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Nuuon
Regular Poster
Username: Nuuon
Post Number: 57
Registered: 03-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 08, 2008 - 04:27 pm: | 
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Your Whiteness is Showing
An Open Letter to Certain White Women Who Are Threatening to Withhold Support from Obama in November
Tim Wise
Counterpunch.org
This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.
I know that it's probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you--who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator--is raw, pure and justified.
That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don't mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.
First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...
For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...
For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...
Your whiteness is showing.
When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.
If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women--you know, the ones who aren't white like you and most of your friends--but rather, like white men! Needless to say it is high irony, bordering on the outright farcical, to believe that electorally bonding with white men, so as to elect McCain, is a rational strategy for promoting feminism and challenging patriarchy. You are not thinking and acting as women, but as white people. So here's the first question: What the hell is that about?
And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please...
Your threats are not about standing up for women. They are only about standing up for the feelings of white women, and more to the point, the aspirations of one white woman. So don't kid yourself. If you wanted to make a statement about the importance of supporting a woman, you wouldn't need to vote for John McCain, or stay home, thereby producing the same likely result--a defeat for Obama. You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she's progressive, and she's a feminist. But that isn't your threat is it? No. You're not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton's birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be...?
See, I told you your whiteness was showing.
And now for a third question, and this is the biggie, so please take your time with it: How is it that you have managed to hold your nose all these years, just like a lot of us on the left, and vote for Democrats who we knew were horribly inadequate--Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, right on down the uninspiring line--and yet, apparently can't bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama? A man who, for all of his shortcomings (and there are several, as with all candidates put up by either of the two major corporate parties) is surely more progressive than any of those just mentioned. And how are we to understand that refusal--this sudden line in the proverbial sand--other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year--and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point--but can't bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you've supported before. How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing?
See, black folks would have sucked it up, like they've had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman--hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so--but you won't support the black man. And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?
Your whiteness is showing.
Look, I couldn't care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn't be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously. But for you to act as though you are the indispensible voters, the most important, the ones whose views should be pandered to, whose every whim should be the basis for Party policy, is not only absurd, it is also racist in that it, a) ignores and treats as irrelevant the much more loyal constituency of black folks, without whom no Democrat would have won anything in the past twenty years (and indeed the racial gap favoring the Democrats among blacks is about six times larger than the gender gap favoring them among white women, relative to white men); and b) demonstrates the mentality of entitlement and superiority that has been long ingrained in us as white folks--so that we believe we have the right to dictate the terms of political engagement, and to determine the outcome, and to get our way, simply because for so long we have done just that.
But that day is done, whether you like it or not, and you are now left with two, and only two choices, so consider them carefully: the first is to stand now in solidarity with your black brothers and sisters and welcome the new day, and help to push it in a truly progressive and feminist and antiracist direction, while the second is to team up with white men to try and block the new day from dawning. Feel free to choose the latter. But if you do, please don't insult your own intelligence, or ours, by insisting that you've done so as a radical political act. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 7300
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, June 08, 2008 - 05:09 pm: |
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You gotta respect a person that uses his/her talents for GOOD .....…instead of paltry and simple self-aggrandizement.
That's why I LOVE and RESPECT me some Tim Wise.
......Preach it Brotha!
Right on!
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6896
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 09, 2008 - 12:06 pm: |
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One good thing about this election it showed the true colors of those phony liberals. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6897
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 09, 2008 - 12:07 pm: |
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You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she's progressive, and she's a feminist. But that isn't your threat is it? No. You're not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton's birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be...?
(What do you have to say to THAT, Cynique!) |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 7307
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 09, 2008 - 01:02 pm: |
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Are [White] women shunning Obama? Pollster says no
There's been much written and You-Tubed about supporters of Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton who are having trouble making the switch to presumptive nominee Barack Obama -- and say they may never. Or may never unless he puts Clinton on the ticket with him as vice president.
Are women a big problem for Obama? Maybe not. At least one poll shows rapid recent movement to Obama overall among Democrats, including women.
Pollster Scott Rasmussen says that as of today, based on 3,000 automated telephone surveys over the past three nights, Obama gets support from 52% of the women in his national tracking poll compared with 40% for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain. He says that's better than Democrat John Kerry did with women against President Bush in 2004.
Scott attributes Obama's performance to unification within the Democratic Party over the past few days. "Before last Tuesday, Obama routinely earned around 70% of vote from Democrats," he tells us in an e-mail. "He's up to 81% today. Clearly the party has been coming together."
Full article
http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/06/are-women-shunn.html
Have the Bonds the Clintons Made with the Black Community Been Irreparably Broken?
While reporters and pundits talked about how Clinton could make amends with the Democratic Party by bringing her supporters into the fold to support Obama, Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton -- whom Toni Morrison once dubbed “the first black president” -- have some other fence mending to do. Many black people say the Clintons “tore their behinds” with the African-American community and may not be able to recapture the favor they once enjoyed.
Full article:
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/movingamerica08/clintonsblacks6 09 |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6914
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 09, 2008 - 03:38 pm: |
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Have the Bonds the Clintons Made with the Black Community Been Irreparably Broken?
While reporters and pundits talked about how Clinton could make amends with the Democratic Party by bringing her supporters into the fold to support Obama, Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton -- whom Toni Morrison once dubbed “the first black president” -- have some other fence mending to do. Many black people say the Clintons “tore their behinds” with the African-American community and may not be able to recapture the favor they once enjoyed.
Full article:
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/movingamerica08/clintonsblacks6 09
(All them two crackers and Paul Begala and Geraldine Ferraro can do for me is stay out of my face) |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 3193
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 09, 2008 - 04:19 pm: |
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"All them two crackers and Paul Begala and Geraldine Ferraro can do for me is stay out of my face."
Chris....comon', you don't mean that. And you know it! I'm sure when you make your daily early morning head count and musters with the neighborhood trick daddy ho's, you're praying you will run into a Geraldine Ferraro look alike. Let's be honest here..... |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6924
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 09, 2008 - 04:45 pm: |
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"All them two crackers and Paul Begala and Geraldine Ferraro can do for me is stay out of my face."
Chris....comon', you don't mean that. And you know it! I'm sure when you make your daily early morning head count and musters with the neighborhood trick daddy ho's, you're praying you will run into a Geraldine Ferraro look alike. Let's be honest here.....
(The only place you run into a Ferraro look alike is in the "Unclaimed" section of the City Morgue
That ole dead coochie really turns you on, eh?) |
Nels
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 1162
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 13, 2008 - 12:21 am: |
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White folks sure spend a lot of their time being white, and they sure look like idiots because they think that the rest of the world doesn't know what they're up to. |
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