The Audacity of an African-American Male..
The bold-faced audacity of Obama to think for one minute that he is where he is because of his intellect, his education and his hard work..its(slaps forehead) because he is a black man! Why the fuck didn’t I think of that!..Geraldine did howevav..I hate that I have to even consider taking sides in this fight. Who is more put-upon..a Woman or an African-American? I have said from the get-go that between the two Democratic candidates, I do not have a horse in this race. Neither of these candidates are progressive my dear reader.
I feel that there is very little difference between the programs offered up by HRC and Obama. What differs is the person behind the campaign and the message.
What changed for me is Geraldine Ferraro’s comments the last two days. WTF is she trying to say? Is she saying women are less discriminated against than African-Americans or the opposite because at this point..its hard to say. Is she saying that because Obama is both an African-American and a male, he has no idea what it’s like to be discriminated against just as a woman? Because if the truth be told..
Both women and people of color are discriminated against here in these United States of America. It’s a fucking fact jack. Both are held to a different standard and both are treated as second-class citizens. But back to Geraldine and her sick point of view..
For Ms. Ferraro, a former female candidate for the office of Vice President, to say Obama was getting a ‘gimme’ based solely on his color and sex.. I am fucking pissed beyond recognition my dear reader. As a brown bitch I know both types of bigotry and discrimination..that as a woman and a minority. Lets, just to be clear, revisit what Ms. Ferraro said:
“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.”
There it is..one can not pretend what was said..there it is in black and fucking white..ironically so my dear reader.
What pisses me off beyond words is that Ms. Ferraro makes color and sex an issue all by herself.. Her words are divisive in an important contest where we do not need to do that to ourselves..the Republican’s will do it to us all by themselves when both parties choose their candidates and the final race for President starts in earnest. The Republicans will fling the dirt and make race or sex an issue..you can take that to the fucking bank my dear reader.
In essence..Ms. Ferraro did the heavy lifting for the Republicans. And Hillary isn’t discrediting her words. Hillary isn’t disavowing her bullshit and bravado. And I am so fucking pissed.I could spit nails.
Ms. Ferraro didn’t make this about qualifications..she made it about something that shouldn’t matter in this day and age..she made it about the color of someone’s skin or their gender..or as she so eloquently put it..both.
What pisses me off is that women and minorities are fighting against each other in her world. In my world we all stand together to fight this narrow-minded bullshit. As a woman of color, the color brown, I know what the hell it’s like to fight both of these friggin battles..make no mistake about that my dear reader.
Geraldine Ferraro does not. Lets not make any mistake about that. She is a privileged white woman. Instead of making this a campaign about issues and how each candidate will deal with them..for whatever reason and perhaps on purpose, she changed the subject and made it about something that really doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the job of running our nation.
So when Geraldine Ferraro says that people are discriminating against her and her fuckwitted statement because she is a women..I call bullshit on that crap here and now. She is using the tried and true battle cry of the Republicans..reverse discrimination. Kiss my brown female ass Geraldine. Twice even. This campaign does not need any more divisiveness..no bitch, it does not, especially from the inside of the Democratic party.
If her candidate is so weak that she needs to make the case for gender bias coupled with racial bias..then bitch..we got a problem. But she is not contributing to the ‘conversation’ by pointing her tired-ass finger at Obama for being a Black Male as the reason that her candidate is sucking pond scum at this point and using all types of dirty tricks to turn the tide.
I am sicker by the minute of the methods Hillary and her minions, which of course include Geraldine Ferraro, are using to attempt to turn the tide in her favor. Ms. Ferraro is so full of shit at this point, her eyes better be brown. She is making statements that will only harm the Democratic candidate in the fall…because when it’s all said and done Geraldine..
Your a racist and a misogynistic bag of shit in my humble brown bitch opinion. The only thing you care about at this point..is to make sure HRC wins..at all costs.
And Lady Ferraro..the cost is too high if we allow you to spew your garbage and get away with it. So I for one, am calling bullshit on your bullshit here and now.
Update..here is Ms. Geraldine on Fox Noise..some one tell this woman to stfu please!
Crossposted with brown female pride at Sirens Chronicles and UnCapitalist Journal
Tags: Geraldine Ferraro, Racism, Misogyny
March 12th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Careful, girl. You’ll be called uppity….
March 12th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I have already..and I am sure it won”t be the last time Jet
March 12th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Neither of them are progressives? How do you define ‘progressive’, Dusty?
Craig R. Harmon
March 12th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Craig, that is off-topic and I am not in the mood to go there this morning. What difference does it make to you how I rate a candidate personally?
March 12th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I’m sorry…off topic? That’s straight out of your own post. If you don’t want to go there, no problemo. Free country. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. I support you fully in that.
It makes a difference to me because I’m interested in people in general and the people here at BIO! in particular. Because we’ve interacted in the past and I find your opinions to generally be well thought out and articulately expressed. However, I find your denial that Obama, in particular, is not a progressive to be starkly in contrast to my own impression. Not assuming that I’m right and you’re wrong, I inquired into how this discrepancy between our two impressions could be so wide? I thought, perhaps, we were using two different definitions of the word ‘progressive’ and sought to learn what your definition of ‘progressive’ was to compare it to mine.
I don’t assume that I have nothing to learn from anyone.
Craig R. Harmon
March 12th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
It’s offtopic to me because the gist of the post is about Obama,race, gender and finally Ferraro and her ridiculous comments.
Ridiculous in the fact that she had the audacity to say he was lucky. How she equates luck with his abilities remains to be explained by her.
I don’t think my explaining how I rate politicians would shed any light on how you, a conservative, view them.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Craig..if you wish to view what i have written that shows why I don’t view Hillary as a left or progressive candidate check this out:
http://leftwingnutjob.blogspot.com/2008/01/dccc-dlc-and-clintons.html
http://leftwingnutjob.blogspot.com/2008/01/clinton-erawas-it-really-that-good-for.html
I hope those give you an indication of what I think and how I rate candidates.
March 12th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Thanks for this one, Dusty - another example of the way the Clinton campaign is getting uglier as it gets more desperate. It’s as if her philosophy is, “If I can’t have it you can’t either.” A strong indicator of character, and it ain’t pretty. And I think Obama’s campaign overall, and his response to this - he’s acknowledged that it angers him, but he’s not getting down in the gutter with them - is also a sign of character, in his case much more appealing.
Obama is where he is because he is smart, charismatic, hard-working, and has done a lot of good things over a lot of years. If anyone was going to be throwing darts about experience, he’s actually in a better position than Clinton, but he’s been silly enough to spend time talking about the issues and trying to get people thinking about solutions that he obviously should have spent trying to shred anyone who got in his way.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I believe it is actually true. If he was a white male I think Hillary would have run away with the nomination. However is see nothing strange or sinister or even racist in this. Italians tend to vote for italians if that is the major difference between candidates. Same for othere groups and religions. Isn’t the VP suppose to be selected because he/she will appeal to a certian group? With the two candidates being so close in their positions, I’m not surprised that the black communtiy is swinging behind him.
This does not make him the black candidate however. He could have never gotten to where he is without a large percentage of others voting for him.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Dusty,
Thanks for the links. That’s very helpful.
Craig R. Harmon
March 12th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
LJ, thank you kind sir. I do agree with your assessment of how Obama is running his campaign and it gives me hope that should he become the Democratic nom, he will run a decent campaign on the issues, unlike my expectations of the Republicans.
Christopher, I guess we can look to John Edwards campaign to see what happens to a white male, who was also eloquent, educated and had a message he delivered very passionately.
But I think Obama’s appeal to the young is what is giving him the advantage that Edwards was lacking. I personally leaned towards Edwards after Kucinich dropped out because his populist message struck home with me. But I also think Edwards wasn’t hitting the same chords as Obama, and the media marginalized him from the very beginning.
At first, the black community wasn’t voting for him in droves if you recall. Several black leaders stated he wasn’t BLACK enough..so now suddenly he is? How did that change exactly?
Craig, glad I could provide you with some reading material.
Also Christopher, I think recently you took me to task for suggesting Hillary wasn’t left of the center..you might be interested in the two links I put up for Craig which explains why I think that way.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
It changed because they came to see him as a viable candidate. He did that by winning lots of non black votes in Iowa and vermont
Iowa The racial make up of the state is 91.0% white (non-Hispanic), 3.8% Hispanic, 2.5% black, 1.6% Asian, and 0.4% American Indian. 1% of respondents report two or more races
Vermont By race White Black AIAN Asian NHPI
AIAN is American Indian or Alaskan Native — NHPI is Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
2000 (total population) 98.12% 0.76% 1.05% 1.09% 0.05%
I don’t ever rember defending hillary. I would prefer her because I believe she has the best chance of passing universal health care. If she continues some of the pro business charactoristics of her husband I would not be thrilled. However given the mode of the country I do not believe any of that will change with Oboma.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I think Obama started changing African-American points-of-view because Black folks stopped listening to the likes of Al Sharpton and whomever else was running their pieholes about his color.~At least I think that is why..I could be wrong
My point about Hillary is exactly what you stated..if she carries on her husband’s pro-business beliefs, we will once again be dealing wit a Republican-lite administration. Plus he deregulated the banks and the Telco’s.
I also agree Christopher, that nothing will change in the way of the current status quo with either Hillary or Obama in office..although Hillary’s healthcare plan is better than Obamas by a big margin.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Yeah, the thing that stands out most about Obama as compared to other candidates in recent memory - including Sharpton and Jesse Jackson - is that he puts out the most positive and charismatic vibe of anyone in a long time. That’s not always a good sign, because real monsters have been very charismatic, but in his case he’s not using the charisma in a divisive way, and his track record in politics and community work is consistent with the message he’s expressing now. I don’t think he’s perfect - I wish his health plan covered everyone, period, and I’d like him to be more definite about finding a way out of Iraq and reining in corporate power - but he looks like the best choice available to anyone who wants a president who really does try to be “a uniter, not a divider” and to think first about solutions rather than about who to blame.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
… And I never did like Geraldine Ferraro - back when she was running with Mondale she struck me as just another machine politician. And I didn’t like the way she handled that business about her possible organized crime ties - she was as evasive as Bill Clinton was later about the meaning of “is.”
March 12th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Stop! You did not call yourself a brown bitch… ROFL!!!
And anyone, what was wrong with the Clinton years economically? Anyone?
I am voting for the white guy… especially if the other white guy beats Obama…
March 12th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Steve..your vote will be cancelled out by plenty on this blog
I wasn’t talking about economics when I wrote about the Clintons and what they did for the Corporatocracy Steve. But his actions did affect our economy years later, and especially now I might add.
LJ, I was going to take some shots at Ferraro by bringing up the same things you did..but I decided not to throw ‘those’ rocks myself.
As for charismatic speakers..oh yeah m’dear..history is full of those that said one thing and meant and did something entirely wrong.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:09 am
I’ll put McPineapple versus Hillary and Obama any day… I’ll be doing the laughing again on January 20th 2009… just like I was 4 years ago….
March 13th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Keep dreaming steve..were you by chance laughing after the Nov 06 Election?
Didn’t think so..
But I must give this disclosure..I am no longer laughing about the Nov06 results..same shit..different party.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:44 am
Said it before, saying it again - time for a new party to show up and swamp the current ones that have grown too corrupted and lost sight of their original purposes. Both the Democrats and then the Republicans started as reform parties, wielding new brooms, and now look at them. It seems to be part of the natural life cycle of political parties.
The Internet might just make that possible. We could probably put together a platform that would get a lot of people excited, folks that are now Democrats or Republicans but are disgusted with the state of their parties and would jump at a chance to vote for folks that actually spoke to their concerns and didn’t pander to big business, fundamentalism, or ideological extremes on the left or right.
The way to do it would be to start locally, the way the neocons did it, running candidates for offices like city council and school board, building experience and a base of voters. The Greens’ mistakes have included trying to start at the top, going for the presidency and governorships without being willing to pay some dues working their way up. If they had, they might have outgrown some of that arrogance and elitism that pissed off even a lot of liberals.
March 13th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
LJ, yes we do need a party that will cater to the citizens needs. But how do we deal with the here and now?
I say by withholding our votes from the Democrats. They take progressives votes for granted. They play the odds that we will not vote for the Republican at all costs.
I will on the other hand, vote for anyone but the two representing the current system. Didn’t the Democrats learn anything in the election that cost Gore his victory? You can’t always pander to your base, you have to offer those outside your base something to believe in as well.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Gore won the popular vote and florida was a cliff hanger. If he had not distanced himself from Clinton it probably would not even been close. However I have and will continue to vote for 3rd party candidates if they make any sense. I do not mean electability either. But I have to agree, athird party needs to start at the local levels before it goes for national office.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Christopher..My third party candidate has been one of my felines…I know them and I trust them
I have voted for them in the last few elections both national and state-wide. I hate DiFi with a passion unmatched by mortal human beings.
If Gore had one his own state, he would of had enough electoral votes wouldn’t he?
March 13th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Crap..thats “won”.. not “one”..Medications kicking in..sorry.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Absolutly. The election should never even have been close. We were at peace and the economy was doing pretty good. But the problem was not that he appealed to his base. The three main problems were his poorly run compaingn, his bland personality, and distancing himself from clinton.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I think Gore was lazy, he didn’t think it was going to be hard to beat Bush. Plus, Rove came into ‘his own’ in that election.