Thank you Keith. He used his Special Comment tonight to address this comment by 1984 VP nominee and former Clinton 2008 finance committee member Geraldine Ferraro:
If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.I discussed at length why I thought the Clinton campaign’s seeming death wish for their candidate and the party here. That campaign is so off the rails, so off message, awash in campaign tactics of yesteryear, the good-old-boy strategies that push buttons that make people jerk to toward that third rail of race — a place of extreme discomfort for most Americans of any color.
For more background if you haven’t watched the whole video, Ferraro went on a barnstorming media tour to defend her remarks, which only resulted in the emergence of past instances of saying much the same thing before (so it wasn’t off the cuff), something Keith addresses in full. MSNBC:
After that didn’t seem to quell the press attention on the matter, she threw in the towel.
Geraldine Ferraro has stepped down from her role as a member of Hillary Clinton’s finance committee.Clinton’s response:In a letter to Clinton obtained by CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux — who spoke with the former vice presidential candidate shortly after she sent it to Clinton — Ferraro said she is stepping down so, “I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.”
…When asked if she had any regrets about what she said, Ferraro replied, “absolutely not.”
I said yesterday that I rejected what she said, and I certainly do repudiate it, and regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn’t speak from the campaign, she doesn’t speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.Interestingly, though a lot of this primary has been about dancing around race card issues, primarily through surrogates, Obama himself hasn’t discussed his race much at all — it seems everyone else is more than willing to use a tattered political playbook that always worked in the past, but seems more divisive and, quite frankly increasingly embarrassing now. He commented on Ferraro’s statement:
He said Ferraro’s remarks had been “ridiculous” and “divisive,” but he also described his own wariness about allegations. (Obama aides said yesterday that Axelrod hadn’t meant to refer to a pattern of racially-charged remarks, but just of negative attacks, though many of his examples have been seen as having a racial edge.)All that said, the reason a lot of this is making people uncomfortable — and this is particularly hard for progressives to accept — is that the third rail of race has everyone all tied up in knots and tense. It’s complicated by the competing issue of gender bias and outright misogyny rolling off the tongues of talking heads.“I don’t like to throw out words like ‘racist,’” Obama said. “I would defy anybody to look though the rhetoric for the last year-and-a-half or the last year and a couple months to find one instance in which I have said some criticism of me was racially based.”
He did, however, accuse the Clinton campaign of slicing up the electorate along racial lines. He noted that Clinton’s aides — notably Mark Penn — have told reporters on conference calls that part of her strength lies in her ability to win traditional swing-voting groups, working class whites and Hispanics.
Clinton’s aides, Obama said, say “there are a set of voters that Obama might not get.” He said “that seems to track in a certain racial demographic.”
He also joked, as he has before, that he’s been challenged as both too black and as not black enough.
“I don’t know what exactly [is] the margin of black vote that is the optimal — not too black, but black enough,” he said.
Heaven help those of us who are women and of color (I guess we are expected to pick and choose how to affiliate politically based on putting our fingers in the air).
We are so in need of candid discussion about fear-based campaigning based on the inherent biases we all have about race (and gender). We are manipulated by it, even as we reject the morality of using such tactics openly. We are ashamed that it works, but it is employed because it does.
What makes it difficult is that many white progressives as well as Republicans (for very different reasons) wanted to believe that we are in a “post-racial” society because it is easier to say it and hope we all nod our heads in agreement, a tacit agreement not to discuss what we all know to be an persistent and difficult arena fraught with conflict and discord.
Sadly, it’s obvious that we are only playing whack-a-mole.
Over at my pad, one of my readers asked this question:
However, from my perspective, it seems that a significant segment of the lefty blogosphere is eager to classify any mention of race as racist, while the nastiest sexist digs are dismissed or rationalized. Obama is painted as a noble victim while Clinton is painted as a whiner. (The reverse is certainly going on as well, and there are blogs that do their best to find a balance — I think yours is one.)My response:
I can’t speak for the lefty blogosphere, but I can tell you that I have been in conversations (on and offline) where there is extreme discomfort when the use of subtle or overt race-based campaign “strategy” is employed, as if the mere mention of it is beyond discussion because of the queasiness of calling out an elephant in the room, or rather, an under-discussed third rail (as I’ve called it before).
People jump to the conclusion that Obama supporters are oversensitive and see racial attacks in everything (for an example, see the whole “darkening of the ad” flap, which I did NOT blog about because I thought it was ridiculous - the whole ad was edited darker). That in many minds then extends to somehow there’s no racially-based attacks going on.
Why? It has little or nothing specifically to do with Obama, in my opinion. As I’ve blogged ad nauseum here and at Pandagon outside of the topic of this election, I think the reason for that is that it is people do not want to be labeled or perceived as racist. PC society, unfortunately, has seemed to settle on a definition of a “racist” as someone akin to a KKK Knight Rider or Bull Connor, rather defining the term by behaviors exhibited by your average American (of any color) raised in a society where inherent biases have been cultivated and institutionalized.
That’s how we get an extreme example of denial like Duane Chapman, aka Dog the Bounty Hunter. He was recorded making excuses to his son why the younger Chapman shouldn’t date a black woman because it then means Dog cannot toss the word “nigger” around casually. (”I’m not going to take a chance ever in life for losing everything I’ve worked for for 30 years because some f**king n**er heard us say n***er and turned us into the Enquirer magazine“). These didn’t happen in a vacuum — he publicly claimed he isn’t racist.
As I said at the time:
It’s as if her presence will cause Chapman to blow a gasket because in private, he’d have to watch what he says. The more pointed question is why does he feel compelled to use “nigger” so casually — he knows the connotations, the history, the vitriol behind the word. From his statements on the tape, it’s clear he isn’t using it as a term of endearment (the ludicrous excuse often cited by blacks as justification for tossing the denigrating word around). Dog isn’t into self-reflection, it’s everyone else that’s not with the program.In turn, that means the more subtle ways racism is employed, such as in this political campaign, can easily be shipped off to the land of denial. Calling it out doesn’t mean equivalence of vitriol of a Dog, but that’s how many whites feel when caught when their biases are exposed.Dog’s dilemma is that he wants to project a public image of tolerance — he may even have an honest sense that “racism” is wrong. Remember, as defined in his minds of plenty of good people, when called on their ignorance-based racism, they usually cannot admit to themselves they are racist (see Michael Richards), even though are culture is steeped in it. A racist in their minds wears a Klan sheet, or hangs out in a white supremacist survivalist unit, they are not the person next door. “That couldn’t possible be me,” they say to soothe themselves.
That’s why the revelation of Ferraro having used this same race-based commentary before was the signal to cut her loose (or, rather for her to step aside) — it meant the comments now sounded like they came from core beliefs, as opposed to a slip of the tongue.
Now, to address the phenomenon of the misogyny/gender bias that seems to grab much less attention, I think there are other factors at work. One, a very large swath of the country — men and women — have bought into and maintain the patriarchy. We’re talking about a ship that is going to take a long time to turn around.
It’s complicated by the fact that many women, as I said above, inhabit another minority group (racial or ethnic), or as, in my case three — tossing in sexual minority. The dynamics involved in dealing with multiple levels of institutionalized oppression leads to different perceptions of (and importance of the weight of) gender bias tossed out there. That diffuses the power of response because the shades of perceived slight range so greatly.
The other matter that seems to receive less focus is the fact that Hillary Clinton is a lightning rod for other issues, because of who she is; piling on the misogyny often substitutes for the contempt they hold for her as a Clinton and her politics, not a as a woman. That she’s a woman only makes it easier for offensive comments to fly; the penalty paid, as we saw with Chris Matthews, is practically non-existent. I have often thought about whether the reactions in the lefty blogosphere to the misogyny would be different if we weren’t talking about Hillary Clinton, but a more progressive, less polarizing figure without her DLC and “Bill baggage.”
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You’ll find no denial of the continuing, but often hidden, racism of the US public from me. I’m a white man but have seen enough to convince me that that racism is all over the place. I’d like to think that what Ferraro said would hurt the Clinton campaign but I am not sure it will- lots of people I talk to seem to agree with her. It may have even been an effective tactic. I guess we will have to wait and see.
Atheist, for those who agree with Ferraro (about an advantage for Obama being black), do you ever think they would consider what I said in my earlier post —
* If Clinton were a black man, Hillary would have been told to drop out of the race after losing 11 contests in a row, after all, John Edwards had to get out after losing only 3.
* If Obama were white, he’d already be the nominee, because it’s pretty clear that while there are blacks voting for him because of his race, there are certain demographic groups who didn’t vote for him because he’s black, and those are the Reagan Democrats that Hillary is chasing.
The real loser here is truth-telling — the inability of Americans to find some way to sanely discuss race when it’s not a pot boiling over on the stove.
As I’ve said on any place that will listen to me, her comments were the equivalent of Jesse Helms’ “you wanted that job…” commercial he ran against Harvey Gantt in 1990 (?).
Now, I’ve been a little skeptical of phrases like “fairy tale” and “periodically” being some racist or sexist code words, because dog whistles only work when you actually have dogs on the other end. But phrasing something like a classic anti-affirmative action rant and then defending yourself with “blacks are being racist against me!” is so easy to identify, even a caveman could do it.
The fact that the thing gets blown up while trying to maximize the older white vote in Mississippi and weeks before the rural/small-town white vote in PA would need to be maximized tells me a little about Senator Clinton’s campaign. Not being a registered Democrat, I can’t tell her to drop out for the good of the party, but she should really fucking drop out for the good of the party.
Heaven help those of us who are women and of color (I guess we are expected to pick and choose how to affiliate politically based on putting our fingers in the air).
On NPR, I heard part of a roundtable discussion at a historically black school. A black professor pointed out that the media isn’t breathlessly asking white men whether they’ll vote with their race or with their gender. That was weeks ago, and I still haven’t seen any reports of, say, how people at a white barbershop plan to vote.
Orange: White (self-identified) evangelicals seem to vote Republican with about as much regularity as African-Americans vote Democratic.
However, the bloc support of evangelicals, from a doctrinal standpoint, is worrisome: Jesus’ Beatitudes said “blessed are the poor” while the last 28 or so GOP platforms have begun with “fuck the poor… sideways.”
After reading some follow-up comments from Ferraro, it seems I was wrong in thinking that she was commenting on the fact that some supporters of Obama perceive him as being “post-racial” and “beyond identity politics”, in which I think they’re fooling themselves (and set up as strawman opponent).
Sad that she’d make such comments :/
As for “misogynistic comments because she’s HILLARY,” I think you have to consider the question of how much “baggage” she has accrued because she is a woman to begin with. It’s not that people now are looking at her, run their perceptions through the Misogynizer(tm) and come out with an opinion, but rather that every thing she has ever done has been coloured (oh my!
) by the fact that she is a woman in a patriarchal world. To put it simply: as a woman, could she have gotten to where she is now from where she started without becoming so hated?
I have to ask, based on this comment:
“I have often thought about whether the reactions in the lefty blogosphere to the misogyny would be different if we weren’t talking about Hillary Clinton, but a more progressive, less polarizing figure without her DLC and “Bill baggage.””
Is that question not largely academic, since we don’t know if it would even be possible for a woman to be more progressive and less polarizing and be at this point? And of course, is that question not better proof of the patriarchy than anything else?
Pam:
What you say makes complete sense. Yes I agree. Whether all the cryptoracists who think like Ferarro would agree, or even listen, is another question entirely.
Yes, it is very hard to sanely discuss race in the USA when so many people have found hidden, sneaky ways to be racist, and our national media is trying so hard to enable racism. It seems like people are entrenched. There has to be a way though.
I was displeased by the Ferraro comments. I’m glad she’s no longer part of the Clinton campaign.
It’s been pretty disheartening to see the extent to which both racism and sexism are alive and well in the Democratic party (I expected it everywhere else, but maybe thought we’d be a little more enlightened than that…guess that was wishful thinking). There are certain factions of the party that I now feel irreparably divided from.
The poll on CNN has had Ferraro questions for the last two days. 55% of respondents agree with her and don’t think she should apologize. That tells you all you need to know about why this was done and why this isn’t going away.
That tells you all you need to know about why this was done and why this isn’t going away.
Yep. And that’s the third rail no one wants to touch - that there are many out there who do agree, and that Clinton strategists know full well how to use the inherent biases out there that can be leveraged. These folks have been weaned on race-based campaigning because it works.
When the issue of the use of these tactics is questioned, it then raises the spectre of what “racist” is or isn’t. Because something works, certainly doesn’t make it right, but these are people who make a living based on trying to make their candidate the victor. You know, it’s just politics.
The question our society should ask, particularly Democrats who desperately don’t want to believe or discuss that their party is capable of such things, is at what cost do we enable this to continue by not examining the root problem of all of this because it makes people queasy.
It’s hard to sell the idea of the emergence a “post-racial” era when this stuff crops up, particularly for progressives who think this is only the kind of thing the GOP does.
Obamism is in full cry. If Geraldine Ferraro is branded a “racist” for stating an Historical fact then there is no hope for the rest of us. I and many of my Democratic friends deplore the witch hunt hysteria of the Keith Obermans and Chris Mathews. I predict that hundreds of thousands of Democrats like myself will leave the party and vote McCain in November. Nice work Keith! What a Jerk!
Heaven help those of us who are women and of color…
Well, at least you’re not gay, too.
(crickets chirping)
What?
piling on the misogyny often substitutes for the contempt they hold for her as a Clinton and her politics, not a as a woman.
I’m not sure I buy this, because I’ve heard it way too often as an excuse. If you use misogyny as your method of attack, it becomes a misogynist attack regardless of any other issues. (The same, of course, holds true for racism.)
It’s disappointing to me that the tone in this election has gone from “we’ve got an amazing slate of potential candidates, and I’ll be proud to support whoever wins” to “you can throw in with the racists or the sexists.”
Ya gotta troll harder, William. You’re not quite making it. Start talking about how those welfare-loving blacks make you want to give money to David Duke.
I think most of us know the root causes of racism and sexism at this point. The question is, what role are all sides concerned expected to play in opposition to it? White people can denounce racism when they come across it, but they can’t cure the ills that have taken root in black culture as a result of centuries of being told they’re worthless and subhuman.
The same goes for men and women in regards to sexism. Men are responsible for their behavior, but as a woman I’m also responsible for mine and also for my sense of self-worth and I know that donning a mantle of perpetual victimhood and blaming men for my life choices would be a pathetic cop-out.
I think somehow we need to clearly establish what is expected and acceptable from *all* sides involved in these issues.
“piling on the misogyny often substitutes for the contempt they hold for her as a Clinton and her politics, not a as a woman.”
I also do not find this an acceptable rationalization and still perceive it as blatant sexism. Disagreeing with her policies or how she runs her campaign in absolutely no way makes misogyny acceptable and the person engaging in it is completely at fault for choosing to speak in such a manner.
William,
C’mon. Tell us how hard it really is for whites. Shit, we can’t even be assured of the Presidency anymore. And now, people being called racist for acting like a racist?
Lemme guess–You loved Reagan, too.
It’s always a little startling to me how little sexism tracks with political identification. As I’ve said too many times before, I’ve met self-described conservative men who have no trouble treating me as an equal and self-described liberal men who think my job is to shut up and get them a sandwich so the men can talk about the important issues. Unfortunately, in this election cycle we’ve been hearing a lot from the sandwich guys about how women need to sit down and shut up and let the men do the work.
“Obamism is in full cry.”
OMG! It’s like he’s hypnotized people into supporting something horrible! William, grow up. Some people support one candidate, others support another. Neither group would be defined as cultists. A little enthusiasm does not make a cult…
“If Geraldine Ferraro is branded a “racist” for stating an Historical fact then there is no hope for the rest of us.”
Dude, maybe you didn’t get the memo, but most of the “Democratic” racists moved over to the Republican party, which is far more understanding and accommodating of those who believe “the coloreds” are getting too uppity. Perhaps you should switch parties?
“I and many of my Democratic friends deplore the witch hunt hysteria of the Keith Obermans and Chris Mathews.”
That is just plain trollish. Mathews needs serious therapy for his bizarre fixations, and Olberman is just doing what real journalists used to do, before the news turned into the video equivalent of World News Daily or some other rag.
Witch hunt? English must not be your strong point…
“I predict that hundreds of thousands of Democrats like myself will leave the party and vote McCain in November. Nice work Keith! What a Jerk!”
Please don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. If you want to be a racist, don’t be a Democrat…
These campaign tatics are designed to work on our lizard brains. After the 3 am commercial, I actually started feeling some anxiety about Obama’s experience. I was able to recognize it for what it was. But, people who are not into politics and who will be making gut decisions do not.
Also, many whites are intellectually anti-racist in all honesty, when it comes to our conscious minds. The problem is, we still have not cleaned our lizard brains. This infects our gut reactions and off-the-cuff comments. Keeping our lizard brains clean in our polluted environment is a constant job.
The problem is, we still have not cleaned our lizard brains. This infects our gut reactions and off-the-cuff comments. Keeping our lizard brains clean in our polluted environment is a constant job.
I’m not convinced we can “clean” our own lizard brains. The best we can hope for, I think, may be to 1) police our own behavior, and 2) change the way our children’s lizard brains are wired.
I’m a white guy who was raised by liberal parents in the tacitly racist, (hetero)sexist, anglophone, euro-centric wilds of the central Pennsylvania suburbs. I learned to drive on an old Volvo station wagon. Growing up, I thought of myself as racially tolerant, but I didn’t run across many non-white people.
Then I went off to college in Baltimore, where I encountered lots of non-white people. I realized how insulated I’d been, but during those years I came to think of myself as racially enlightened.
Then, a few years ago, I took the Harvard University Implicit Bias Test online. That test may have some problems as a scientific tool, but it’s an interesting means of engaging the operations of your own lizard brain. Sure enough, there lurked those old racial biases.
I now think of myself as racially tolerant, racially enlightened, and racially biased–usually all at the same time.
I strongly support Pam’s effort to promote a change in our discourse about race and racism. We need to find a language to help people locate, acknowledge, and own the racial biases we have. That means holding each other responsible not for what we feel, but for what we do in response to those feelings. It means being a little bit patient (yes, I know, it sucks that this is still necessary) with the instinctive racism we encounter, while at the same time insistently pushing back against it.
In that respect, I think Olbermann’s comment was right on.
Choosing the chicken over the veal is “regrettable”. Good on KO for calling HRC out on this.
MikeEss, were that it were that easy, but that’s not the case. Racism exists in all political parties, and as Pam said:
I think race, at this stage of America’s history, was bound to play a role in this election. What’s so upsetting/ “regrettable” is that it’s happening within the Democratic party at this early stage before we have a candidate and that the gasoline was poured on by a previously respected Democrat.“MikeEss, were that it were that easy, but that’s not the case. Racism exists in all political parties…”
I realize that, but you have to start somewhere. And the fact is the Republicans have made themselves into the racism party in earnest for the last 40-years. Let them keep it. Make it clear that racism, sexism, and other -isms have no place in at least one party…
Exactly right, Pam. And heaven help those white women who support Obama… we face the double whammy of going “against” both our gender and our race.
Stakes are raised further if you are a super-delegate as well…
Certainly, when we are looking at other people, we can only focus on what they say and do. What they feel is not really available to us. It is also true that we can not control what we feel in any given moment to the degree that we can control our thoughts, words, and actions. However, we can choose which emotions we cultivate over time.
Good points, MikeEss. I’d love to see the Democratic party open up and tackle these issues with open, honest dialogues. Right now, they still “tippie-toe” with far too much emphasis on political correctness.
I can understand concern and sensivity, but until enough openness occurs that mistakes are made, true learning and mastering the processes cannot be achieved, IMO.
Bleah…
To continue… until that point, the Democrats and all too afraid to “risk” making the mistakes necessary are nothing more than well-meaning bobbleheads in complete agreement. That achieves NOTHING in regards to real change.
If Ferraro truly believes her VP slot on the 1984 Democratic ticket was offered to her as an Affirmative Action-like stunt then why the hell did she accept it?
If Ferraro truly believes her VP slot on the 1984 Democratic ticket was a base, Affirmative Action-motivated stunt, then why did she accept it?
an anonymous kate:
True. But I suspect that feelings that were cultivated in me from birth, that are reinforced by countless subtle and not-so-subtle means both culturally and from individuals, are not ever going to go away. It makes me very sad, but I don’t want to become complacent about it.
When someone says “I haven’t got a racist bone in my body,” I generally figure they’re lying, to me or to themselves.
Some people even try, “I don’t even notice what race you are.” Boggle.
JoAnne, I was raised by loving parents who were racists and the first part of your statement holds true for me as well- up to the “never going to go away” part.
My father used to watch the news every night and scream about goddamn niggers when I was a kid; my mother was silent when he did so. But she has always insisted that she “didn’t have a racist bone in her body.” When I was a teen, I asked him why he felt that way and was told that when I was older and had “seen the world” that I would understand, and that “they are all as racist as I am.”
So his racism was admitted and apparent. Hers was more subtle and took me alot longer to figure out. In fact, it wasn’t until I was a parent and realized that her SILENCE was the clue. Our children are not subjected to the open or silent hatred, racism and bigotry; in fact, we try to educate ourselves, share our views with the kids, and invite them to figure out these issues with us.
Are we perfect or 100% racism-free? Goodness, no. But are we trying? Yes. I was never comfortable with how my parents raised me, questioned their views, and rejected it.
As far as the last… that’s kinda impossible, I think. Certainly I can’t tell someone’s entire ancestry from their appearance, but neither can they tell mine. We can get some clues, certainly- but that’s about it at best.
I’m another one born and raised in a (maybe not so overt but still) racist family. It took a long time to realize the full extent, and when they are also the people you love, it makes dealing with it difficult.
The good thing for me was that my mom was not silent when she heard (too often) my grandparents saying overtly racist stuff - she always made sure we understood that it was not acceptable.
I remember very well when she told me that her parents were (wrongly) bigoted against Italians, which helped me understand that it wasn’t as simple as just skin color or hair texture that was involved.
It’s impossible to grow up in a racist/bigoted society and not be racist/bigoted, at least to some extent. (Which I’m sure all societies are, but American society is what I’m familiar with…)
The best we can do is recognize our own prejudices and deal with them, recognize issues in our offspring and deal with them too.
And maybe in another several thousand years, it will go away…
I went through Ferrarohoh’s remarks with my kids last night after we caught Olbermann’s remarks. They could see exactly what the problem was right away, and thought she was stupid and old and that Clinton should apologise immediately.
Perhaps this generation gap is something that Clinton can work in the eastern states where people are leaving, but can’t overcome in other places where younger people are.
I pointed out to them that saying “I am not a racist” when called out for saying something stupid is one of the best ways to identify yourself AS a racist. In particular, you call yourself out as the sort of unthinking, unfeeling person who is blind to your own advantages and not interested in learning.
cv said:
If Ferraro truly believes her VP slot on the 1984 Democratic ticket was a base, Affirmative Action-motivated stunt, then why did she accept it?
Because she felt it was owed her. She was her turn. After all, hadn’t she waited long enough?
I’ve been talking to a few people, and even as a mid-30s, bitchy white woman who went to an all-girls school, I just can’t understand any of the merits of the “it’s time for a woman” argument.
Apologies for that double comment.
cv said:
If Ferraro truly believes her VP slot on the 1984 Democratic ticket was a base, Affirmative Action-motivated stunt, then why did she accept it?
Because she felt it was owed her. She was her turn. After all, hadn’t she waited long enough?
I’ve been talking to a few people, and even as a mid-30s, bitchy white woman who went to an all-girls school, I just can’t understand any of the merits of the “it’s time for a woman” argument.
I’ve been trying, with little success, to call attention to what I think is an important difference between these two statements:
1) People in some way associated with the Clinton campaign have said racist things, or things that could be construed as racist.
2) The Clinton campaign has used racist tactics.
The incidents that go into proving (1) make (2) more plausible, but don’t really prove it.
To me it’s akin to the difference between saying “There were terrorists in Iraq before the war” and “Iraq was harboring terrorists.” The latter statement suggests top-down organizational control and conscious design.
I’m as persnickety about who gets labeled a Clinton “surrogate” (as opposed to “supporter”) as I am about the Bush administration’s touting “connections” between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
These are slippery terms, implying not just association but coordination, design, and malice. I’d like to be careful about using them. There’s plenty to bash Ferraro for, and she deserves little defense, and Clinton’s tut-tutting Obama about Farrakhan helped make the bed she has to lie in now. But I think we still need a lot more proof for (2), even if (1) is self-evident.
I voted for Obama, dislike Clinton’s hawkishness, but I also want my friends and allies to be circumspect and skeptical, too.
Absolutely.
O.K. I think of “cultivation” (I also referred to it as “cleaning”) as a never ending process. If you don’t keep on top of it, things are going to wind up in bad shape really quickly, no matter how much work you did a year ago, last month or yesterday. So, while most progressives are really into getting rid of racist junk in our conscious minds, our unconscious doesn’t get as much attention. Those flashes of embarrassing, shameful, negative emotions tend to be repressed, because when we’re controlling our thoughts we don’t think or believe those things. The thing is, the parts of our mind over which we have less control are part of us as well and that part of us really does believe those messages that it sends to the conscious mind on occasion. If these messages are not recognized, faced and dealt with as they arise, then they will come out, especially in high-stress situations.
I appreciate this thoughtful post. It would be nice to be able to discuss race in America without somebody or another throwing down the gauntlet of “race card” or “race-baiting.”
How can anyone deny that “Yay, it’s a very negative thing to be considered a racist in America.”?
However, the fear of being thought a racist contributes to people’s reluctance to discuss that race remains a difference. People are still not homogeneous.
I think most people are proud of their heritage (including ancestors, culture and color, among other aspects of what has made them who they are), even (or maybe especially) if it has meant they faced and overcame disadvantage or outright discrimination.
So we have differences, and we have people proud of what makes them unique. Can we talk about this?
Yes, Obama is an African American, and Clinton is a woman. They are both different in those ways from all prior major contenders for the U.S. presidency. What their differences have meant is that they most likely ran on a lot tougher road, leaped higher hurdles, and overcame more adversity than the average prior candidate for U.S. president to get where they are.**
Can we pause for one minute to recognize and applaud that extra mile they have come?
**minor thought that made me chuckle — can you imagine that George W. Bush would have been a two-time U.S. president if he had been born in the same circumstances as Obama?
I think that Ferraro is just pissed, after the fact, that she was used in the race that she was placed in. Perhaps she, her sub-conscious, feels jealous or just generally pissed off that she, god’s gift of the first woman candidate for the office of vice-president has to bow to Hillary who she feels should be the next president.
It could be a base of chemo-brain too as someone in an article put out as a possibility for why she would knife the democrats chances at the oval office.
Why Hillary’s people would sit around snickering and say next to nothing about this is very troubling and potentially indicative that the cold hard truth could be that in the time of George Walker Bush, a black man can’t be elected president. Yes, America is full of ignorant, lawless, racist, gunslinging, bible beating idiots. Yea hah!!!
It is as my wife has said, a long time republican: “The democrats have this election to lose. Running against John McCain should be easy. They should be able to get a cocker spaniel elected over him.” And I totally believe her. When Hillary complemented McCain, and herself, of having ‘what it takes’ and Obama of ‘having a speech’ I about lost my head!
It seems that she is taking the tact that if she can’t be president then Obama won’t be either. On the face that has power buy you are talking about John McCain and who ever his puppeteers chose to be his Veep.
A lot of damage, a hell of a lot of damage can be wrought in this country in four short years! Her tactic is dangerous and totally and completely reckless… Well, and believable. She plays winner take all, like a republican.
“**minor thought that made me chuckle — can you imagine that George W. Bush would have been a two-time U.S. president if he had been born in the same circumstances as Obama?”
George W. Bush would never have been president, even once, if he had been born into the same circumstances as Obama. If there were fewer Koolaid-drinkers livining in America, he wouldn’t have made it even with his family ties…
I’ve been cured of being a political junkie. After the pure idiocy of this cycle’s campaigns and public discourse, my TV is staying off. Ferrarro; “Hussein Obama;” Hillary’s tears; everything’s good for the “straight shooter” McCain; Romney’s “Kennedy speech;”…..
Fuck it. Raze America to the ground. The experiment has failed.
All this stuff just makes me glad I stuck with my guns and caucused for Obama.
So tell me Pam, are you going to talk about the Wright incident, or are you happy with the hypocrite label already?
New question of the day:
soopermouse, racist or not?
Classic racist tactic of “but they said a bad thing and got consequences so it’s okay when someone says a stooopid thing and doesn’t”.
Vote Yes.
Hypocrisy is a wonderful thing isn’t it?
Oh I forgot, Holy Obama’s supporters, as much as Holy Obama himself, can do no wrong.
If you cannot hold your candidate to the same standard you hold the opponent, you’re not progressive, you are just another hipster doing the feel good thing of the day.
If all you have to say is that if I dislike Obama then I am a racist, that tells me all I need to know about you.
No, what Wright said wasn’t stupid, it was wrong. But that doesn’t matter does it?
Someone hold soopermouse still so his “Obama Is Good” brain chip can be installed… ‘cause that’s what REALLY happened to create all of the Obama supporters, isn’t it?
If all you have to say is that if I dislike Obama then I am a racist, that tells me all I need to know about you.
Well, you’re also sanctimonious, self-righteous, batshit, and incoherent.
How’s that?
Dislike Obama - not a problem.
Rabidly attack those who raise valid concerns about a woman who either lacks sufficient control of her campaign to adjust her spending or reign in the OVERT racism of her supporters on her behalf? Problem.
I think Obama should explain himself when Clinton is ready to explain her “white house experience” kissing Billy Graham’s ass and attending services in numerous bigoted and homobigoted churches as an official act of state.
But that would just highlight Clinton’s career as a Professional Hypocrite now wouldn’t it (wow! She’s got more experience!). It might bring the frequency of the racist dog whistle noises down where we could all hear them loud and clear.
Oh - so interesting how clinton has all her talkradio robots bringing up this same strawman now, too.
Funny that. I suppose stupormuse is acting independently, not owned by the woman.
soopermouse, thanks for acting like a jackass and distracting attention from the vital remarks Ferraro made about the media. See the RNC for your reward.
My question remains unanswered : “the other party is bad too” is not by any stretch of the imagination a valid reply amongst people with more than 2 neurons to run together.
If you refuse to see the hypocrisy of your statements, there seriously isn’t anything else for me to say than “Good luck and enjoy Mc Cain”.
I see however why you guys don’t have a problem with Wright: your own rhetoric is oozing with hatred of someone who disagrees, and as such you can relate to him.
Fair enough, I guess.
Ms Kate, nice tinfoil hat.
Actually, soopermouse, I hope that Wright’s statements and whether or not they refelect Obama’s views are addressed in a new post.