It's unfortunate that Mitt Romney's comment that his electoral prospects would improve if he were Latino hasn't received more attention (a raindrop in a monsoon of fail). I think it speaks well to the way the American right has tried to reverse the narrative of white privilege. It goes back to Reagan and 'welfare queens driving Cadillacs.' Racial identity is treated as a commodity that buys access to certain goods (e.g. affirmative action, food stamps, electability) at the expense of the white majority. Thus, we have a narrative of white victimhood. This story, of course, strips away the social context of race in America, treating it as an incidental category - as if Latino Mitt Romney could be created merely by changing the color of his skin. The question of whether this counterfactual Romney family would have been able to achieve the same success in a majority white America is, of course, not asked. The comment is telling, and illustrative of an ignorant and truly naive world view.
“My dad, as you probably know, was the governor of Michigan and was the head of a car company. But he was born in Mexico… and had he been born of Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot at winning this. But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico. He lived there for a number of years. I mean, I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful to be Latino.”
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