Race, Religion & the 16th Congressional Campaign

This is gonna make some of you very uncomfortable, but I pride myself on discussing what others typically won't, even if it bothers some people. Pretty sure the comment section on this one is gonna be pretty active.

Up until recently, race and religion were a subtext to the campaign for the 16th congressional district campaign between front-runners Veronica Escobar and Dori Fenenbock. It is very often whispered by supporters or non-supporters of either candidate and usually in the context of their candidate being unfairly criticized because she's Latina or she's Jewish, depending on who you are talking to.

Hell, every time I mention Fenenbock I get someone call me antisemitic and a lot of racist things are said about Mexicans. So much so that I had to actually start following what was always a disclaimer in my comment section and now I require a handle for someone's comment to be posted.

But lets look at the reality of the political landscape in El Paso. We are a community that is about 85% Latino. Yet, we very often elect leaders that aren't Latino. Previously it was because we had no choice. For generations El Paso's political establishment was white. All you have to do is go to city hall or commissioners court and look at all the pictures of previous mayors and county judges and you'll quickly seen that for well over a century, white folks were in charge. Hey, don't blame me, I wasn't even born.

Somewhere around the 70's & 80's it started being more and more common to see Latinos in leadership positions though there were the occasional pioneers a little earlier.

Now we have come full circle and the Latino electorate in El Paso frequently elects candidates of their choice. So we have a white mayor, most of EPISD Board of Trustees are anglo, and there are a couple of white commissioners.

But no one runs on race, or religion, in this town. At least not overtly.

Don't get me wrong, people absolutely say and do racist things in politics in this town. And Dori Fenenbock has absolutely been the target of anti-semitism while she was a trustee at EPISD.

Remember when Judd Burges and his weird alter-ego were passing out "Fenenbucks"? Absolutely, and overtly anti-semitic. So I fully acknowledge that she's had to deal with some ignorant antisemites.

I guess thats why edits on Dori Fenenbock's website seem so strange to me. Here's a screenshot I took just this morning from her website.

Here's an isolated view of what got my attention.

I'm used to the food fight in comment sections about race and religion, but I was surprised to see an actual candidate go there.

Especially one that tries so hard to patronize Latinos. Have you seen this social media post?

Memmur when she was using "Si se puede" slogan at her campaign announcement? You memmur, memmur?

I was at this particular event. Both major congressional candidates were there. Fenenbock had a couple of people following her around to take photos, appropriately timed to make it look like she's having a meaningful connection with Dolores Huerta.

And then she parked herself directly in front, again for the purposes of her photo ops.

Truth be told, I knew Fenenbock was going to try to latch on to Dolores when she was here. I knew she as going to try to acculturate "Si se puede". She has to look like she knows El Paso and has to appeal to Latino voters.

Even if it means that she has to mention the phrase Yes We Can being used by Obama - but some of you have forgotten that she didn't actually vote for Obama. She voted against him, and I don't mean Hillary.

She voted for the Republican. Just go back to that voting record I've posted several times.

But what did surprise me was the fact that she mentioned actually defeating Latino candidates. She uses the word Hispanic, which further underscores her lack of knowledge of our community.

I can only assume she mentions that to try to put to rest concerns from donors about her viability as a white woman against a Latina. But this is where Fenenbock being inauthentic comes into play again.

Yes, she beat Latino candidates but they were candidates that no one knew and only put in about $500 into their campaigns. Of course she won against them.

Its just really interesting that Fenenbock would mention race in such a strange context. I don't know that anyone has ever actually done that in local races.