There has been much discussion online and in polls about what certain voters would do if the will of the voters is overturned and HRC is given the nomination.So I have been talking to folks about just this very issue;  since the Rev Wright situation began to come to a head and Hillary went totally negative on Obama.  

The people I have talked with represent an ethnographic sample from New York(Rochester, Newburgh and NYC), Pennsylvania (Philly and Pittsburgh), New Jersey( Newark and Plainfield) , Connecticut(New Haven and Hartford),  Washington DC,  Virginia (Loudoun County) , Florida(Miami, Tampa  and Jacksonville),  Georgia (Atlanta)  , Louisiana (Baton Rouge and N'Orleans)  and California (Oakland).

My husband canvassed  barbershops and men in the SRO hotel where he works,    I've been to the beauty parlor,  the botanica, the bodega, on the subway, the bus, and on the phone talking to people I know are rarely  online, have no blogging experience and the majority had no computer.  I deliberately did not talk to those folks I know who are academics, or professionals.  

I've talked to friends who've talked to friends - and I will state here that none of the people I talked with were middle class, nor are they political activists.  They are working class or unemployed, and were African American, Native American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban.  I also talked to 3 close  friends who are organizers for SEIU/1199 who talk to low income workers day in and day out, and who travel across the country.     I made calls to friends on 3 Indian reservations.
Here are some of the top  reasons  many poor/working class  blacks, latinos  and Native Americans  gave me for why they will just stay home or not vote for Hillary R. Clinton if Barack Obama doesn't get the nomination. (I can't speak  for Asian-Americans - since I don't work in those communities, so my apologies for leavin y'all out - I just don't want to speak about what I haven't heard).

Fatalism:  Since us colored  folks have  already have seen a white guy  get robbed of a  national election (Al Gore) many of us have a deep seated unspoken (sometimes) belief that if it can happen to a white guy - black folks, and Latinos  know there will be no real protest for a black guy.  He'll just get rolled over by the bus and Hillary will keep on steppin'.  Mexican Americans already saw Hillary throw Richardson a Judas curve.  

Less  vested interest: Since the majority of black folks, and Latinos and Native Americans  are already poorer than white folks the economy argument against McCain won't resonate as much.  We'll just keep on surviving like we always have - no matter who is President.  Foreclosures - most  of us don't own homes anyway.  We live in rental housing or  the projects, or on reservations.   No stocks or bonds or IRA savings to worry about.  We don't drink lattes.  We drink regular coffee or Bustelo.  

Roe v Wade: does not have as much of a hot button resonation in much of the black & Latino community.  The "what about Roe v Wade" argument for supporting Hillary, sadly - though poor women are more adversely affected by lack of access to abortions, if you actually examine abortion rights demos - the bulk of the protestors are not black or latino or Native American.  Many of us are pro-choice but anti-abortion for religious reasons.   Other, younger women I talked to said "well, there will just be more girls pushing strollers".

Feminism: is viewed as a white woman's thing anyway.  Poor women find it hysterically funny to hear middle and upper class white women pushing to get out into the workplace, when we have always worked.  We'll have the same  jobs -waiting on them in shops,  cleaning their houses , scrubbing their toilets, and pushing their babies in strollers while they battle  glass ceilings.  One woman I talked to said succinctly "It will serve the bitch right if she loses.  She's just like all the white female lawyers  I've ever worked for - a real nasty piece of work (this woman is a Puerto Rican legal secretary).  "The women are far worse than the white men",  said she.

Even the black feminist/womanist position is totally unknown, and  not discussed.   It's a class thing.  Patricia Hill Collins is unknown.     Alice Walker is known, because of the Color Purple but not for "womanism".   Oprah rules.  

My Dominican beauty parlor discussion kept heading back to Jaylo's twins and why she gave them funny names, and Mariah Carey's marriage to a young black guy, no matter how often I tried to bring up Hillary.  Hillary was dismissed as a stupid woman who should have cut her husband's balls off when he dissed her.  No sympathy was offered.  McCain was just an old dude who probably would have a heart attack 3 weeks after elected.  Obama - las Domincanas loved him - they think he looks Dominican.  Will be pissed if "los blanquitos" steal the nomination from him.  The 3 operators and a variety of patrons had voted for the first time.  And it would be the last time if he gets robbed.  

The Supreme Court: We don't see anyone there representing us anyway (including Clarence Thomas) so how will it get any different?  As several people pointed out - they killed affirmative action, they killed poverty programs.  So what's the difference?  

Erosion of civil rights: As far as a lot of blacks & Latino, and Native  folks are concerned - they are already eroded. Check out who is stuffing the jails and prisons of America.  Who gets shot and killed by police?  Who gets stopped and frisked?  Sean Bell got mentioned - over and over.  Hillary (meaning Bill) didn't do anything much to change that on his/their watch.  Oh yeah - we "liked Bill".  But we have grown to loathe Hillary.  Bill can stay in his office in Harlem, which Hillary never visits anyway, and y'all can deal with McCain.  

The War:  This is not a draftee army.  Those serving "joined up".   There are few reports of the levels of racism in the military  like those in Vietnam .  Though many folks were against the war, take a good look at anti-war demonstrations.  Please show me photos of demos with a majority of black or latino protestors.

Almost everyone I spoke with had a family member serving.  Many had career military family members.  Why?  To get an education.  

Immigration:  Many Latinos think that McCain will come up with some way to figure out how to keep undocumented's here - no matter what stuff Lou Dobbs is spewing.  Who is going to pick those tomatoes or fruits? Who is going to clean those hotel rooms, or work in sweatshops , or wash dishes in restaurants?   African Americans know they won't be deported - except to prison - so what else is new. Puerto Ricans won't care - they are citizens anyway.

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and yes, (shudder ) Farrakhan will have a field day.  BOYCOTT will be the scream of the day.  There will be another  million folk march more than likely.  We will then just set our clocks back to "I have a Dream Time" and know that someday God will see fit to give white folks brains and a black man, or a Latino man  will be President.  Just not now.  And if Hillary goes around hugging colored people we will laugh.  Just like we laugh at Uncle Tom/Tio Taco Republicans.

Some of us will go to the polls to vote in our usual cast of characters - like Charlie Rangel and John Conyers and Maxine Waters, but we won't be pulling a lever for Ms. Hillary.  
Don't be fooled by black pundits (or Geraldo Rivera).  They aren't po' folks.   Our so-called spokespeople , columnists, tv talking heads and reporters are middle class.  And basically speak for themselves not most of us.  Yup - I'm "middle class" too, but have always opted to struggle on the side of the poor - so I do spend much of my time with regular working people - and have almost zero ties to the Colored Intellegensia".  

Don't be fooled by exit polls.  We learn to dissemble at birth;  it's a survival technique.  Christian charity  allows  us tell to white lies (they aren't black lies -cause  no one believes us anyway) , and  "deep in our hearts we do believe - we will get revenge" not someday but  on voting day.  

Poor young folks will just write some new raps or reggeton's - and figure out if it is better to sell weed, or to work in McDonalds.   Weed probably looks like a better deal.  Barack Obama will become a martyr and a confirmation of just how racist America really is - setting back involvement in electoral politics by  young people of color  for another 10 - 20 years.  We might even  see a new Black Panther Party or it's ethnic equivalent rise up - and get shot down.   Obama's  posters  will be tacked up on the wall next to those of Malcolm, Bob Marley, Tupac, Zapata and Don Pedro, or his face will become part of playground graffiti murals, next to portraits of dead rappers.

You see - we really have gotten fired up - but we are getting very uneasy.  We can read.  We can write. We watch TV too.  We see the sneer on Wolf Blitzer's face.  We see insincerity written all over Anderson Cooper.  We can't be bothered to watch Morning Joe.  We don't watch Meet the Press.  Most of us watch FOX news.  We know what "real white people believe",  cause we hear Hannity and O'Reilly and company every day.  They represent "white folks" to some of us.  The only "defender" of Latinos mentioned was Geraldo - who apparently got into a fight with O'Reilly on FOX  about illegal immigrants.  They tune him out when he goes off on other issues.  Two people asked me why he seems to be saying he is Jewish.

So we will probably be the only ones not surprised if something happens to steal the nomination at the last minute (barring an assassination - which we all are still fearful about  (that came up in almost every conversation).

We are not really a force on the net  except on MySpace  and that's just our kids.  How many blacks and Latinos, and Native American's  post here at MyDD?  Those of us who are here don't speak with one voice - and represent a broad range of opinions.  

I wish I had a different opinion.  But what I'm hearing doesn't sound like a set of communities ready to hold their noses and pull a lever for Hillary.  Sounds more like the classic play by
Douglas Turner Ward, Day of Absence:

A satire about an imaginary Southern town where all the black people have suddenly disappeared. The only ones left are sick and lying in hospital beds, refusing to get well. Infants are crying because they are being tended to by strange parents. The Mayor pleads for the President, Governor, and the NAACP to send him "a jackpot of jigaboos." On a nationwide radio network he calls on the blacks, wherever they are, to come back. He shows them the cloths with which they wash cars and the brushes with which they shine shoes as sentimental reminders of the goodies that await them. In the end the blacks begin to reappear, as mysteriously as they had vanished, and the white community, sobered by what has transpired, breathes a sigh of relief at the return of the rather uneasy status quo. What will happen next is left unsaid, but the suggestion is strong that things will never quite be the same again.

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/sin gle.asp?key=634

Perhaps a Day of Absence from the Democratic election might be a good thing.  The Democratic Party (what's left of it) might wake up and  acknowledge that we count too.  More than just a little bit.  And more than rust belt ethnic Republicans in Democratic clothing that everyone is falling over themselves to capture.  Who knows/Quien sabes?

And my last note is that I will be joining them.  I will not vote for Hillary Clinton.  I will vote for down-ticket races,  I will write-in Barack Obama, and I will organize for a Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, just like Fannie Lou Hamer did; only this time it will be called the American Freedom Democratic Party.

I hope that this doesn't have to happen.  But I am ready to make that choice.  And so it seems are many of my folks.  

(crossposted to DKos)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/4/1 95214/6632/597/506888