New Mexico in Focus; 134; Race in New Mexico

You Race is obviously a big issue in the presidential campaign, but how big of an issue is it here in New Mexico? Does our diverse history make us the perfect melting pot or are the racial and ethnic tensions in our state ready to boil over? A candid conversation about race and ethnic relations ahead this week on New Mexico and Focus. Plus, Hillary stays alive in the race for the White House, another big victory for the spaceport America project in the latest battle over the fight for the use of tax increment financing here in Albuquerque. Hold on tight. New Mexico and Focus starts now. David, a big show this week. We're going to touch on the Hillary Clinton win in

Pennsylvania for sure. We're on to Indiana. This is going to be very interesting after that primary. Plus, the panelists are ready to sound off on that in a big vote in Sierra County for the spaceport America project. I think so. That was a resounding yes. And the debate rages over the use of tax increment financing here in Albuquerque. So we've got all that come up to talk about. Oh yeah. We also had a chance to talk with the state historian Estevan Rial Galvez and a law professor at UNM Laura Gomez who has a fascinating new book on the subject of the Mexican American race, New Mexico history. And we had a chance to talk about how that all plays out nowadays in terms of the presidential campaign. It's an interesting discussion. It is. You know, and what we're going to take on outside of the studio is how after Obama brought this to the national spotlight with his classic now classic speech on race, how is that manifesting here in New Mexico? You know, sometimes we like to feel that we're so diverse and we're so welcoming and other things that we like to say about ourselves. But we're wondering if that's manifesting itself with the new Mexico is one of the most

integrated states. And what we try to do is we actually went on the streets this week earlier this week and put that very question as some everyday people we met. And we are here in Baudela, New Mexico just out the Albuquerque here at the famous Baudela's coffee house where you can often see a politician or two. We are after their lunch about the state's history, about how people get along in this state or how sometimes they don't. I think that the people here are friendlier than many other places. Do you think people who are of different, you know, races or ethnic groups, say immigrants or native born folks? Do you think among those folks, people get along generally okay? I think so. I think that is one of the female things that Baudela has worked. Being here 17 years, I've seen a lot of change and I like the fact that New Mexico keeps like their tradition. We keep our, you know, New Mexico, Hispanic, you know, Spaniard tradition. Like you see it in the

arts and the architect and we're just like a determined state that we're gonna keep that. I like that. I just think that the fact that we're in such a mixture of cultures and we've been able to coexist all these years and we're as people, a blend of those cultures and yet even though we're a blend, we still maintain the pieces that we brought to the to the culture. All the tribes and then, you know, even the people, they all have their differences but I think those didn't get along. Do you think it's been changing for the better like over the last, I don't know, a few decades in terms of, you know, people who are native, people who are Hispanic, people who are Anglo getting along in this state. I think more of them are getting along but then a lot of the, too, the natives, a lot of them are like losing a lot of their cultures and they're more talking like a lot of their kids are talking more English and stuff like that than they are their own language. One thing that often comes up is kind of immigration. Do you think that that's kind of been a bit of a, I don't know, a a, a burr under

the saddle so to speak? It's a burr under my saddle. Yeah, what do you, how do you feel about it? Well, I'm retired from a career in the US board show. So, so if you ask me about that, you're going to get an earful. I think it's a big detriment to our country. I think it's a detriment to the well -being of our country and to the economy of our country. And, you know, I have, I have a lot of good relations with people of Hispanic, of Hispanic culture. Yeah. But to me, if you look at that, that's your liberty and it says, send me your poor, huddled masses. It doesn't say illegal. And the people that built this country came over here. They came over here legally. Well, I think it is an issue. I, being Hispanic myself, it's, it's, it's hard, you know. You know, I understand what they're, you know, they're coming over. I understand being American, where the, the, the conflict is, hey, you know, why are we learning Spanish? You know, we should just, or English. I understand both sides, so there's a conflict there.

And I, I can understand both sides. And I don't know, it's, it's a hard one. America, as I guess, is based on different backgrounds. And New Mexico has a lot of different backgrounds. Yeah, a lot of different backgrounds. Everybody's from a different background and different nationality and stuff like that. So, do you think that's good for New Mexico that we have all those different backgrounds? I really undecided. I think so because we're all mixed, you know, everybody's all has a different background. I think it's good too that everybody's like that. You think some of these differences that we have in our state play out in our politics? I think they probably do to a certain extent. It's, it's changing a little bit from what I can remember back, what I, what I experienced and what I heard about of where you, you, we're, we're getting away from the patron type of atmosphere of where it's, it's really one, one person, one party. And we're getting a lot more varied politicians now. Coming here, it was really weird that there was so many Native

Americans. And I like, wow, that, to me, that was a great experience to see another culture, you know, a, a major culture that, you know, I wasn't aware of and I met a lot of nice people. I'm very interested in their culture too. A mix is always a, a good thing. You look at plants that we develop, their hybrids. And you look at people, their hybrids too. And hopefully we get the best of both worlds. It almost seems like one thing that brings everyone together is a place like the Baudela's Coffee House where everyone can rally around the food. The whole food once in a while. Agreed, Joey, I didn't know this here, but I lost the best even from Texas. And we have two special guests with us today to discuss the issues of race and ethnicity here in New Mexico and nationwide. First, we have Laura Gomez, who is a professor at UNM's law school in addition to teaching at the American Studies Department. Her newest book is Manifest Estonies. We also are joined by Dr. Esteban Rial Galves, who's the State

Historian since 2001. I should mention, of course, Laura Gomez is, of course, also a PhD in addition to teaching the law school. Let me begin with you, Laura. It's a big topic, of course. I've heard many people say New Mexico is a very integrated state. How would you assess how race and ethnicity continue to play a factor here in New Mexico? I think to talk about racial mixture in New Mexico compared to other places. I think it's a fair thing to say that there's actually more social interaction across racial groups in New Mexico than in lots of other places. But I think we sometimes in New Mexico want to understate the degree to which these racial differences remain quite persistent and powerful. So, for example, when we think about the kind of boardroomed context, sort of more upper -class context in Albuquerque, certainly in Santa Fe, we still see that there's lots of spaces which are predominantly white, not because of legal exclusions, of

course, right, and not because of intentional exclusions necessarily, but because of the sort of persistence of wealth and class and equality that has been so closely associated with race in New Mexico and elsewhere. Esteban, you, of course, are an expert in this state's history. I wonder if our histories say going back to the 1800s, the Santa Fe Trail, being on the cusp of kind of two worlds, certainly to be in the trail in Mexico and then afterwards then being in one country. But did that experience, you think, bring about this mixture, bring about this integration that maybe in some degree, to some degree we have today? David, it's actually a great question because it opens, it ties how the history of the state is very connected to a contemporary society, but I actually want to sort of play off something that Laura just mentioned in terms of the class disparities. Just yesterday we saw carried in some of the papers, the gap between the rich and the poor is the

greatest here in New Mexico, greater than most states in the union, and I believe that a lot of that has to do with, with part of the racialized categories that were created in the past. So that present condition is very much connected to the past and I can talk about that a little bit more of you would like, but I think in terms of the 1800s, New Mexico is a history of layers, right? One of the things that happens with, when a country occupies another country, which is what happened in New Mexico when the U .S. occupied this area is that with resources and people also comes a history and you also inherit that, but what happens with that occupied territory is it gets placed underneath the surface and that's I think part of what remains sort of endemic in issues about race and class in this country. Maybe to take one step back, generally

speaking, how does our history inform these contemporary debates? Well, in New Mexico, for instance, there's a whole other racial paradigm that comes into existence in the late 19th century and Laura has written about this in terms of Spanish, Anglo, and Indian and that paradigm is equally as false as the paradigm that exists in the nation as a whole in terms of black and white. It's much more rich richly textured, right? With people being categorized in the Spanish colonial period in different ways, cast -wise, mestizo, lobo, castizo, all of these different categories that change over time and part of the the way that that reflects in terms of the contemporary societies informs it. And one thing that might be useful to David is build a little bit on that by saying that what I've tried to do in this book

is think about how those systems came together, right? So we had the Spanish Mexican racial border and we had the Anglo -American racial order. And when the U .S. invaded New Mexico and then at the end of the war takes sovereignty over New Mexico, the old system doesn't go away, right? The systems interact. And that, I think, is part of what makes New Mexico in the Southwest generally have sort of a different racial look than looking at, let's say, the Eastern United States, the Eastern Seaboard and looking at North South dynamics. So it leads us to a different place today. Well, you know, following up on that, let me ask this in first, I should show our book, Manifest Destiny is the Making of the Mexican -American Race, just a couple months or a few months out. You mentioned in this book that in New Mexico, we had a situation where many people were legally white, but socially non -white. What does that mean? Well, so I'm sort of playing with the idea that there are, that race is

constructed in sort of at multiple sites and in multiple, sometimes contradictory ways. So for example, on paper, when the war ends with the Treaty of Guadalupe de Algo, 115 ,000 Mexicans become U .S. citizens at a time when the U .S. didn't allow anyone but white persons to become citizens. So on paper that sounds like the U .S. is saying, okay, Mexicans are white, we're welcoming them into our society. But there's a bunch of other evidence from debates at Congress, in Congress, and in the press before the war, around the treaty in terms of how society in New Mexico was organized afterwards that made it quite clear that white Euro -Americans did not tend to see Mexicans as white. And Mexicans didn't see themselves as white. And it's just a footnote, and this may be something that you want to elaborate on as well as that one, is I'm using the term Mexican to talk about the Spanish -Indian

-American people who were living here in New Mexico prior to the American contact and their descendants. You want to jump in as that one? Absolutely. I believe that that informs it at that early time period very much in terms of how people are racialized. And what's interesting in the first four decades of the 20th century, there's a people gravitate towards that category of trying to whiteen themselves with a sense, with a mytholized sense that it's going to protect them in some way from the discrimination. And maybe to bring that to the present day, I mean, one thing I've heard from people I know very well, who have clearly a Mexican heritage refer to themselves as Spanish, as if their family was kind of parachuted down directly from Spain bypassing the history of kind of north or south to north that in many

ways this place was settled. What do you make a step on of that kind of contemporary sort of reference point that many espannals here in the States have, particularly in the north, that we are Spanish, not Mexican? Well, while I immediately want to criticize it, there's a historical context in which that comes into being, as I said, to protect themselves, thinking that by categorizing themselves in some not just a Spanish -ness, but a nobility that is going to protect them from that discrimination. But it's not true. I mean, part of that is a myth that is conjured up by other people, that people who have come into New Mexico into Santa Fe in particular, whether it's artists or writers or other individuals who come in and try and glorify the Spanish settlement in this area. And by doing that, they're trying to pitch that idea, which eventually people buy into, hoping that it will protect them from the issues that are happening in those first four decades of the 20th century, but

essentially, it doesn't. They're still being subject to the same sort of issues of discrimination that other people are in the country. And let me just elaborate that on that a little bit, because my claim is that it is very consistent with the seven's position here, that in that period, let's say the first three, four decades after the American occupation of New Mexico, this emerges, this claim to Spanish heritage, that's right, 1878. Certainly by the 1880s or so, 1890s or so, that is emerging as a way to blunt discrimination against Mexican origin people. So it's actually emerges, as the seven said, not just from, and probably not even initially, from the Mexican origin people here, but from white Euro -Americans like LeBaron Bradford Prince, who was first here in New Mexico in the 1870s as Chief Justice

of the Territorial Supreme Court, then was appointed governor in the Territorial Legislature. Sometimes he's referred to as the father of New Mexico statehood, but his idea was to call on this notion of the Spanish conquest of the Indians of the region as the European pedigree for the Mexican origin people in a way that allowed the sort of escape from the discrimination which was preventing New Mexico from becoming a state, right, the discrimination in Congress and in the mainstream media. What's another side of that history, Laura, that, and I think you write about this in your book, as well, that in New Mexico you had this unique circumstance where unlike other places, California and Texas, the, let's say, Hispanic population and the Native American population, outnumbered the Anglo -population, and so they couldn't be as easily displaced, and so consequently we have a very different history here than in other places. Right, just let me say a little bit about that, and then I'm sure that Estela is going to want to comment on some of that as well, but if you just compare, let's just look at the three northern territories that

Mexico had, Alta California, Dejas, and New Mexico, and what happened to those regions, right? Texas becomes a state, is admitted to the union in 1845, by the 18, early 1830s, in Mexican Texas, there were more white -year Americans than Mexicans. Many of them there incidentally as illegal aliens because they were not complying with Mexico's immigration laws, but so there's no question that Texas becomes a state so quickly because whites outnumber Mexicans. In California, within a year after the discovery of gold, Euro -Americans outnumber Mexicans, and Texas is admitted as a state in 1850, what happens to New Mexico? New Mexico becomes a federal territory in 1850, and stays in that political limbo until 1912, of course, and I would contend that that's largely because of its majority Indian and Mexican population. In Seventh, definitely, I'd love to

know your thoughts on what Laura just said, but let me read one thing, a line from Laura's book, and I think it plays into this, in terms of this history, where the claiming of whiteness here in New Mexico led to many Mexicans becoming, quote, agents in the reproduction of racial subordination and contributed to the consolidation of a new version of white supremacy in the Southwest. Is that what happened? Oh, absolutely. I mean, Laura has it absolutely right, and this is precisely what she was talking about in terms of those agents because they play into their participating as judges, as jurors, as agents at almost every level, except the top -tier levels, which is what happens within a territory. All those top officials are appointed by the US, by the president of the United States, but they're still participating as agents contributing to that sort of hierarchy that's being put forward within the state. And contributing to the subordination of Indians, largely, public Indians and other Indians

in New Mexico? And that's something you've written about quite a bit, Esteban. It is, absolutely. I'm interested in terms of how identity ends up becoming, identity is formed out of the foundation of issues of slavery that are being subject at this very moment at time in the 1850s, 1860s. So I'm interested in a slightly different way, but certainly indigenous peoples at all levels, including the fact that public Indians at that same time period still could not have the right to vote. So that was also part of that. But an interesting thing, David, in terms of that subordination that's happening and the agency that's being played by Hispanics in the state at that time, and the territory at that time, is how people are, it's part of the contradictions, how people are sort of shaping and constructing their own identities and how they're thinking that it's blunting that sort of racism that they're going to face.

When some people were asked in Spanish, how do you identify? They said, so most Mexicans, when they were asked the same question in English, this was, came from a survey that happened, I think, in the 1940s, Laura. Does that sound right? When they were asked the same question in English, they said Spanish -American. So it's subject to those same sort of contradictions and how they were identifying, but they still thought by identifying with a Spanish past, it would blunt that racism and it didn't. Well, maybe going from past to present, one issue that seems nowadays to really drive race and our discussion of race in this country's immigration. And maybe one way to begin a little bit of this discussion, I'm curious, Laura, why is it that if about half of illegal immigrants in this country are European, Canadian, non -Hispanic, but say half are mostly Mexican or Central American, why does this debate have such a racial tinge to it? I think it has to do with

the power of race and the power of this sort of trope of Mexicans coming, swarming across the border. It's a very, it has been rooted in our culture for some decades now. And it's one of those things that once those things get rooted, it's hard sometimes to dislodge them with the realities of, let's say, empirical evidence to the contrary. Like, you know, there's a lot of illegal aliens who come from Ireland and from Canada, right? We don't talk about them. It's constructed as a problem of Mexicans, and not even just other Latin Americans, right, but of Mexicans. And I guess I was, Esteban's earlier point about the kind of situational nature of identity, I think is very much present today, right, so that if we talk to people about their

views of themselves, they would say that they're Mexican or Hispanic or Mexican -American in different contexts. They might use all of those terms, right? The same person might embrace all of those terms, but in very different context. And part of the context today is people sometimes trying to distance themselves from these illegal aliens, right, from the presumptive illegal aliens. Esteban, are there historical roots to this, this dynamic we often see here in New Mexico that seems to pit Native -born Hispanics versus recent immigrants, often from Mexico, and the tension that you see in Santa Fe, there's fights that play out at high schools. Are there historical roots to this kind of very contemporary tension here? Yes, I mean, that tension has been much more pronounced, I think, in the past few decades, but those roots continue to exist. But there's much more similarities the fact that Mexicans have been coming across

a border for millennium, if not for the past couple of centuries, should break through that mythology that there's more similarities between people who live in and have settled in New Mexico for many generations and the people from other states of Mexico and in Central America. But I think it's mostly based on a mythology than historical roots of those tensions, you know, but I think part of it, David, is that in order to break through that mythology, we have to start telling individual stories. Exactly, like stories of, you know, people talk in the immigration debate today about mixed families and sometimes when they talk about that, they're referring to families that are part documented and part undocumented, right? Some part of the family has legal papers to be here or is born here? Well, it's actually much more complicated than that. You see it play out in all sorts of complex ways. Sometimes it's one parent, but not the kids. They were just interesting migration patterns. But there's another way in which we have mixed families is that many of us in my family certainly included, we don't have,

I only have to go back to my paternal grandfather to have an ancestor directly from Mexico, even though I have my paternal grandmother's side, I can go back many, many, many generations in New Mexico. So, you know, I think that that's frequently the case. I think that a couple of things have changed. One is that, so we've always had immigration from from Mexico to New Mexico, and we've always integrated new, new Mexicans into the community here, but we are having increased immigration, right? In the last 30 years, you know, that has changed and that is a reality, legal and illegal. The other thing is that because of this sort of public hysteria and the debate about immigration, that did I think there is a real incentive to sort of say, oh, I'm not like those people, you know, there's a real othering of immigrants with the presumption that they're undocumented immigrants, which is not at all justified. One thing you mentioned, Laura, our time is is running low, but one thing I definitely wanted us to talk about a little bit was this presidential campaign that's playing out these days. You mentioned

mixed families arguably the most famous mixed American these days is Barack Obama, and I guess it could have been maybe Bill Richardson also mixed in a sense, but of course he didn't do quite as well as Obama. It's just out of curiosity, maybe being with US7. What do you make of this racial race debate that has been inspired? Let's say by the candidacy of Obama and all the various things that means. Well, I find it so interesting, and Senator Obama brought it up in his speech about sort of tackling, we cannot run away from talking about race in this country. But one of the things that we have to know is that in many ways that's a beginning of a dialogue, but it's also a dialogue that's been happening for a long time in terms of racialized categories. He opens it up, and we should sort of fall into that in a way to talk about the much more complex issues. The reason I talked about individual stories is in that speech

about a more perfect union he talked explicitly about his particular story, and what that story of being the son of a white woman and an African immigrant really has to do in terms of shaping this category and dialogue about race. But Laura, part of the context of that speech coming about in my sense certainly is that there had been this black brown divide that many analysts were pointing to in Texas and in other places where Hillary was winning Latino votes and Obama apparently wasn't. What do you make of that? Can I get back to that question after I get a little bit more? This is one of the dangers of having this conversation, right? You want to get it on all these these questions. So it's a great question. But I just want to say one thing about your Richardson question, which is, you know, the difference between how Richardson's racial background was portrayed and Obama's has been portrayed says a lot about how we differently racialized Latinos from African Americans in this country. So our 20th century inheritance is that your black, if you have one drop of black blood, the one

drop rule, that's, you know, that's been the assumption that we've had. If you look part black, you are part black. So Barack Obama didn't really have a choice about being black in a sense, you know? I mean, there's this interesting media coverage on his early identification and going out. But he did not have a choice. He was going to be viewed as black. Bill Richardson did have a choice in some senses, right? And that's where typically we're viewing that as ethnicity, something that he had a choice about how significant it was that his mother was Mexican and his father was a white U .S. citizen that, you know, that shaped his life much differently than it shaped Obama's life, right? To have a black African father. And quickly this debate that plays out today is black brown debate. So, you know, my, my own take on that, I won't say too much because I don't know if you want to address that as well, is that that has been, that has been overplayed by the media. I think the media has been quick to say when we talk about Latinos, we're talking about new immigrants and they don't have this historical track record, rather than looking at the sort of decades and

more of alliances between blacks and Hispanics and cities like Los Angeles, where blacks were a stalwart of mayor Bradley's administration, cities like Chicago, where the election of Harold Washington as the first modern black mayor was, was dependent on Puerto Rican and Mexican American votes in Chicago. And there are other places where we can, we can look at that black, black, brown alliance. I think the media has been less interested in that than, you know, because, and I think part of it is there's just an oversimplication of who Latinos are, you know, there's, there's a lack of knowledge on the mainstream media's part and a lack of interest, frankly. What's your take, Esteban Briefly, on this, this debate that has played out with Obama, Latino votes kind of in the crosshairs it seems? I actually think it has also been overplayed by the media. And something that he's, he's tried to open up in many different ways by talking about his own father's experience as an, as an immigrant as well. And I think that resonates for a lot of

Latinos, but to, to Laura's point of the fact that they're, that the general public is not interested in, in Latino history sort of speaks to this, I think that's absolutely true. I mean, this is the point that I was trying to make with what happens in, in 1848, is that there's sort of a narration of all of that history that comes with the people who have settled in the Southwest, and it's a much more complex history, but people aren't interested, unfortunately, in learning that. Well, we're interested, and, and maybe this can be our last question, Esteban, and I know you mentioned this also in your book, Laura, but in the territorial time, if we can go back real quick, the, the history to end. My understanding is that you've documented, you know, countless kind of racial definitions that were used, particularly by the Spanish. Nowadays, it seems like we've, we've whittled those down to just a few. Does that mark progress in how we think of race and ethnicity in a place like New Mexico? It's a long story, David. Spanish colonial period, there were many categories in which people were cast, and how you were labeled,

dictated who you could marry, what you could own, where you could live, all sorts of issues like that. So there were multiple categories. Under the Mexican Republic, there was a plan of Guatemala that erased all those categories, and if essentially one of the tragedies that happened at that time period, in the erasure, in the creating of a nationalism, also was that there was a racial erasure of indigenous tribal identities as well, in which people lost sense of sovereignty, right? Sometimes land. And land, definitely. So, you know, but the progress, I'm not sure if less categories, more categories really gets us into talk about progress or not, because in both spectrums, where there is more categories, it also determined a racialized space in terms of who you could marry and all of those things. At the same time, I think there's no question that if we sort of think about where we are in this moment that, you know, it's very

exciting, as many people have said, right? In this moment, have had this presidential race where we have a white woman who is vying for the Democratic nomination, an African -American man who's vying for the Democratic nomination, a Hispanic man who was a contender for the Democratic nomination. Of course, things have changed tremendously, right? Does that mean that we are done with race and that we're sort of in a post -racial world? I think not, but, you know, it doesn't mean that things have changed. Well, on that note, we are going to have to end this conversation. I'm sure we could have gone much longer, and maybe we will after this, but I want to thank both of you for attending and talking with this. Laura Gomez, the book is Manifest Estonese, the making of the Mexican -American race, Professor at UNM Law School, and Esteban Rialgolves, the state historian. Thanks again. Now it's time to go back to Gene. Thanks. Thank you, David, and also to Laura and Esteban, that was very interesting. Recent headlines give us a pair of examples of the ongoing racial tensions here in our state. We're going to pick up with that

subject with the diversity training at Sandia Labs that had so many people claiming it implied that all white people are racist. And the other happened at New Mexico State University where racial harassment allegations are flying after a scandal broke out about a top administrator, allegedly emailing pornographic pictures to a professor, and a lot more than that. We'll get into it. But first, let's introduce our panels for this week. Before we get too deeply into that, our regulars, Margaret Montoya, a professor at UNM, with the schools of law and medicine. Jim Scarentino, an award -winning columnist with the weekly alibi. He's also a new contributor to the Heath Houseman political blog. Our third regular, Scott Arnell. He's the communications director at the State Republican Party. We're very pleased to have us our guest this week, Dr. Harold Bailey, Executive Director of the State Office of African -American Affairs. Welcome, Doc, and welcome to you all. Scott, let's get right into this. Have you taken a cut at the Diversity Leadership Council flap that happened at Sandia Labs? We had an announcement at Sandia in employee email, announcing a

workshop about some diversity training, very common in this world of ours. However, the titling and the meat of the subject set some folks off. How did this hit you? Well, you know, I don't get offended at a lot. I really don't, especially on matters of race and ethnicity. A lot of times I think we're sometimes overly serious about those sorts of things. But this was when I first read it offensive. I printed it out, put it up on the bulletin board, probably read the article two or three times. The problem is, I mean, it says right there that white people are likely to persist in racist behaviors unless persuaded to abolish the privileges, they receive as members of the white race. It uses terms like white privilege. The entire purpose of it was to, in large part, educate and tell that people who are members of the white race that they need to be more sensitive to and understand the situation and circumstances of those of ethnic minorities. With that sort of language, and I've always said this, when we use race or ethnicity to divide us and separate us, it indeed will always do

that. Divide us and separate us. And I think that this is a prime example. I mean, I don't have any problem coming to a table and we as society groups, organizations, governments, so on and so forth should be able to have a dialogue about how we continue the progress that we've made as far as eradicating racism from the society in which we live. There's no problem with that, but when you use such anti -white, angry language that creates a we versus them mentality, what you've done is labeled an entire group of people as the perpetrators, as the enemy. Like I said, it's a we versus them and I don't think that we get anything, gain anything. And in fact, we may lose a lot and create resentment that probably prior to this point, a lot of people in San Diego, you know, when that prior to receiving that email. Maybe there wasn't some of that resentment, but that could have created and brought it to ahead. Let me angle across to Margaret on this. It's interesting what Scott said and what's come to mind for me on this

is perhaps it was a problem. I totally appreciate what you just read there. That's probably news to some folks if they hadn't seen the details. Would they have been better off the planning folks for this using more of a Trojan horse approach? Like really just saying we're going to talk about diversity in background and perhaps privilege. And did they blow an opportunity by being so stark with this kind of language? I think that there are two ways of looking at this. I think that there has been more conversation about this because of the language that they quoted from Professor Allen from Ricculee Allen's work. Then if this had gone off the way that most diversity training goes off, very much involving the people who are already persuaded that we should be talking about how we can use diversity to make for a more productive workforce. So I think that there is in fact a lot to be said

for conflict in this area. That people begin exploring it. I think it's unfortunate when this kind of language shuts down the conversation. And let me make an analogy. If we were talking about using sidewalks where there aren't curb cuts, I might say, well, you know, this is a privilege that benefits people who don't have mobility disabilities. But when you have curb cuts, in fact many different people get benefited. People in wheelchairs, but people with strollers, people on bikes. And so this idea of privilege is usually volatile when we're talking about racial privileges. Because when we're talking about racial privileges, it incites people because they think that they are being charged with the personal

animus. When frequently what is being explored are the institutional and structural aspects. And if we look at such things as the wage report that came out, if we look at income and wealth inequalities, if we look at the subprime mess, all of those are evidence of racial privilege. The fact that Latinos, African -Americans, Native people are tremendously burdened by race, that the way that decisions are made in giving credit, the way that people are paid is a function of race. And let me get to Dr. Bailey and Jim, we're going to just a little bit of time on this. Dr. Bailey, how did the situation hit you? Margaret makes a very interesting point there. Institutional racism versus putting people to the wall in implying that they inherently have some racist attitudes that are keeping things from moving forward. Well, just

in regards to the Sandia lab situation, I think that they could have used better words to clarify what the workshop was going to be about. But at the same time, I think we understand history in America. There is white privilege in New Mexico and America. But I just think it was a bad, a poor choice of words. And I think that some of the people who will miss this workshop would probably be missing out on a few things because I think the intent of the workshop was to bring out some issues and stimulate some of very interesting conversations. So I think it was maybe like a poor choice of words. In the interim, of course, that the person that was going to lead that workshop at Sandia has backed out. It's not going to happen. But there was a bigger workshop going on. It happened, excuse me, yesterday, Thursday at the convention center. So, Mr. Billy's missing out is actually a really good point. Jim, why don't you finish this one? Ricky Lee Allen is his name and I'm not surprised he backed out because racism just can't, it's indefensible. And in fairness to

Professor Allen, I looked at his writings because I could not believe that I would see these words bandied about that there would be stereotyping by Professor at UNM. To get beyond racism, we have to look at individual value, person to person, their aspirations, their hopes, their kindness. And when we get into abstraction, that's the first step, I think, to racism and racial stereotyping. And I went and read some of Professor's Allen's works and I'm very sad that we have a person like this at UNM. This is his writing from an essay, Whiteness and Critical Pedagogy. The typical white person would hate to think of himself as a racist, let alone as a white supremacist. Yet this is the case. The best a white person can be is a white anti -racist racist. I think we have to condemn racism wherever it rears its head. And we must condemn it in this case as rapidly as we would charge from our own house to knock down a burning cross in a neighbor's yard. Well said, and that's going to finish it for this segment, but we will revisit this at some point. Obviously this is a

deep issue and we're going to tackle this one here many times I'm sure. Now, Senator Hillary Clinton needs to do more than just when Pennsylvania, of course, she got that 10 point when she needed this week. And our camp is actually claiming that Hillary is now ahead in the popular vote after Tuesday. Barack Obama still holds an insurmountable lead in terms of delegates. Jim, let me go back to you. What's your take on the spin coming out of the camp? It's been heavy duty this week following Pennsylvania. I feel sorry for the Democratic Party. It's just no end in sight. And John McCain is trespassing on Democratic turf. He's in New Orleans today next to Bobby Jindal, the first Indian subcontinent Indian elected governor in the state, touring the ninth ward, speaking to democratic constituents. In the meantime, the Democrats are tapping their their limited pool of funds. It's an enormous pool, but it's limited. And I think we're going to see something historic. We are going to see candidates

for president in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They are going to go to Puerto Rico for every last delegate. They both have the right to fight for the nomination, but I think the consensus is, and I think the consensus is right, is that this drawn out struggle is weakening both of them and is giving John McCain a chance to launch his general election campaign. How about the other side of that? I hear your point, Jim. A lot of folks are with you on that. But what about the other side that folks need to have their own say in their own states on their own timetable? And by the way, the upshot of getting 300 ,000 new Democrats registered in Pennsylvania from all this is not a bad thing. I would say Jim, right? I mean, it's got to be a good thing. So how do you see this moving forward? Well, I mean, there are advantages and disadvantages. I would agree that there are more disadvantages for the Democratic Party than advantages in this process, but that registration uptick, not all of those people are, I mean, most of those people will stay registered Democrats. And John McCain is going to have to fight very hard to get them to cross over

to vote for him when he's campaigning in Pennsylvania. But I mean, what's so interesting about this is that if you include Michigan and Florida, which Hillary Clinton is going to make the case that you do, then she leads in the popular vote. And if at the end of these primaries, she leads in the popular vote and Barack Obama leads in the delegate vote, it makes a very interesting, remember Bush Gore in 2000? You know, I mean, Barack Obama will be saying, but we elect our nominee through this process. And she's going to say, but I've got the popular vote. And so the importance of that is that both of them will have the case to make to the super delegates that they, indeed, should be the party's nominee, which then brings into play. You know, we've got Bill Richardson. He is not going to vote the way that his state voted, which was for Hillary Clinton. He's going to vote for Barack Obama. And there are people like that throughout the country. The super delegates will play a part in selecting the Democratic Party's nominee. The Oklahoma governor this week came out and endorsed Barack Obama, but his state won Clinton. The best political analysis that I've heard on this was John Stewart

as usual. He did what is what he called the if -you analysis. So that if you say that we're only going to count primaries and not caucuses, if you say that we're only going to count the big states, if you say that we're not going to count the little states, if you don't count black folks, if you don't count young folks, if you don't, I mean, you get it. That the only way that she can claim to be ahead in the popular vote is if, in fact, you're willing to go along with an if -you analysis. I mean, it is just not correct. And the reason - Well, I mean, what has to happen is that that Barack Obama's campaign has to collapse. I mean, there is virtually no path for her to win. And if you know anything about game theory, when you get to a point where one party cannot

win, that is, it is not. There are no moves that get her to a win. The game is over. But in this case, the game isn't over because we're going to keep but -bats. Let me ask you this, and I'm going to go swing a dock here on this also. I mean, we've got super delegates. We've got super delegates. Right? It's part of the process. She could, in fact, win. Do you really think that the super delegate, forget the black folks? Sure. Forget the black folks that the super delegates are going to say, we're going to look at our most important and our most loyal constituency, and we're going to say, forget you. We're not going to pay attention to how you voted. But what we're going to do is we're going to say to the young people. You're our future? Forget how you voted. We're going to give it to - All right. That's the part of the wisdom, but there's this - It's crazy. There's another side that needs to be satisfied that I've been supporting Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Bailey. I mean, it's just - I'm calling you, Mr. I'm sorry. You've earned that doctrine. Dr. Bailey, how do you

see this? I mean, I think we have two good candidates, one woman and an African -American mixed race. But, you know, I support both of them, but I'm voting for Obama, Senator Obama. But the thing that I'm concerned about is that the mud -slinging is gone over the edge. It's like Governor Richardson says, I think that we can be a little bit more sophisticated and not attack each other and then whomever wins, then that's who we should support. I'm going to leave this wide open, whoever wants to jump on it. I'm going to ask it again. What happens? Why isn't your argument precisely the situation that obtained after Bush v. Gore? Why? I mean, that was an election in which half of the country - More than half of the country could have said, wait a minute, but that's the way democracy works. That a certain point, yes, it may be very close, but at a certain point, someone is declared the winner. And in this case, it happens to be - If you get a fifth year - You should decide it by the super delegates on

the floor of the convention. And if Hillary Clinton, I think basically changes the math, changes the vote, and comes away with the nomination. I think those 300 ,000 voters you saw in Pennsylvania, I think the new voters you saw turn out, I think the urban, the inner city blacks that are so excited about this are going to feel that this was stolen from them and it's going to hurt the Democrats. The Democrats put the super delegate role into their party. The Republicans don't have it. They've created this own system and problem for themselves by allowing Democrat party bosses to have that sort of control. There's another aspect to this and that - I'm fortunate I got to stop you there. We will take this on after Indiana and North Carolina for sure. The battle over tax increment financing ranges on inside Albuquerque City Hall. We first told you about this debate over the use of incentive programs like this back in November. It allows developers to divert sales and property taxes that would normally go to the city and use that money to pay for roads and infrastructure projects. This week, Monday specifically, the city council narrowly voted down to plant and limit some of those incentives markets. I'll get you to start back on this one. Final vote was five to four. And a lot of

interesting quotes from council members about why they voted against. What was you take on on this? I mean, I think that we have to understand that what we're talking about here is Greenfield development. That what we're talking about here is really two enormous corporations, Suncale and then the one that's developing the area in the south of Mesa del Sol. Are going to have been given an enormous amount of money. And these - these are developed as mechanisms for urban in filling, right? That is that what we're going to do is we're going to take money out of state, county and city funds and give it to developers so that they can do something in order to make the city more livable. This is an

entirely different idea. And part of the problem is that Greenfields do not have a tax base so that rather than getting 75 % of the baseline, they're going to get 100%. And in this case, we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars for 25 years. Under the promise of jobs to come to cover that nut down the road, which nobody really knows if that's going to be the case, Jim. Well, it's a done deal. And the irony here is that the same progressive counselor coalition that pushed through the Planned Gross Strategy destroyed the Planned Gross Strategy because those same counselors, the four counselors who voted to pull back and implement rules are the ones who fought to put in place a Planned Gross Strategy that recognized the principle. We should not subsidize development. The problem was they started playing favorites. Mesa del Sol was kind of a groovy hip development. It had the right democratic political connections running all the way to the governor's office. And

those progressive city counselors voted to start giving tids, tids and tifs. I'm going to create a new board game, tifs and tids, you know, to Mesa del Sol. And they got bit in the hind quarters because here comes Sun Cal now with an even bigger development and they say you've got these rules on the book. We're taking advantage of them too. But I mean, what's interesting is I would never live on the sprawling west side. It's just not for me. But there are plenty of people. There's plenty of demand, plenty of individuals who do not want to fill in the city of Albuquerque, who do not want to live and want to live as far away from downtown Albuquerque as they possibly can. And we have a plethora of smaller suburban areas, Rio Rancho, Los Luna, Belén, Moriarty, who are more than willing to take these individuals and it satisfies their need to be a little bit further away from where the city is at. I just don't want Albuquerque to become so non -competitive that because we're pitting one type of growth strategy in fill versus another type of growth strategy and widening our boundaries, that pitting against one another

actually makes us less competitive. And those individuals choose to go elsewhere, choose to take their taxes and their money and everything else into a plethora of other communities that exist around this. Well, there's an editorial this week from some of the council members that you mentioned, part of the coalition, Doc, that mentioned a couple of things. We've got traffic, pollution, we've got all kinds of things that are the result of what Scott's mentioning, living out on the edges. How do people are supposed to factor those kind of soft metrics into this kind of a thing? If they want to make that choice to live out there, Scott's mentioning, is there a price that we're all paying at some point that makes this difficult? Well, I just think that the decisions need to be based on what the people need and what they want, politics sometimes get involved. But if we can just make sure that we in these respective communities or pockets, make sure that we get information from the community, how is it going to affect them adversely or is going to be in a positive effect. So as long as we have those checks and balances integrated into our decision making process and our rules and regulations, I think we'll be okay. Which brings you back to the issue of jobs that Margaret was working

through there. You know, you're ostensibly getting this money because you're going to be returning back to the tax -based jobs, you know, a large employment footprint, the whole thing. But none of us really know what the situation's going to be. Is this a crop shoot? A lot of times, you know, they say we're going to have a certain number of jobs, but in fact, do they become a reality? So you know, we need some type of security to ensure that that in fact does happen. Sure. And not just jobs, Margaret, they have to be literally stand alone jobs. I can't suck from the city. Well, and that's really the problem is that where you are taking such large amounts of money out of Albuquerque, it means that people who can't move either because of transportation for other reasons, in fact, end up with the lower quality of life. And frequently, that has to do with class privilege, that the people who are stuck are low -income people. Frequently, they are African -Americans, they are Latinos, they are Native people who don't have the

choice. And then there are water consequences and there are environmental consequences because it means more vehicle miles. If you do it real quick, take the last cut on this. We're not going to know for 25 years whether this was a disastrous decision or not. Two. That's the fact of matter. The 100, hundreds of millions of dollars of gross receipts and property taxes are going to be directed to a developer and they will not be available to the community at large to meet needs for police, old source systems and old roads. We're not going to know for 25 years whether a huge mistake has been made. Usually at the time we would go to my favorite on the clock. We're still going to, but it's going to be online. I'm going to ask you to join us at canami .org forward slash to Mexico and focus. And we're going to take on five very interesting subjects in rapid fire fashion. See you on your laptop. We stretch a little bit. We are almost out of time for this week, but be sure to head to our website for more information about this week's show or to watch any past episode online. The address of course is canami .org slash new Mexico and focus. But before we go

though, we want to let everybody know about a big change in my man David's life. You have a new gig. Tell me about it. Well, thanks for asking. I, as of last week, am the managing editor of a website, news, online news here in New Mexico. It's called New Mexico Independent, the website newmexicoindependent .com. And it's basically a stab at online journalism to kind of marry the best of traditional serious journalism with all the new possibilities that doing things online affords in terms of multimedia in terms of having things instant. Maybe in terms also having more interaction with the user, the reader. So it's exciting. It's a brand new. And particularly with the loss of the Albuquerque Tribune, not that long ago, we really felt that this was a perfect time to offer something that helps build on the good journalism that the journal does and many other outlets. But that maybe nowadays when you have an environment where that's shrinking, the news space and newspapers shrinking layoffs. I mean, an endemic lot of doom and gloom in the industry. And here's a way to maybe kind of take advantage of this new medium,

the internet. You know what I like about it is you guys have exploded out there. I'm a fan already from the first 10 minutes I was there. But you've exploded out there in a particular way that I find appealing. You've got a number of people who are veteran journalists, who are really interesting bloggers. I'll give you a couple examples. For me, Marjorie Childress from Empire. I'm a big fan of hers. Gwyneth Dolan's on your culture, culture page. I'm a huge fan of hers. Trip Jennings, of course. Trip Jennings is a news editor. You mentioned Marjorie. Matt Reichbox, another great blogger, has his own website. He does a lot of amazing work. He's on our site. Heath Houseman, another guy from Las Cruces, former reporter with the Las Cruces Sun News. And he writes about politics, border issues, a lot of things. We have several alumni of the journal. You know, both of you you're there now. I used to be, you know, Barb Armijo, Denise Tessie, John Arnold, up in Santa Fe, a great video guy. So it's an amazing team of seasoned journalists and some folks who've been doing blogs and websites and doing it and doing it very

well. So I mean, I hope people give it a chance at New Mexico Independent .com and check it out. Post a comment, sign up, register as a user. We'll see what we can do. I think it's great fun. It's not just news reporting in the classic sense. It's a lot of analysis. You're feeling a lot of cracks. I really enjoy it and I encourage everybody to go there. That's all the time we have for this week. We'll see you next Friday.