maybe it's just me, but i really don't get it. actually, that's a lie--i get it all too well.
when ms. ferraro made her now-infamous comments about mr. obama winning black, my reaction was as follows: "hmm, let's look at this--on the one hand, his resume is ultra-light and his accomplishments are few, and does anyone really believe he'd be getting this level of support from black voters if he were a white man? but on the other, he's young, tall, whip-smart, good-looking, charismatic and a smooth talker--he's got that whole bobby-kennedy thing going and americans eat that shit up so his race may not be as big a factor as she'd like us to believe."
in other words, instead of getting all bent, i evaluated her words as i believe they were intended: as a sour-grapes discussion of a key element in another candidate's make-up as a way of explaining why her candidate was losing--i mean, we've seen shit like this a thousand times.
only this time it was different, because she dared bring up the elephant in the room that nobody's allowed to talk about.
and this just pisses me off, because, look--obama's race is just as big a factor in this race as is hillary's sex, or mccain's age, or romney's religion; difference is, we're allowed to discuss those things, but what we've learned once again these last few days is that anybody (well, anybody white) who touches the third rail in even the most innocuous way is gonna be labeled a racist.
so yeah, she's right: in a way, obama is lucky he's black; he gets to enjoy all of the benefits this factor confers upon his candidacy, and play upon it when it suits him--and then turn around and slam anyone else who dares remark upon it.
what utter bullshit.
[oh, and geraldine: don't let the bastards get you down]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I think being black, by itself, would not have been nearly enough without substance.
And yes, the substance is "candidate" substance (the Bobby Kennedy thing). Perfectly good ideas but with (as opposed to Bobby) an average record, calculated "per-year", or even a skimpy one calculated cumulatively.
But he's got the jazz as a candidate that hasn't been in our face in decades. So, since we as humans are often taken by that, it goes in his favor.
Would the same candidate jazz have been as effective if he was a WASP? You know, I actually think s. Not as much automatic support from certain quarters, but, as a candidate, he's doing a lot of the right things - not strategically, but emotionally in a pretty convincing way, IMO. And, my views about some of his online supporters aside, I actually like that.
Weirdly, I never saw the race thing as being more than one of the variables that worked in his favor. Until the acrimony set it. Now, it's all people can talk about: "She dared say he was black!" "He dared call her a woman!"
And I think, being these things is bad why?
Seriously, it's what all that crap boils down to, and it's utterly stupid.
OTOH, who wouldn't have known that bringing up the issue - in the undiplomatic way the Ferraro did - would have caused a bit of a stir. It *shouldn't* have, but that's just wishing for reality to be different.
i dunno, atari--would anybody have been upset if, say, mccain's people had said something like, "well, of course romney took utah, being mormon and all."
am i (or was ferraro) saying that black voters are all just jumping onto the obama bandwagon in knee-jerk fashion? no. the point is, however, that he IS getting a disproportionate chunk of the black vote in many states, and that fact--in conjunction with the fact of his own racial makeup--should not be off the table for discussion.
but i tend to agree with you about his voter appeal above and beyond his race--overall, he's quite a package, regardless of what color he happens to be. as i've said elsewhere, he's a warm bath as opposed to hillary's cold shower, and that's really what she's fighting--not the fact that he's black.
Obama is black . His middle name is Hussein . His minister is a black supremacist anti-semite .
Part of the reasons why it should be a factor is the same reasoning behind racial profiling . A red flag should always go up .
In this case , the red flag seems justified .
byzantine boy: i don't particularly care about the first two points; however (although i'd probably characterize rev. wright as more "black separatist" than "black supremacist"), i tend to agree with you on the third. trust me, i'll have more to say about this in the near future.
Post a Comment