Don't go there. That way madness lies.
It's not too late. Though the last week or so has seen endless diaries here trying to accuse Obama of playing the race card first (all based on one discredited and disowned memo from the South Carolina primary cited in Huffington Post) the broader picture emerging is of Hillary using race as the last card...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ 2008/apr/28/hillaryclinton.usa
I don't want to believe it. I definitely don't think that her and Bill are racists. But there are some principles so important to the health of US civil society that you should never break them in the pursuit of power. I don't for a moment believe that the bulk of Hillary supporters are racist, and I'm hoping the counter reaction - accusing Obama of being a racist too - will soon die down. But point scoring on such a historically catastrophic issue, one that underpins the tragedies of slavery, civil war, segregation and the worst political violence of the 60s, is like juggling nitro with glycerine
Don't go there. That way madness lies.
Gary Younge, a long time UK resident of DC and very much a sceptic about Obama, expresses the fear:
At issue is the insidious and racist manner in which his candidacy is now being framed as that of a nefarious, foreign interloper whose allegiance to his country is inherently inauthentic and instinctively suspect.Some of these charges have long emerged from familiar and predictable places...
<snip>
But soon these attacks shifted from the political margins to the mainstream. During the recent ABC debate, Obama was grilled about his refusal to wear an American flag tiepin. One of the moderators asked Obama of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright: "You do believe he's as patriotic as you are?"
Having given up on the African-American vote, the Clintons have clearly decided that it makes more electoral sense to collude with these attacks than it does to raise the tenor of the discussion and challenge them. During the ABC debate, Hillary applauded the line of questioning. "You know, these are problems, I think these are issues that are legitimate and should be explored."
<snip>
Three days after Obama made his landmark speech on race, Bill Clinton said of a potential match-up between Hillary Clinton and McCain: "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." The implication was that Obama doesn't love his country and all this "racial" stuff is just getting in the way.
<snip>
Unable to beat Obama on delegates and still unlikely to beat him in the popular vote, Hillary Clinton has just one strategy left - to persuade superdelegates that Obama is unelectable. She has tried branding him as inexperienced and slick-tongued, and neither of those have worked. At this stage she has just one argument left: his race.
<snip>
Now I expect most the responses to this diary to be Obama played the race card first. To which the response could be - no he didn't: or indeed Hillary is playing the race card by saying Obama played the race card by saying Bill played the race card first...
Don't go there. That way madness lies.
For obvious reasons, his electability and his mixed race heritage, Obama can't play the race card: he would be playing it against himself.
TWO SUGGESTIONS FOR MENTAL HEALTH
1. Though not a sin of commission, saying 'America isn't ready for a Black president' is a sin of omission: an acquiescence to the racism of others. People who use this phrase are tacitly accepting Americans are predominantly racist - something which I don't believe is true anymore, and should be no more condoned that saying 'America isn't ready for a woman president'.
2. Can we also stop making the equivalence between distrust between communities, and active racism. I've heard so many comments in the last few days here about 'blacks being as racist as whites'.
Of course racist attitudes can exist in all kinds of societies. I happen to know Kenya and (some) members of each of the tribes who don't trust and have are prejudiced against the other. But RACISM is about prejudice combined with power i.e. the ability of one race to subdue, discriminate against, and persecute the other. To equate black racism with white racism in the US is effectively saying there's a moral equivalence between say, the Bosnians and the Serbs, or Tutsis and Hutus, or indeed Slaves and Slaveowners, because both sides disliked each other equally.
Racism isn't just an attitude, it's a power system , and since neither blacks nor women have ever held such power, this leads to the totally ludicrous and immoral position of equating slave with slave holder, the powerless with the powerful, the persecuted with the persecutor.
To accuse all black voters who vote for Barack Obama of being essentially racist is as crazy as accusing every women supporter of Hillary of being sexist.
Don't go there. That way madness lies.
If we're going to have discussions about race, for the sake of cohesion, for the sake of the democratic party and a still unhealed country, can we quit talking about race this way? The only people who will benefit from these flame wars over sexism and racism are real sexist racist republicans who will be laughing all the way to the White House.
Don't go there. That way madness lies.
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