Wouldn’t it be easier for the idiots if we really all did look alike?

It seems we’re back into a “debate” over what a Latino is “supposed to” look like.

I remember when former President George Bush the elder got into “trouble” because he pointed to some of his grandchildren (by son Jeb, who married a woman of Mexican ethnicity) and described them as “the little, brown ones.”

NOW, WE HAVE an aspiring political person putting his foot in his mouth because he supposedly said his kids don’t look Latino.

It has been reported that Brian Sandoval, the Republican nominee for governor of Nevada, was talking with a television station about the actions in nearby Arizona related to immigration and local police. What got him in trouble with some people is that he tried saying such a policy wouldn’t affect his family because, “my children don’t look Hispanic.”

The broadcast station never bothered to air that particular quote (I don’t know why they thought it not relevant, although I do know that reporters often gain more quotes and facts than they have space or airtime to use). But the Las Vegas Sun newspaper says it can confirm that Sandoval said it.

For the time being, I’m taking their word.

IT SEEMS LIKE the kind of rhetoric that would come from a Latino who is determined to be aligned with the Republican Party, which means they have to come up with ways of thinking that their situations are different from the bulk of the growing Latino segment of the population.

Some people are claiming that Sandoval is ashamed to be Latino, causing him to feel the need to make the statement “I am proud of my heritage.”

I’m willing to give him a break on that aspect of this issue.

Because what intrigues me is that we’re going to be forced to confront once again what exactly “we” are supposed to look like.

THE REALITY OF the genetics of Latinos is that we are a mish-mash. In some ways, we’re more of a mix than the self-described “mutt” Barack Obama himself. We literally are a combination of the European Spaniards (who have the Middle Eastern Moors in their background) and the indigenous peoples of the tribes that lived in what we now think of as the Americas.

When one figures that the African slaves brought over to do the labor also get into the mix, it really is obvious that a “Latino” can look like anyone or anything.

So I’ll let you look at the family photograph of the Sandovals that the candidate publishes on his campaign website to figure out what they “look” like. Personally, to me they look like people.

If anything, this fact is a significant part of the reason that I always thought that the Arizona policy that was meant to let local police more aggressively look for people who have issues with Immigration and, thus, don’t belong here, was truly flawed.

I NEVER BELIEVED that those local law enforcement types were going to start checking every individual they encountered to see if they could produce some sort of documentation to justify their residence in the United States.

It was always obvious that people who fit a certain look were going to get questioned more intensely than anyone else – which means that certain lighter-skinned Latinos could have evaded detection regardless of their immigration status.

I suppose that also means the very dark of the Latino population also would be given a pass, and merely subjected to whatever thoughts that particular cop had about “black” people.

Expecting police to figure out who doesn’t belong in large part based on appearance was just opening up so many headaches. The thing I can’t figure out is why any cop would want to undergo this law – unless he truly is some sort of bigot who is looking for a way to legitimize his thought processes.

SO IN THE case of Sandoval, he hopes his family won’t get written off with the Latino masses. In a sense, that is not bad, since we’re all supposed to want to try to elevate our lot in society above everyone else. No one wants to get stuck in a rut.

There’s just one other thing to keep in mind on this issue of what a Latino “looks” like. One of those “little brown ones” to whom George H.W. Bush is grandfather is the man who now carries his name.

If this country ever does get a third “George Bush” as president (middle initial “P”), he’s going to be someone that the ideologues are going to have their hangups over for looking “too” Latino.

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