Progressive’s attack on Julián Castro is really about big-tent muck
By Victor Landa, NewsTaco (4 minute read)
Before it became a headline Joe Velazquez’s resignation letter from the Board of Directors of the American Family Voices organization circulated widely among Latino activist, organizer, and pol networks. I read it, forwarded to me at one degree of separation (I’m a little miffed, though. I know Joe. We were roomies at the DNC in Charlotte, even though we’ve talked maybe four times since, and I got his epic letter second-hand).
It reminded me of one of those Hemingway short story challenges: write a story in fifteen words. This one took Joe two hundred and twenty-six words (greeting, closing and signature included), and has most of the elements needed for a good political drama – conflict, innuendo, power play, back stabbing, sarcasm. It’s a really good letter.
[pullquote]It’s like watching a train wreck that you know is going to happen.[/pullquote]I’ll summarize the context.
HUD Secretary Julián Castro’s name has gotten the largest share of the mentions as a possible Hillary Clinton running-mate. That may be because he’s young, accomplished and Latino, and that combination is golden these days. He’s also made housing affordability an emphasis of his tenure at HUD. Part of that effort is the restructuring of long-debt mortgages for low-to-moderate income families stuck with top-heavy loans. One of the floated ideas was to sell the loan paper to non-profit organizations that would have the home owner’s best interests in mind. But, according to some housing activist organizations, Castro didn’t do that, he instead sold up to 98 percent of those loans to Wall Street. The organizations got angry, sent a letter to Castro, publicized their discontent and questioned the Secretary’s worthiness to be a Veep candidate. One of the signatory organizations is American Family Voices, of which Joe Velasquez was a board member. Joe privately asked that the letter and the condemnation be rescinded, it wasn’t, so he wrote the letter and resigned.
[pullquote]The moment Latinos are bandied as the go-to constituency for political victory is the moment Latinos become a political commodity.[/pullquote]There’s a lot to dissect.
In the short time that the letter has been circulating some Latino organizations have sided with Velaqsquez. It’s become an intra-Latino thing, since the letter categorized the attack against Castro as “an attack on the Latino community.” On one side is Presente.org, the only Latino organization in the coalition of groups that criticized Castro, and congressman Raul Grijalva who’s been a leading voice in the mortgage issue. On the other side are some of the mainstays of Latino activism grouped together in the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA). Bobbing along in the wake of the split are other progressive organizations that are watching, maybe smirking, as this story unfolds.
It’s hard to ignore what’s meant between the lines. Here’s the letter, sans the greeting, closing and signature:
I regretfully tender my resignation from the Board of America Family Voices.
It’s untenable for me to serve on the Board of AFV after the organization contributed to the ad hominem attacks on a fellow Latino to disqualify him for consideration for Hillary Clinton’s VP; on the odd basis he’s not progressive enough. Julian Castro was born a progressive and he knows social injustice first hand. He has stronger progressive credentials than most of the signatories to the attack letter. But that aside, he’s one of the leading Latino leaders in the country. An attack on him is an attack on the Latino community.
Make no mistake; this is not a debate on the merits of the HUD regulation intended to protect poor homeowners. This is about the tactic these groups are using to further their own political agenda. Some observers believe this a blatant political hatchet job perpetrated by the Sanders campaign. The fact a top political aide to Senator Sanders was the former head of Presente, the sole Latino organization in the cabal, fuels that thinking. And it’s unfortunate Presente is active in this caper. They give the white people license to attack a progressive Latino.
It would be appropriate for the Board to make a public apologize to the Secretary.
It’s an oh-wow moment, like watching a train wreck that you know is going to happen. But it wouldn’t be if not for the presidential backdrop – this is trickle-down politics that exposes the dark underbelly of the progressive polity. This is about Hillary and Bernie, and Latinos battling in the muddy trenches, pitted against other Latinos.
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This was Joe’s point to begin with. Long-term top-heavy mortgages are a burden to many Latino families, and none of those families are helped by presidential campaign partisans attacking the opposition’s flank. Then again, it’s the price to play.
Hear me out.
[tweet_dis]The moment Latinos are bandied as the go-to constituency for political victory is the moment Latinos become a political commodity.[/tweet_dis] And politics is mucky. If you want to play in the big tent you have to walk in the muck. So there’s nothing extraordinary about the resignation letter, except that it makes a good point, and it shines a light down a dark path.As I mentioned before, I know Joe, and I think I know what he meant: this is underhanded, and it’s dirty, and he’s not going there.
But by the mere fact of resigning Joe has forced us to debate the issue at a deeper level – it’s become a topic du-jour in news cycles that tick away on clocks, not calendars. It’s part of playing in the big tent, muck and all. But I think a part of debate should include an open-eyed knowledge of when Latinos are being played and when it’s a legitimate discussion.
And that’s a talk worth having.
[Photo courtesy of Politico]
