Ann at Feministing reposts a question she asked over at TAPPED:
WHAT I DON’T GET.Why, after Geraldine Ferraro’s comments, didn’t Hillary Clinton stand up and deliver a speech on how she sees race in America?
Ok, ok, of course I understand why Obama was the one expected to offer a definitive statement on race. I just don’t like it very much.
People of color are not the only people who have a racial identity, and are not the only people who deal with issues of race in this country. Just like women are not the only ones who deal with issues of gender.
Just had to say that again.
Here’s what I don’t get: Why is it that every time Obama has to deal with criticism, or when he faces a potentially problematic issue, someone has to ask — demand, even — why Hillary isn’t doing something about it as well?
Ferraro’s comments are not the equivalent of Wright’s. For one thing, they hardly play equivalent roles with the respective campaigns; Ferraro is a Democratic party elder with no official campaign role who shot her mouth off to an obscure newspaper in California — surely, some comments on page D4 of a local shopper in Torrance, California are the perfect forum for dogwhistling to the racists in Pennsylvania! — and Wright has been Obama’s spiritual advisor for 20 years, supported by his presence in the church, his donations, his thanks (the title of The Audacity of Hope is from one of Wright’s sermons, and Wright was the only person Obama thanked by name during his 2004 keynote speech at the DNC) and his study (when Obama went off to Harvard Law, he took tapes of Wright’s sermons with him to study).
For another, Hillary publicly disagreed with Ferraro’s comments* soon after they were brought to light, and Ferraro stepped down. Obama has shifted positions on Wright, probably because he can’t afford to denounce the man himself, given his position and given how close the relationship has been. So he’s issued denials that he’s ever heard any such comments in 20 years, or issued denials about having heard the comments in the tapes that ABC has run. And then he’s walked back from those denials.
But more to the point of why Obama had to give a speech on race and Clinton didn’t: because Obama chose to make this speech about race. Which was an interesting choice, given the nature of some of the statements that Wright made that were controversial. The most politically problematic were, perhaps, the ones such as “God damn America.” But Wright also made specific attacks on Hillary Clinton and made it very clear that he didn’t think women had it so bad — white women at least — and yet other than a reference to the glass ceiling, Obama didn’t address these at all.
And Obama had to make this speech about race (and not about perceptions of anti-Americanism, or misogyny) because he’s chosen to run as a post-racial candidate, one who doesn’t make people have to think icky thoughts about race (even as his campaign and his supporters gleefully smeared the Clintons as racist, in many cases just making shit up out of whole cloth, persisting in doing so even after that shit had been debunked (why, hello, Kos, I’m looking at you)). And here, suddenly, was a reminder that he does have a racial identity.
In short, Obama had to make this speech because this is specifically Obama’s problem.
And what *I* don’t get is why Clinton has to fix Obama’s problems.
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*Comments that, incidentally, were not so very different from ones that Obama has made about himself.
And, also, if Hillary had made a speech about race, she’d instantly get smacked for presuming she had the right to speak about issues of race from her position as a privileged white woman - shades of Jessica getting smack-talked for not talking about issues of race and women of colour in Full Frontal Feminism, if I remember correctly. It’s very much damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t. On one hand, you can be aware of and support people of colour in their fights against oppression - institutionalized and otherwise - but if you feel squicky about speaking on their behalf, not having experienced for yourself how that specific form of hate takes shape and forms, then you get slapped for not promoting or being supportive enough. If you do speak, you get slapped for arrogantly presuming you can possibly know how it feels.
I would feel more comfortable with these criticisms against Clinton if Obama was facing them in nearly the same manner on issues of sexism, but he’s not - and until very recently, the sexist attacks on Hillary have been so mainstream and blatant (at least in comparison to phrases like “fairy tale” somehow being racist) that his refusal to acknowledge them feels far more significant to me, and deserves some discussion.
As always, thanks zuzu, for being you.
It wasn’t an interesting choice. Obama made the speech about race because the issue he’s suffering from is about race. Not plain vanilla anti-Americanism. And certainly not misogyny (Clinton is obviously the one suffering from that). Wright said “God damn America” in the context of the racism faced by blacks every single day in this country. A lot of the fears about Wright’s anti-Americanism really stem from a fear that he’s an angry black man who hates whites and (unfounded) fears about how blacks would treat whites if blacks get too much power. Some white right wing preachers talk regularly about how evil America is, and people don’t get nearly as wound up about that as they are about this.
And as for how Wright feels about this country? I think it’s understandable. It’s not dramatically different from the way my father feels about the country of his birth - Austria. He was born in Austria in 1931. More to the point, he was born Jewish in Austria in 1931. Fortunately, after his father was arrested the first time on Kristallnacht, he started making plans to move his family to the United States. They got out in 1939, right before the war started. So my father did not go to a concentration camp. [Although none of his aunts, uncles, or grandparents who were in Poland and decided to stay were alive at the end of WWII.] Basically what my father lived through was Kristallnacht, the Nuremberg Laws, his father being arrested, and his neighbors treating him as though he were sub-human. He doesn’t hate Austrians. But any time he went back after the war, he was always suspicious of them. So as far as I’m concerned, a black person who is suspicious of the motives of whites is understandable. A black person who curses at this country for how it treats blacks is understandable. Double that for one who grew up in the pre-Civil Rights era. It’s just not the same as if a white person had said “God damn America.”
I guess I agree with you about Obama not having had to make a speech like this if he were running a non-post racial campaign. Mostly, though, because I seriously doubt he’d be a quasi-front runner if he were running a non-post racial campaign. This country simply is too racist for that. From my perspective, Obama had two choices - Run a post-racial campaign (not the same as “don’t have icky thoughts about race”) and have a chance to win; or run a non-post racial campaign and definitely lose.
And, yes, it is specifically Obama’s problem. It’s specifically Obama’s problem because he’s black. Regardless, I do not think Hillary Clinton should have to address race because Obama does. I think Obama shouldn’t have to address race at all. But, again, this country is simply too racist for that. White candidates don’t make people (or at least white people) think “icky thoughts” about race either, but because by and large white people don’t think of white as being a “racial identity.” Just the norm. Obama only has a “racial identity” because being black is being Other. This is why he has to run a specifically post-racial campaign, but no other candidate in the race has to. By definition, they’re “post-racial.” Or, perhaps more accurately, “non-racial.”
Now, Wright’s misogynistic statements about Clinton? Damn right Obama should have specifically condemned those. He should also stop with sexist crap like “you’re likable enough” and “periodically, when she’s feeling down…”
If Hillary is required to come out with a speech about race, why isn’t Obama required to come out with a speech about sexism?
Oh yeah, cause if he came out against sexism he would have to stop using it as a campaign tool and the Obamabots wouldn’t get to indulge in lefty approved misogyny anymore.
So as far as I’m concerned, a black person who is suspicious of the motives of whites is understandable. A black person who curses at this country for how it treats blacks is understandable. Double that for one who grew up in the pre-Civil Rights era. It’s just not the same as if a white person had said “God damn America.”
I absolutely agree with this. And I also agree that he shouldn’t have had to have made this speech at all, especially considering the horrible filth spewed by the right-wing preachers that McCain hangs around with and isn’t called on. But it does get tiresome having fans of Obama counter every criticism of the guy with “But Hillary — !”
And it does say something that he’s getting applauded left and right for making a speech about racism and disavowing that portion of Wright’s sermons when he was pretty damn right about all of that, and at the same time, he utterly failed to address the misogyny in Wright’s sermons, which he was so very wrong about.
It also says something that on the very day that he’s calling for high-mindedness, his campaign manager is out accusing Clinton of taking the “low road” and doing anything to win.
Eh, the way I see it, Clinton hasn’t made a comparable speech on racism or on misogyny at least in part because Clinton isn’t a comparable speechmaker, and knows it. I mean, she’s still many times the speechmaker I’d be, but why focus on an area that’s your opponent’s strength, when you can instead be expressing your views by, say, trying to be in as many debates as possible, and to prepare for those debates really, really well (you won’t catch Sen. Clinton making the kinds of mistakes of fact McCain makes, who recently forgot about the Sunni/Shiite division when talking about Al Qaeda and Iran).
I loved Obama’s speech, and don’t fault Hillary Clinton in the least for not making it.
I was wondering if anyone noticed how Obama side-stepped Rev. Wright’s misogyny with regard to what he said about Clinton in his sermon. I should have figured everyone here would.
I’m extremely tired of Clinton being blamed for everything negative that comes out about Obama.
So Obama is required to come up with a speech about sexism? That seems to be your construction here.
And, no, I don’t think Hillary should have — or even needs to — give a speech about racism. She’s not the person affected by racism, so it’s not her speech to give, just as Obama is not the person affected by sexism, so it’s not his speech to give.
And I am the only one who noticed that he publicly forgave Geraldine Ferraro in the speech?
I haven’t finished reading the speech, honestly. My point in this post was countering Ann’s assertion that because Obama had to do this, Hillary had to do the same thing. And really, asking why Hillary hasn’t delivered a major speech about race just invites the question of why Obama isn’t also charged with delivering a major speech about misogyny.
I actually read a very interesting post which argued that this wasn’t a brave speech because Obama distanced himself from the things that Wright said that were true; that black people have every right to be angry and that the US has acted arrogantly in the world.
I do find it troubling that I’ve seen a lot of comments from Obama supporters that take Hillary to task for not defending Obama on this issue. As if a) he and his campaign haven’t already made her toxic on race issues; b) he’d actually distanced himself not only from the perceived anti-American and reverse-racist statements, but also from the specifically misogynistic statements (I wonder if Michelle would agree that a woman never had to work twice as hard or never got called bitch or cunt); or c) he’d disavowed the whole “riding dirty” business from Wright. Or, d) as if she were his mother, charged with cleaning up his messes.
OTOH, these comments also came from the same quarters that instantly blamed her for the passport violations, though were strangely silent once it was revealed that both Clinton and McCain’s files were looked at as well.
I guess I’m guilty of doing that as well. Most charges that Hillary supporters have against Obama, Hillary is guilty of as well, often at several times the severity. So, yes, when Hillary supporters bring up Rezko, or Obama’s votes to continue funding of the war, or his absences on various votes, I bring up Hillary’s numerous financial scandals (plus the ones waiting in the wings: Bill’s library funding and her unreleased tax returns. Did you know that she took money from Rezko as well?), her vote for the war (plus all her votes to continue funding it), and her missed votes (almost as many as Obama’s). Are Obama supporters not supposed to bring this up when Hillary supporters try to use these arguments against him?
Perhaps not, but she did have trouble naming Putin’s successor. She also has made a couple tremendously embarrassing statements, such as the claim that her trip to Bosnia was extremely dangerous.
Hillary’s numerous financial scandals
You mean the ones that were investigated for six years at a cost of $90 million and turned out to be unfounded?
Come on. We’ve been down that road. There’s no there there. People got sent to jail and there was *still* no there there.
Obama’s Rezko problem is Obama’s Rezko problem. Maybe Clinton accepted a campaign donation from him, but to bring that up in defense of legitimate questions about Obama’s changing stories about how much he took from Rezko and the arrangements with his house and the adjoining lot is misdirection.
At some point, he’s got to answer his own questions and he’s got to deal with his own issues without trying to throw it back onto her.