![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Okay, lately there's been this big stupid argument about whether Barack Obama is black.
If this argument were taking place in an academic context, and being used deliberately to highlight the nuances of American racism and caste structure, I would be pleased as punch. This is obviously the sort of thing you can use to illuminate the parameters of categories, and the force of the verbs and nouns and adjectives that make the categories, that arise from and maintain and challenge and transform them. Okay fine.
However.
What's happening is that, since Barack Obama has a conceivable chance of winning the election, there are those who want to discredit him any way they can (I reserve judgement myself as to whether I actually want to vote for him in the primary until maybe November or so. I would have said next year, but primary insanity is welling in California and they're talking about moving our primary again, from April to February: but that's based on what he does in the next few months and on who else is running. If he makes it through the primary, I'll certainly vote for him in November next year). So you get repeated misspellings of his name (Osama for Obama): you get emphasis on his very-common middle name Hussein: you get proclamations that Al-Qaeda wants Barack Obama elected: and now you get "he's not black, he doesn't share the experience of slavery."
Garbage.
Look, Colin Powell is black by American definitions, and he shares the experience of slavery, and he's evil and I wouldn't vote for him. Condoleeza Rice is a woman, and she's black, and she shares the experience of slavery, she even has one of those stereotypical weird names that black families like to give to their daughters, and she's evil and I wouldn't vote for her. I'm not choosing my candidates by their ethnic identity any more than I'm choosing them by their sex, or where they went to college, or what state they come from.
When we talk about wanting more black candidates, more Hispanic candidates, more women candidates, more everything underrepresented candidates, we're talking about wanting the conditions that create these things. We're not -- or I'm not, and I hope the rest of us are not -- engaging in magical thinking, that if you just get the right color or the right genitalia or whatever in to office, your problems are over. We think that the kind of politics that gives you a viable candidate with ties to these communities is the kind of politics that might just get us somewhere and might just keep us from self-destructing before we get a handle on our long-term survival needs.
Barack Obama'a attraction does not arise from the color of his skin. It arises from his connections, who he's beholded to and who he's not beholden to, and his promise. I certainly hope that people don't engage in this argument for long. It's dumb and irrelevant.
The real challenge is: will Barack Obama make the right things happen? Will he work with the real progressives in his party? Will he vote right in the next few months? Will he stand with the grassroots (and not just passively accept their support while courting the same-old, same-old DLC guys)?
If this argument were taking place in an academic context, and being used deliberately to highlight the nuances of American racism and caste structure, I would be pleased as punch. This is obviously the sort of thing you can use to illuminate the parameters of categories, and the force of the verbs and nouns and adjectives that make the categories, that arise from and maintain and challenge and transform them. Okay fine.
However.
What's happening is that, since Barack Obama has a conceivable chance of winning the election, there are those who want to discredit him any way they can (I reserve judgement myself as to whether I actually want to vote for him in the primary until maybe November or so. I would have said next year, but primary insanity is welling in California and they're talking about moving our primary again, from April to February: but that's based on what he does in the next few months and on who else is running. If he makes it through the primary, I'll certainly vote for him in November next year). So you get repeated misspellings of his name (Osama for Obama): you get emphasis on his very-common middle name Hussein: you get proclamations that Al-Qaeda wants Barack Obama elected: and now you get "he's not black, he doesn't share the experience of slavery."
Garbage.
Look, Colin Powell is black by American definitions, and he shares the experience of slavery, and he's evil and I wouldn't vote for him. Condoleeza Rice is a woman, and she's black, and she shares the experience of slavery, she even has one of those stereotypical weird names that black families like to give to their daughters, and she's evil and I wouldn't vote for her. I'm not choosing my candidates by their ethnic identity any more than I'm choosing them by their sex, or where they went to college, or what state they come from.
When we talk about wanting more black candidates, more Hispanic candidates, more women candidates, more everything underrepresented candidates, we're talking about wanting the conditions that create these things. We're not -- or I'm not, and I hope the rest of us are not -- engaging in magical thinking, that if you just get the right color or the right genitalia or whatever in to office, your problems are over. We think that the kind of politics that gives you a viable candidate with ties to these communities is the kind of politics that might just get us somewhere and might just keep us from self-destructing before we get a handle on our long-term survival needs.
Barack Obama'a attraction does not arise from the color of his skin. It arises from his connections, who he's beholded to and who he's not beholden to, and his promise. I certainly hope that people don't engage in this argument for long. It's dumb and irrelevant.
The real challenge is: will Barack Obama make the right things happen? Will he work with the real progressives in his party? Will he vote right in the next few months? Will he stand with the grassroots (and not just passively accept their support while courting the same-old, same-old DLC guys)?
Tags:
no subject
Hillary has a chance to win in November 2008. Does anyone really think Obama has a chance to win November 2008?
If Obama waits till Nov 2016, doesn't his chance improve, regardless of who is in the White House in the meantime?
I see it like playing bridge. Lead with the Ace (Hillary) and take 2008. Then the King (Obama) is still available for 2016.
no subject
no subject
For one thing, the press is touting Obama now. But if he wins the nomination, then will be time for the GOP to start smearing him. They're holding off now to give him time to push Hillary out, or at least damage her chances, imo. The same GOP people that supported Nader.
no subject
Obama seems to have heard that, though he's not paying close enough attention to the secular mood that is growing in response to the abuses of the religionists.
But all of this will be moot if Congress doesn't act, right now, strongly, tirelessly: because there is a strong chance that there will be no election in November 2008.
I do think that if we see an impeachment, we're less likely to lose the whole Constitution.
no subject
It's not just a matter of who is further left/right. Hillary has the money and what some are calling the 'machine', which will be important in Nov. If Obama got the nomination, she might sit this out and save her money for 2012.
Aside from Carter (kind of a fluke), Bill Clinton was the only Dem to get the White House in /howmany/ decades, and a second term and great ratings while being impeached. A third and fourth term for the Clinton team might get the voting process cleaned up and make 2016 safe for Obama.:-)
no subject
This is the kind of thinking: "we should be more like Republicans, because they win."
But Democrats can't win by being Republicans. Republicans have a lock on being Republicans.
And I think the thing I'm looking at is not the difference between being left and being right -- I'd be delighted if that was the difference I was offered, now and then -- but the difference between being anything honest and being whatever the market seems to be asking for.
As ambitious and calculating and self-promoting as Hillary is, I don't think she'll withhold a thing from the Democratic Party even if she doesn't get the nomination. I think she'll do what it takes to win.
I'm not a particular fan of Obama at this stage. I'm still hoping for a candidate I can embrace wholeheartedly, at least for the primary. And in the primary I will vote for whoever really says and does what a Democratic candidate should say and do. In the November election, I'll vote for the Democrat.
I've only been a party-line voter since 2000 (I voted for Clinton both times, but not as a party-line voter). Hell, I haven't been a Democrat much longer than that. I was Peace and Freedom for a long while.
no subject