VivirLatino

Earlier this week, VivirLatino published a letter from an Indigenous community in Colombia to President Elect Obama.

One point that we, and other blogfriends have been trying to make ever since the start of the very long road to the White House, was that the way race and racial politics are talked about and analyzed needs to change. There was a clear reason why being Black and Latino was viewed as two mutually exclusive realms of being. One Afro Colombiano writes about his own hopes, expectations and thoughts post the Obama win.

Aiden Salgado writes:

I believe that the triumph of this African American man needs to be looked at very carefully because there is a risk of falling into Obama-itis and into thinking that Obama is superman and that he can solve all of our problems overnight. Ladies and Gentlemen, if Obama has any urgent task, it is to sweep up the mess that Bush has left throughout the world. In order to do so, he can start with the war in Iraq, with supporting a peace process in the Middle East that doesn’t involve backing the aggressions of Israel against their neighbors, and he should pull the U.S. government’s unconditional support for policies of the Colombian government and President Álvaro Uribe Vélez which have been violating human rights.

Related is a series of posts up at The Unapologetic Mexican, featuring the words of African-Americans, specifically their perspectives on Obama. Today’s featured post is from an Afro-Latino educator and blogger Jose Vilson. Jose writes:

My biggest reason for voting came in the form of 30 or so students in a classroom in Washington Heights of New York City. All of them are considered English language learners, all of Latin@ descent, and all from immigrant populations. Their engagement in this political race has surprised and inspired me. Their worst and best ideas about politics comes to the fore, and while some of the ideas are certainly prejudice (”White people vote for McCain” won’t stand the test of time), I also see a great opportunity to help develop better-informed citizens and participants in a still-exclusive fraternity.

You can Jose’s entire post over at UMX.

You can read the entire letter from Aiden Salgado after the jump.

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