Do I Stand Corrected on Ferraro? Seems That Way

Sometimes things change in 24 hours. Sometimes I change. Although not often. (My mom chalks it up to me being a Virgo.)

With more information coming to light since I posted yesterday on Ferrarogate, as well as some excellent arguments from family and fellow MOMocrats, it seems that perhaps this is an unfortunate pattern of Ferraro's. In which case she is the one who sucks after all. And I, wanting so hard to believe that this couldn't be racism at play, took her word for it.

As the brilliant beltway insider of my family says (and I trust him completely) "It was an incredibly stupid thing to say" particularly as it's playing into the narrative that the Clinton campaign is race-bating. And as the always astute Keith Olberman said, these kinds of outbursts could be "slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to be president." Crikey.

And so I'm reassessing my opinions based on new facts at hand. Because that's what progressives do. Take a lesson Hannity/O'Reilly/Coulter/Malkin/Iraq War Supporters.

I still don't think she's a racist. I just don't think that there was any reason to have made these statements in the first place considering the current political climate, and that a seasoned politicians should know better.

Can we just have a nominee now?

Please?

-Liz occasionally eats crow at Mom-101 which she enjoys with a nice blue cheese dipping sauce

Comments

[PunditMom]

Despite her past record and her use of the word "lucky" (stupid, stupid, Geraldine), I still believe there is some truth to what Ferraro said, just as I believe there is some truth to what Gloria Steinem said in her NYTimes op-ed, which was more focused on gender (if Obama was a woman of any color, would he/she be in the race today?)

I think many of us like to think we are color- and gender-blind. But our country just isn't -- yet.

Obama is a great candidate. He's a different candidate than Hillary, who I think is also great. As much as I LOVE Keith Olbermann, I don't think Ferraro's comments were so off the mark in terms of the factors voters look at in making their decisions. I hardly think race and gender are the sole or guiding factors, but it's naive to think they don't come into play.

If we ignore the role race and gender still play in how some people make decisions, is that a good thing? Or should we face it and take it on and try to change it?

[Mom101]

Agree with pretty much everything you're saying PunditMom. I stand by my assertions in my original post that we do consider factors like race and gender. Of COURSE we do. We can't help it.

I guess the issue was that one stupid comment made repetitively is no longer one stupid comment - it's a calculated pattern of trying to demean him by attributing his success to the color of his skin. Particularly at a time that her candidate is trying to sidestep accusations of race-bating. It doesn't help Clinton and it doesn't help Democrats.

[cynematic]

Maybe the distinction to be made is between "race-conscious" and "colorblind." There's a school of jurisprudence that blends a lot of cutting edge progressive legal thought + social theory called Critical Legal Studies. I'm no expert but from my skimming around various thinkers/writers in this area, I think their basic argument is this: "colorblindness" is taken as a desirable social end and marker of racial equality, when it fact it simply disguises or ignores racial inequality. (The parallel would be to say that 'gender difference does not exist, so I'll treat you just like a human being.' Problem is, the template for 'human being' is male. See Simone de Beauvoir, The Sex Which is Not One, etc.)

I absolutely believe that to be "race conscious" is 1) not the same as being racist, and 2) not the same as being "colorblind". To be conscious of race is to acknowledge difference without (ideally) assigning a negative value to it; it's recognizing racial difference as at least neutral and/or positive. To be "colorblind" is to presume the end result of racial equality in which race is neutrally or positively meaningful WITHOUT PROVIDING FOR THE MEANS TO GET THERE. "Colorblindness" is a classic conservative/neo-conservative way to talk about race and the law, at least; arguing that university admissions should be "colorblind" is what launched the founding anti-affirmative action case UC Regents v. Bakke (the Bakke decision). And "colorblindness" is what UC Regent Ward Connerly (himself African American) used to stir up public sentiment for Proposition 209, which changed the University of California college admissions procedure in the 1990s. The result? Admission of black male students, for example, decreased from a woeful figure (in the teen percentages) to .13%, (that's right, less than 1%) or 40 male students out of 30,000, in 2005. That's a shameful statistic, and it's the direct result of "colorblindess."

(http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/03/29_oped.shtml for more info on the above.)

My point being, I feel like we keep talking in circles around this issue although ultimately I think we are closer to agreeing than not, and maybe it's because I'm using and thinking of the terms "race conscious" and "colorblind/ness" in very specific ways. So I thought I'd put my thinking out there, which comes from my graduate student days at UCB and the "culture wars" of the '90s. I saw firsthand how the word "colorblind" was used to snow California voters into something anti-egalitarian--into the decrease of equal opportunity for all--the very thing we here are all appalled by and against. And in the undergraduate multicultural literature and compostion classes I taught, I saw firsthand how we could increase "intercultural competence"--at least neutral, if not positive--appreciation of race, gender, class, sexuality, and other forms of difference. This is what college students can learn today, if they're inclined to. Difference is only bad if you believe it's a negative. Sometimes difference is just difference.

Hope that clarifies where I'm coming from.

[cynematic]

Oh, and Liz? You deserve kudos for bravely and intelligently saying what you think in this public forum, and then for saying bravely and intelligently that you were mistaken.

So, can I interest anyone in a nominee?

[debbie - i obsess]

amen, Cyn.

a-freaking-men.

and Liz, you humble me. thank you for this post.

[John J.]

PunditMom, I agree that his race has helped him in some polls. But what Ferraro was saying (or at least implying in her original quote) is that it is the only reason he is still in the race. This is what made her comments racist.

Identity politics does exist, but if that were all that was helping Obama, as the Clintons want us to think, he would have 30% of the vote, at most. The fact that up until South Carolina, Clinton was winning among the African-American voters compared to Obama also completely destroys this argument.

I personally find identity politics distasteful, and many African-Americans do now too, after the Clarence Thomas nomination. This is why Obama can't run on his race. That is part of why Jessie Jackson lost when he did. This is why Obama couldn't go out seeking the support of the Sharptons of the world. He is not running on his race, and he is not winning because of it - he is winning (largely) because of his message.

The line of thinking Ferraro is espousing is also denigrating to his supporters. It completely ignores even the possibility that we might be voting on merits. It continues the "his supporters are just delusional" message they have been trying to push since Bill came out with his "fairy tale" comment and which Obama directly addressed in the last debate.

[Gunfighter]

Well said, John.

The Clintonistas would be going apeshit had someone suggested, "Hillary Clinton is only where she is because she is a woman... and really, girls everywhere should be inspired by her, because of what her symbolic candidacy means. Look at the record number of women voters she has turned out... If Hillary Clinton were black, and male she could never have achieved this., at the end of the day, that's the only reason anyone is voting for her. That whole Invasion of Iraq thing?, just ignore it, she was just trying to show that she is strong"

I'd be burned in effigy (rightly so) across the country.

[Mom101]

Gunfighter, actually I've heard plenty of that rhetoric. Emily's list is talking specifically about the surge she gets from women voters (http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3486) and Oprah says that women accuse her of betraying her gender for voting Obama. Or how about all the news crews that head to Wellesley and Barnard to demonstrate how "young women" are supporting Hillary.

But that stuff will never get as much coverage because it's way more acceptable to be sexist in this country than racist.

Here's Dee Dee Myer's POV:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/25/has-gender-been-a-factor-in-hillary-clintons-presidential-campaign/

Highlight: "The truth is: you can still say almost anything about a woman, with no penalty. When demonstrators at a Clinton rally shouted at her to “iron my shirt,” there was no outrage. When Rush Limbaugh mused about whether Americans wanted to watch a woman grow old before their eyes (as if men in the White House don’t age), no one pushed back. When a former Chief of Staff to the United States Air Force and a senior advisor to the Obama campaign was quoted saying undeniably sexist things about Hillary, the Obama campaign distanced itself from the remarks — but no one demanded the general be “fired.” "

[Gunfighter]

My point is that had a prominent member of the Obama campaign said what I wrote, do you not think that he would have been out on his ass quickly? Do you not think the situation would have been exacerbated if the person in question had a twenty plus year record of saying nearly the exact same thing about women?

[Mom101]

Gunfighter, I would sure hope so. But I can't entirely say that it would get enough media coverage to create a groundswell of anger to the degree that they had no choice.

[Gunfighter]

Pardon me.

Horses**t!

The media isn't against Hillary Clinton. The media is sensationalist to be sure... but that kind of statement would illicit howls from many many corners. As such, coverage would sell a lot of ad time. Ad time and money is what it is all about.

[Mom101]

Wow gunfighter - again, an Obama supporter here but am calling it like I see it. I think the media narrative has been very clearly pro-Obama which is why the recent SNL sketches have been working. I think she's wrong to whine about it though.

[John J.]

I think part of the reason those comments get less attention is because they are often made my random nut jobs (the "iron my shirt" comment) and not usually anyone actively involved in Obama's campaign.

I went and dug up the comment you referenced from the retired AF Chief of Staff, Merrill McPeak - http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/blogs/daily/2008/02/dee-dee-myers-t.html. His comment was in reference to the "crying" moment just before the New Hampshire primary. I think there are two reasons the comment didn't draw much attention. 1) Lots of similar comments (his might have have been one of them focused on) were made by lots of people and all of them got attention together, Edwards's own personal statement in particular drew my attention (and blog admonition - http://johnsmentaldetritus.blogspot.com/2008/01/politicians-losing-direction.html). They were all lumped together and probably are what pushed Clinton to her victory there. 2) There is a fine line there between being sexist and attacking a campaign tactic. Edwards, in his reply, tried to imply that she was weak because of her tears; McPeak, while exaggerating what happened like many in the media were, only said that Obama was not having "crying fits."

What he said was wrong, and Obama did distance himself from the comment (I wasn't able to find any quotes from him regarding this directly), but it is a bit different from saying someone only got to their position because of their race/gender or any of the other things Ferraro said recently.