The Black/Brown Divide - Topic of the Day

CNN is reporting that Hillary Clinton won 67% of the Hispanic vote in Texas. This has been an issue that has dogged the Democratic Presidential campaign since the start -- that the vast majority of Hispanics are unwilling to vote for Barack Obama. Polls even suggest that Hispanics are unwilling to vote for any Black Candidate. Which raises the question, what is at the root of the Black/Brown divide?

I know there may be a struggle to be the dominant "minority" group in the U.S. I know many Blacks resent Hispanics, believing they have taken jobs that Blacks otherwise would have gotten. But what else is behind this? When I was in college I took a class called the Politics of Race in the Americas and we studied Blacks in all of Latin America and the U.S. What was amazing was that every Latin American country was pretty much the same: Blacks were routinely at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, poor schools, housing, health care, and they even had less access to water. Blacks could however improve their lot by attaining wealth or marrying someone lighter and brighter via a process called "whitening." So I wonder if the constant association of blackness with inferiority in Latin America is also impacting how Blacks and Hispanics interact in the U.S.

Thoughts?

P.S. I'm disappointed about last night, but I'm PERSEVERING!