You hit the Nail on its head! Living near Boston, what u say is so apparent. I can only hope the good Philliers (where i used to live) can rescue Obama in PA.
Michael Markman (Mickeleh)
· 1 year ago
Add in the sudden "discovery" of long available videos of Obama's scary black preacher and the campaign to define him as "other" and "threat" cuts another notch in their belt.
BTW... what are you on if Obama loses PA?
PS: Obama told California big donors that getting within 10 points of Clinton in PA is a win. Who has a recording of that call?
amyloo
· 1 year ago
"Scary"
That's what nobody is talking about out loud -- that angry Black man who could come across as threatening to a lot of voters, but you can only appreciate it in a video. You can appreciate Barack's calm in his explanatory video, too, but it doesn't have the same power.
Screenwriters sometimes use the trick of conveying necessary but boring plot points as angry arguments in dialog just to make things more interesting.
devilinthedetails
· 1 year ago
It's not just the northeast. There is a very strong under current of racism in the midwest as well, especially in smaller towns and rural areas. However, at the same time, a lot of those same ignorant people would say the exact same thing about Hilary Clinton (if she wasn't a woman, she never would have gotten this much attention. If it wasn't for Bill she'd be another no-name lawyer from wherever she's from.)
Honestly, I was immensely surprised by Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses, I thought for sure that he would suffer a bit of the racist backlash.
It's not regional so much as it is generational and economical.
giusec
· 1 year ago
As a European, I have always thought that this was mainly a southern problem. So it's very interesting to 'discover' this hidden side.
Harl Delos
· 1 year ago
You're not ignorant of the situation because you're European; many people in the US, perhaps most, are unaware of this.
Face it: the north didn't want to end slavery because they gave a damn about the slaves. They just wanted an end to competition that (they thought) had an economic advantage over them because slave labor was cheap. In fact, slave labor *isn't* cheap. For the most part, the slave owners provided pretty crappy living conditions, but the folks that worked as "wage slaves" in the north couldn't afford much better. What's more, the northern businesses could lay off workers in downturns, while a slaveowner's costs continue. If a worker in the north breaks a leg, he is on his own; a slaveowner can't afford to "discard" a slave for a disability that lasts several months. What's more, slaves don't worry about getting fired, so they are not very productive. (Yes, you can beat them, but do you think *injuring* workers improves productivity?) So it's not clear that there's much economic advantage to owning slaves over having "wage slaves". There may not be any advantage at all. But the north thought there was.
And when Lincoln freed the slaves, that sucked capital out of the southern economy, just like the collapse of the housing market is doing right now to most of the US. Oh, well, that provided plenty of opportunity for northerners who weren't affected - and combined with the opening of the west (the transcontinental railroad, and the last of the indian massacres occurred about a decage after emancipation), it set the stage for economic good times in the north.
In fact, times were so good that by the end of the century, factory owners were starting to pay relatively high wages. The fact was, you have to pay more if workers avoid your jobs because they are dangerous or unpleasant, to attract enough workers - and that's what factory owners ended up doing. They even started building housing near their factories, and rented it cheaply to their workers. If you lost your job for any reason, you had to find a new home as well as a new job, so it was a smart move for factory owners.
So in the first decade or two of the 20th century, many slaves moved north to accept what looked like high-paying factory jobs. This was a disruptive force in the economy, and the people they competed with for jobs really resented it, unlike in the South, where they were an established presence. This was a really nasty period, apparently, for the US; we pretty much closed our borders to immigrants at that time. People complain about illegal immigrants today, but the US only allowed 5000 Mexicans to legally immigrate last year, so it's not like the Mexicans coming in are simply ignoring the law; we refuse to let them follow it. And even if all the illegal immigrants were legal, we wouldn't have half the rate of immigration that we had in 1900.
So while racial *discrimination* may have existed in the South, but racial *hatred* was - and apparently is - far more acute in the north, a fact that most northern white liberals either don't know or choose to ignore. The Ku Klux Klan was born in Indiana. There was a lynching of three black men in Indiana in 1940, which was one of the last racially-motivated lynchings until the civil rights marches of the 1960s, when northerner activists went down south as if that's where the real problem lie. The worst race riots of the 1960s were in Detroit; it's still a hollow city that's never recovered, forty years later. Governor George Wallace may have stood in the door of the university to prevent integration, but in Boston, they blew up school busses.
In rural NW Ohio, there was the Great Black Swamp - and I don't know if they made good on the "mule" part of "forty acres and a mule", but the forty acres in many cases came out of the Black Swamp. Because of that, the first settlers were black, and because the blacks didn't disrupt the local economy, having been there first, there's a relative lack of hatred. They never needed to integrate the schools in the 1960s; they were integrated from the start, because it was cheaper, and nobody objected. But most blacks in the north live in cities, not in rural areas. Indianapolis is 25.5% black, while rural Whitley county is 0.2% black - that's about 65 people in a county of 32,556.
And yeah, I thought it was crazy when I was in college, and kids from southern states, both black and white, said that race relations were much better in the south than in the north, but over the decades, I've learned that they weren't just blowing smoke up my, uh, perspective.
dave
· 1 year ago
paul, you're so smart and write so well, but this is just plain nasty and where I stopped reading: "a fact that most northern white liberals either don't know or choose to ignore"
You want to make broad general statements that box people into defensive corners (ie flamebait) do it in your own space. Next time you do it here I'll moderate it out.
Harl Delos
· 1 year ago
Dave, I'm not a Southern knocking the north; I'm a northerner who took a very long time learning. My assumption is that most don't know, but every individual will have his own reason for doing what he does.
It isn't my intention to start a flame war, and if you think the post was "just plain nasty", then you should remove it. It's your right, obviously, and some might even argue that being hospitable to your other guests here requires it.
My apologies to anyone I've "boxed into a defensive corner". I'm not sure who they would be, but that's probably because I haven't enough distance to see clearly.
Doc Searls
· 1 year ago
I'm old enough to remember how JFK's religion -- Roman Catholic -- was a Big Issue. Not as big an issue as race still is today, but still: an issue. Would his policies be independent of The Vatican? Would he answer to the Pope? Much ink was spilled on these questions.
What mattered in the long run was not that JFK was elected "in spite" of his religion, but that his election put to rest the whole issue. His religion, it turned out, didn't matter.
Barack Obama is plenty qualified for the presidency -- neither despite nor because of his race. If he is elected, I look forward to race being as much a non-factor is his presidency as religion was in Kennedy's.
For race to not matter, at all, does not need to be a cause. But it is an effect that is long overdue.
Cat Laine
· 1 year ago
Hunh. So you think it is the same brand of scheming as that whisper campaign against McCain in 2004. "What would you think of McCain if you knew he had an illegitimate black baby?" knowing darn well that he had an adopted Bangladeshi baby.
Sigh. It is so upsetting/soul-crushing/frustrating to be part of the expendable wing of the Democratic party.
Harl Delos
· 1 year ago
McCain has featured Bridget in his campaign literature, pointing out to evangelicals that his support for adoption isn't just talk. When it's time for the convention, and he accepts the nomination, it's reasonable for him to be hugged by his wife and daughter - which should put him in fairly good position with those who are concerned about race relations. Now, all he needs to do is to select a woman as a running mate - and Meg Whitman has just joined his campaign.
Mitt Romney tells people that he's a businessman, but most people have no idea what business he was in, even after they hear the name of the business. Everybody's heard of eBay, though. Nobody will claim she's just a token; eBay grew rapidly under her leadership. Because she doesn't come from the world of politics, she doesn't have a history of known positions on a lot of a whole raft of issues, so there would be fewer potential skeletons in the closet to be discovered. And while eBay is full of scammers, the general public generally has a favorable opinion of eBay.
It helps consolidate the GOP base, and erodes the Democratic base.
There's a 25% probability that any vice-president will end up in the oval office, and given John McCain's age, the odds are even higher. I really, really, really don't want Meg Whitman running the US. I'd even prefer Carly Fiorino to Meg Whitman. But I'd sure rather have Meg than Hillary.
Joe
· 1 year ago
Dave - I support Hillary Clinton for reasons that have nothing to do with race. Last week, before Geraldine Ferraro's politically unsavvy comments, I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about the 2008 elections. Here was one of his points as to why McCain was not as good for the United States as Obama: <snip> 4) he's another old white guy -- i think america needs a different face. if i am a young boy in the sudan, i may not understand the nuances of american politics, but if i see the face of the american president that looks a little like me (instead of an old white dude), it gives me hope that my life one day might be better. i think the world needs this. <snip> My friend is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government and an ardent Obama supporter. He has deep knowledge of American politics and America's foreign policy. I doubt that he is alone in his perspective. How do you react to it? Is this racism or is this getting past the stigma of discussing race and looking at a person for all of the attributes (including physical) that they bring to the table?
danhan
· 1 year ago
We can't just wait to grow out of this lunacy. We wait and the luncacy won't stop. We block this kind of reasoning from speading and elect Obama. Obama's victory will create a wall that blocks this type of lunacy from spreading. We don't elect him and the lunacy will continue, perhaps even more so for the next black or minority candidate who vies for the presidency.
Bobg
· 1 year ago
Although I mostly agree, I think it's a bit more subtle. I can lay out why I think Obama would make a better president than Clinton (or McCain), and none of it has to do with race or gender. I like to think I'd vote for a person of his accomplishment and promise regardless of race.
But yet -- I find myself kinda glad I can _also_ vote for a black man. (If I preferred Clinton, I'm sure I'd feel the same way about voting for a woman.) It feels like, in addition to voting for the best candidate, I'm also striking a small blow against the lunacy you mention.
That said, can I be sure that my decision wasn't unduly influenced by this extra benefit? I don't think so, but unlike Spock, I am subject to emotions I don't always understand. It helps that Clinton is female, because then the psychic benefit would be the same, either way.
If this is what Ferraro meant, I'm still sorry she said it, but I understand. However, she might have meant something worse, that any black candidate is, by definition, unqualified. Or I suppose, even worse still, trying to dredge up what Bill Clinton started in S. Carolina, that Obama is a Candidate of Blacks. *That* really pissed me off.
In the end, we are all where we are because of who and what we are. Even W wouldn't be president if he weren't the son of a president. That didn't stop people from voting for him, even though some of us could see he wasn't well qualified, and others had to find out later.
dave
· 1 year ago
I only know my own mind, I can't tell you whether Ferraro was acting, or sincere, or what she really meant, or if I got it right. But I also feel proud of myself -- there was a time when I was scared of black people. I remember visiting Jamaica for the first time, finding myself on the beach as the only white person and freaking out (but not willing to show it). Whether my fears were founded or not, who knows, maybe it was more dangerous when I grew up in NY. What makes me proud of the country and myself is that I no longer have that fear. So yeah, I get what you're saying. I would vote for Obama if he were white, but I'm extra happy to vote for him because he's black because it says we've come a long way, and if we can heal that wound, what wound can't we heal.
justcorbly
· 1 year ago
Spot on, Dave. Underlying Ferraro's remarks is the pernicious notion that civil and human rights progress in this country is a gift bestowed by white people, rather than something inalienable seized by those oppressed by white people.
Ferraro's assertion that she was simply pointing out a "fact" only highlights the racism of those she was pitching, as well as her own inability to recognize her own moral failure.
Guisec: Racism is a human, hence global, problem, not a uniquely American issue. Ask a Jamaican in London, a Turk in Germany, an Egyptian in Jordan. Engaging in it is a personal moral failure.
darrenkeith
· 1 year ago
Thank you for this piece. To be honest I view the Republicans as the "good Ol' boys" network and some White Democrats as "Corporate" America network. Here is what I mean by this...
I think sometimes White America over-analyze certain things. Many call themselves liberals but in all honesty when it comes to dealing with African-Americans they feel like they have "totally" feel our pain and that not what we want.. A White person understanding our pain is like we as males telling women, "we understand what you went through when you gave birth to your child." This may sound far fetched but in all honestly that kind of applies because we as men can never know that feeling of life growing inside of us[males].
This election is bringing out so many things that need to be addressed in our nation. Will we ever have that happen Mr. Winer, I doubt it because when we[African-Americans] want to have an open, honest dialog on race many Whites feel we are trying to put them on a quilt trip and 9-10 that is never the case. I say this time and time phrase time and time again and it seems simple to do but not easy for White America to grasp...
"Don't try and understand us, you never will. Just treat us the way YOU wish to be treated." That's it, plain and simple. No muss, no fuss
Another thing Mr. Winer is that we as men[white and black] in our nation have been taught to watch our words when it comes to talking to women and I think women have been taught that they can say just about anything to men because "we are men and there for we can take it." Many times women think they can say something smart to men and we are suppose to just take it and not respond. I truly believe this is what is going on in the Hillary camp. Senator Clinton and her campaign feel they can say whatever smart remark that comes into their head and not be held accountable for it. But then when they are called on their comment, they feel like they are being "attacked".
Is Geraldine Ferraro a racist? I don't think so but many women need to take the advice that we men have been taught over the ages...
"Watch your words because once they leave your mouth you can't take them back."
and when you are wrong, just say you are wrong...just apologize.
dave
· 1 year ago
Amen to all this.
I know what you mean about the imbalance betw men and women, you see it all over the place. But it's not universal, thankfully. I have lots of women friends who I can talk with as an equal. When the imbalance shows itself, I just back off, no way to win that one.
Also, my Northeast Racism piece represented only one form of it. I realized that listening to Obama last night on CNN, when he explained that Wright is a good man, but coming from the time he came from, there was an attitude about race that is changing now. That, I felt, was a really polite way of saying that Archie Bunker had a black neighbor, George Jefferson.
It's so clear -- when you go through these issues, you get rid of pain, or you can -- but you have to feel it to get rid of it. This is going to be a painful process, but we have to go through it someday, might as well be now, as opposed to 2012, 2016 or 2020.
marshal sandler
· 1 year ago
Ferraro is a Clinton Strategist or should we say Confederate Christian Values at wrok!
tiffany
· 1 year ago
I think you're right Dave. But I decided to cut GF some slack when she said that she was her gender was the deciding factor in the 1984 VP candidacy. It's not that she couldn't have done the job, she said, but she was chosen over other people *because* she was a woman.
Now where GF hangs herself with the rope the media handed her is that she doesn't concede or acknowledge that Hillary is also where she is because *she's* a woman and because, frankly, we still like Bill. GF then buried herself with the Oppressed White Person Defense.
But think about it: neither Clinton nor Obama are radical change-bringers. You could make the case that they're the black male and the white female version of John Edwards (and I'm still not clear on whether Obama has a foreign policy and what that policy might be). They're really both quite moderate and unremarkable in terms of policy.
But there is a whole lot remarkable about Obama's blackness and Hillary's gender. And I think Democrats are caught up in how cool that would be. I know I am though in terms of policy, I'm much more in line with Kucinich.
That's not to say that Obama (or Clinton) is *un*qualified or even *less* qualified. It is to say "put 6 Democratic candidates in a bag and 5 would make a good president." Where Obama and Hillary have an edge is that *physically* they look different from presidents 1 - 43.
And sometimes that's what a country needs.
darrenkeith3
· 1 year ago
"...Where Obama and Hillary have an edge is that *physically* they look different from presidents" well put...I never thought of it that way because each president has been male and white. Hopefully this issue will come to a close because in the end, we cannot stand or take 4 more years of a "Bush" mentality.
Kenya
· 1 year ago
I agree that it's automatically assumed that affirmative action or some kind of "white guilt" is the only reason that Black people can be in a position to compete with whites. It is unfortunate that the color of one's skin can negate being a Harvard Law graduate and serving eight years in the Illinois legislature and three years in the U.S. Senate. He didn't just show up out of nowhere. He didn't win the lottery. Yet he's lucky because being Black has put him in this situation? I don't know what planet Ferraro has been living on.
Ferraro and Clinton in effect understand the Northeastern racism that Winer speaks of and are trying to harness it to their advantage. Those who entertain and pander to racism are guilty by association. It has been shown that Clinton will do whatever it takes to win this nomination and that is exactly what I don't like about her.
All Comments
BTW... what are you on if Obama loses PA?
PS: Obama told California big donors that getting within 10 points of Clinton in PA is a win. Who has a recording of that call?
That's what nobody is talking about out loud -- that angry Black man who could come across as threatening to a lot of voters, but you can only appreciate it in a video. You can appreciate Barack's calm in his explanatory video, too, but it doesn't have the same power.
Screenwriters sometimes use the trick of conveying necessary but boring plot points as angry arguments in dialog just to make things more interesting.
Honestly, I was immensely surprised by Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses, I thought for sure that he would suffer a bit of the racist backlash.
It's not regional so much as it is generational and economical.
Face it: the north didn't want to end slavery because they gave a damn about the slaves. They just wanted an end to competition that (they thought) had an economic advantage over them because slave labor was cheap. In fact, slave labor *isn't* cheap. For the most part, the slave owners provided pretty crappy living conditions, but the folks that worked as "wage slaves" in the north couldn't afford much better. What's more, the northern businesses could lay off workers in downturns, while a slaveowner's costs continue. If a worker in the north breaks a leg, he is on his own; a slaveowner can't afford to "discard" a slave for a disability that lasts several months. What's more, slaves don't worry about getting fired, so they are not very productive. (Yes, you can beat them, but do you think *injuring* workers improves productivity?) So it's not clear that there's much economic advantage to owning slaves over having "wage slaves". There may not be any advantage at all. But the north thought there was.
And when Lincoln freed the slaves, that sucked capital out of the southern economy, just like the collapse of the housing market is doing right now to most of the US. Oh, well, that provided plenty of opportunity for northerners who weren't affected - and combined with the opening of the west (the transcontinental railroad, and the last of the indian massacres occurred about a decage after emancipation), it set the stage for economic good times in the north.
In fact, times were so good that by the end of the century, factory owners were starting to pay relatively high wages. The fact was, you have to pay more if workers avoid your jobs because they are dangerous or unpleasant, to attract enough workers - and that's what factory owners ended up doing. They even started building housing near their factories, and rented it cheaply to their workers. If you lost your job for any reason, you had to find a new home as well as a new job, so it was a smart move for factory owners.
So in the first decade or two of the 20th century, many slaves moved north to accept what looked like high-paying factory jobs. This was a disruptive force in the economy, and the people they competed with for jobs really resented it, unlike in the South, where they were an established presence. This was a really nasty period, apparently, for the US; we pretty much closed our borders to immigrants at that time. People complain about illegal immigrants today, but the US only allowed 5000 Mexicans to legally immigrate last year, so it's not like the Mexicans coming in are simply ignoring the law; we refuse to let them follow it. And even if all the illegal immigrants were legal, we wouldn't have half the rate of immigration that we had in 1900.
So while racial *discrimination* may have existed in the South, but racial *hatred* was - and apparently is - far more acute in the north, a fact that most northern white liberals either don't know or choose to ignore. The Ku Klux Klan was born in Indiana. There was a lynching of three black men in Indiana in 1940, which was one of the last racially-motivated lynchings until the civil rights marches of the 1960s, when northerner activists went down south as if that's where the real problem lie. The worst race riots of the 1960s were in Detroit; it's still a hollow city that's never recovered, forty years later. Governor George Wallace may have stood in the door of the university to prevent integration, but in Boston, they blew up school busses.
In rural NW Ohio, there was the Great Black Swamp - and I don't know if they made good on the "mule" part of "forty acres and a mule", but the forty acres in many cases came out of the Black Swamp. Because of that, the first settlers were black, and because the blacks didn't disrupt the local economy, having been there first, there's a relative lack of hatred. They never needed to integrate the schools in the 1960s; they were integrated from the start, because it was cheaper, and nobody objected. But most blacks in the north live in cities, not in rural areas. Indianapolis is 25.5% black, while rural Whitley county is 0.2% black - that's about 65 people in a county of 32,556.
And yeah, I thought it was crazy when I was in college, and kids from southern states, both black and white, said that race relations were much better in the south than in the north, but over the decades, I've learned that they weren't just blowing smoke up my, uh, perspective.
You want to make broad general statements that box people into defensive corners (ie flamebait) do it in your own space. Next time you do it here I'll moderate it out.
It isn't my intention to start a flame war, and if you think the post was "just plain nasty", then you should remove it. It's your right, obviously, and some might even argue that being hospitable to your other guests here requires it.
My apologies to anyone I've "boxed into a defensive corner". I'm not sure who they would be, but that's probably because I haven't enough distance to see clearly.
What mattered in the long run was not that JFK was elected "in spite" of his religion, but that his election put to rest the whole issue. His religion, it turned out, didn't matter.
Barack Obama is plenty qualified for the presidency -- neither despite nor because of his race. If he is elected, I look forward to race being as much a non-factor is his presidency as religion was in Kennedy's.
For race to not matter, at all, does not need to be a cause. But it is an effect that is long overdue.
Sigh. It is so upsetting/soul-crushing/frustrating to be part of the expendable wing of the Democratic party.
Mitt Romney tells people that he's a businessman, but most people have no idea what business he was in, even after they hear the name of the business. Everybody's heard of eBay, though. Nobody will claim she's just a token; eBay grew rapidly under her leadership. Because she doesn't come from the world of politics, she doesn't have a history of known positions on a lot of a whole raft of issues, so there would be fewer potential skeletons in the closet to be discovered. And while eBay is full of scammers, the general public generally has a favorable opinion of eBay.
It helps consolidate the GOP base, and erodes the Democratic base.
There's a 25% probability that any vice-president will end up in the oval office, and given John McCain's age, the odds are even higher. I really, really, really don't want Meg Whitman running the US. I'd even prefer Carly Fiorino to Meg Whitman. But I'd sure rather have Meg than Hillary.
<snip>
4) he's another old white guy -- i think america needs a different face. if i am a young boy in the sudan, i may not understand the nuances of american politics, but if i see the face of the american president that looks a little like me (instead of an old white dude), it gives me hope that my life one day might be better. i think the world needs this.
<snip>
My friend is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government and an ardent Obama supporter. He has deep knowledge of American politics and America's foreign policy. I doubt that he is alone in his perspective. How do you react to it? Is this racism or is this getting past the stigma of discussing race and looking at a person for all of the attributes (including physical) that they bring to the table?
make a better president than Clinton (or McCain), and none of it has to do with race or gender.
I like to think I'd vote for a person of his accomplishment and promise regardless of race.
But yet -- I find myself kinda glad I can _also_ vote for a black man. (If I preferred Clinton,
I'm sure I'd feel the same way about voting for a woman.) It feels like, in addition to voting
for the best candidate, I'm also striking a small blow against the lunacy you mention.
That said, can I be sure that my decision wasn't unduly influenced by this extra
benefit? I don't think so, but unlike Spock, I am subject to emotions I don't always understand.
It helps that Clinton is female, because then the psychic benefit would be the same, either way.
If this is what Ferraro meant, I'm still sorry she said it, but I understand. However, she might
have meant something worse, that any black candidate is, by definition, unqualified. Or I suppose,
even worse still, trying to dredge up what Bill Clinton started in S. Carolina, that Obama
is a Candidate of Blacks. *That* really pissed me off.
In the end, we are all where we are because of who and what we are. Even W wouldn't be president
if he weren't the son of a president. That didn't stop people from voting for him, even though
some of us could see he wasn't well qualified, and others had to find out later.
Ferraro's assertion that she was simply pointing out a "fact" only highlights the racism of those she was pitching, as well as her own inability to recognize her own moral failure.
Guisec: Racism is a human, hence global, problem, not a uniquely American issue. Ask a Jamaican in London, a Turk in Germany, an Egyptian in Jordan. Engaging in it is a personal moral failure.
I think sometimes White America over-analyze certain things. Many call themselves liberals but in all honesty when it comes to dealing with African-Americans they feel like they have "totally" feel our pain and that not what we want.. A White person understanding our pain is like we as males telling women, "we understand what you went through when you gave birth to your child." This may sound far fetched but in all honestly that kind of applies because we as men can never know that feeling of life growing inside of us[males].
This election is bringing out so many things that need to be addressed in our nation. Will we ever have that happen Mr. Winer, I doubt it because when we[African-Americans] want to have an open, honest dialog on race many Whites feel we are trying to put them on a quilt trip and 9-10 that is never the case. I say this time and time phrase time and time again and it seems simple to do but not easy for White America to grasp...
"Don't try and understand us, you never will. Just treat us the way YOU wish to be treated." That's it, plain and simple. No muss, no fuss
Another thing Mr. Winer is that we as men[white and black] in our nation have been taught to watch our words when it comes to talking to women and I think women have been taught that they can say just about anything to men because "we are men and there for we can take it." Many times women think they can say something smart to men and we are suppose to just take it and not respond. I truly believe this is what is going on in the Hillary camp. Senator Clinton and her campaign feel they can say whatever smart remark that comes into their head and not be held accountable for it. But then when they are called on their comment, they feel like they are being "attacked".
Is Geraldine Ferraro a racist? I don't think so but many women need to take the advice that we men have been taught over the ages...
"Watch your words because once they leave your mouth you can't take them back."
and when you are wrong, just say you are wrong...just apologize.
I know what you mean about the imbalance betw men and women, you see it all over the place. But it's not universal, thankfully. I have lots of women friends who I can talk with as an equal. When the imbalance shows itself, I just back off, no way to win that one.
Also, my Northeast Racism piece represented only one form of it. I realized that listening to Obama last night on CNN, when he explained that Wright is a good man, but coming from the time he came from, there was an attitude about race that is changing now. That, I felt, was a really polite way of saying that Archie Bunker had a black neighbor, George Jefferson.
It's so clear -- when you go through these issues, you get rid of pain, or you can -- but you have to feel it to get rid of it. This is going to be a painful process, but we have to go through it someday, might as well be now, as opposed to 2012, 2016 or 2020.
Now where GF hangs herself with the rope the media handed her is that she doesn't concede or acknowledge that Hillary is also where she is because *she's* a woman and because, frankly, we still like Bill. GF then buried herself with the Oppressed White Person Defense.
But think about it: neither Clinton nor Obama are radical change-bringers. You could make the case that they're the black male and the white female version of John Edwards (and I'm still not clear on whether Obama has a foreign policy and what that policy might be). They're really both quite moderate and unremarkable in terms of policy.
But there is a whole lot remarkable about Obama's blackness and Hillary's gender. And I think Democrats are caught up in how cool that would be. I know I am though in terms of policy, I'm much more in line with Kucinich.
That's not to say that Obama (or Clinton) is *un*qualified or even *less* qualified. It is to say "put 6 Democratic candidates in a bag and 5 would make a good president." Where Obama and Hillary have an edge is that *physically* they look different from presidents 1 - 43.
And sometimes that's what a country needs.
well put...I never thought of it that way because each president has been male and white. Hopefully this issue will come to a close because in the end, we cannot stand or take 4 more years of a "Bush" mentality.
Ferraro and Clinton in effect understand the Northeastern racism that Winer speaks of and are trying to harness it to their advantage. Those who entertain and pander to racism are guilty by association. It has been shown that Clinton will do whatever it takes to win this nomination and that is exactly what I don't like about her.