever-resourceful Democrats realized slavery was gone forever, however, they came up with its alternative. Rather than keeping blacks on plantations, they decided, why not oppress them in new and more subtle ways? Why not, for instance, convince them they can't make it on their own without massive lifelong government aid? And since that aid was largely provided by Democrats, well, those poor, disadvantaged black people would just have to vote Democratic.
Identity politics is simply the latest incarnation of that plan. By convincing voters their color or gender uniquely defines their specific social needs, the Democrats accomplish two things. First, they keep the populace sharply and eternally divided. And second, they assure the continued support of those they deem "oppressed."
Hmm, not exactly what civil rights visionary Martin Luther King had in mind in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech delivered before a cheering crowd at Washington D.C.'s Lincoln Memorial in 1963. "I have a dream," he said, "that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Bottom line: How Fil-Ams vote is their own business. I pray, though, that it won't be based on who has the right skin color or politically correct genitalia.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book is A Tooth in My Popsicle and Other Ebullient Essays on Becoming Filipino.
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