Hot Topics: Race, Voting and Stereotypes

This is another post from marilyn|Jean. marilyn|Jean: occasional blogger. constant activist. provocative party planner.

------

There are no such things as voting blocs based on race and gender. People are too complex and diverse to be lumped together in political bundles. We’ve learned this lesson in this election, for sure. But for some reason (read: media & the patriarchy) people hold this falsity to be true, placing some hefty expectations and assumptions on people like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. There are groups of people that have dominated the political scene since this god awful race began and as November 4 looms nearer, they are really starting to piss me off. Below I break these groups down and explain why they are so gosh darn annoying.

Joe Sixpack: The poor white guy

I’m not exactly sure when the tides turned. All of a sudden in 2008 white men, particularly poor ones made up their own voting bloc. A bloc that warranted media attention, analysis and pandering. I find it disconcerting that the first female candidate and Black candidate for POTUS had to apologize to this “bloc” for being powerful, educated, wealthy…you know all the things rich, white men have always been.

When asked about the race factor in this year’s election, Rep. Murtha out of Pennsylvania found himself in some hot water for telling it like it is when he said: "no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.” Murtha was simply trying to explain the ugly truth that some people – no matter how qualified he is and how shitty the last eight years has been – will not ever ever EVER vote for Barack Obama. Ever. Like never. The people Murtha was referring to were his own Jesus/working/gun-loving residents, Democrats who have supported him election after election. For them, this isn’t about the issues, this is about their own prejudices that they refuse to let go.

No one has yet been able to explain to me how white and Black working class people are so different. When you look at it from a sociological perspective we value the same things, set the same goals, work in the same places and ultimately suffer under the same policies enforced by the Bush Regime. Yet, Joe Sixpack and Joe the Plumber have become the poster kids for the disenfranchised. Hey guys: when are you going to wake up and realize that poor has no color these days? We’re all shopping at Wal-Mart, praying that the bills go away, waiting in the unemployment lines and hoping our kids get a better deal out of life than we did.

Instead of talking about the issues and how he’s going to solve them, Barack has had to constantly toe a line of not being “too black”. He has to assure people that he’s just like them – justifying his American citizenship. That’s bullshit. No other candidate on the trail has to do that. They can be taken at face value and start a position of at least an iota of respect without being attacked for the parents they couldn’t choose and the accomplishments they have achieved.

If you love America like you say you do, then get over your prejudices and get to the polls.

Lily Liberal: Condescending White Liberals

I’m not sure which is worse: racist white people, or white people who don’t think they’re racist. This election has shown us how ignorant liberal white people can be. If they weren’t busy slinging sexist mud at Hillary Clinton, they were promoting subtle racist rhetoric about Barack Obama. One can almost expect that sort of malarkey in such an historical election. What I didn’t expect was the self-satisfaction some white people possessed when they proclaimed their allegiance to Barack Obama. I have had white people go as far as to say that his presidency would end the awful nightmare that is racial history in America. That his candidacy in-and-of itself diminishes the lasting residue of racial oppression.

Really? If anything, Barack Obama and this entire election has shown us how far we have not come. (Yes, I am one of those people who looks at the glass as half empty.) Have we progressed from public lynchings? Yes. Have we progressed past segregated lunch counters? Sure. Is the word “nigger” regarded as taboo and not a casual way to describe someone of African-American descent? Yes. BUT, is there still gerrymandering, job discrimination, inadequate school systems, segregated communities, predatory lending in Black communities, an imbalanced justice system and stereotypical portrayals of Black people in the media? You betcha! And the election of a Black president will not eradicate these realities. Yet, there are some optimistic white people who think that their vote for Barack is like some excuse note for all the privilege they have and will continue to enjoy when he’s in office.

Call me stuck in history, but nothing is going to erase the remnants of racism in America. Nothing. We still have people out there who can’t admit we have a problem. You can’t solve a problem if some people don’t even want to know that it exists. Instead of placing yet another Obama bumper sticker on your Prius, why don’t you take a trip into places like southern Ohio and western Pennsylvania and talk to your fellow whites and explain to them why you’re white, yet voting for Obama.

Make sure you leave your croissants and lattes in the car.

Juan Republican: The Latino Vote

In case you didn’t know, Latinos are some of the most racist people I know. I know this because I am half Latino and I grew up being exposed to the nasty prejudices between Black Americans and Latinos. I won’t be a bigot and point out specific nationalities, so I will be a jerk and speak in sweeping generalizations. There are plenty of stories like this one that go largely ignored in the mainstream media when talking about the Latino Vote and Barack Obama.

A recent story on NPR exploring this concept quoted one Latino as saying that he doesn’t like Blacks, but he is voting for Obama anyway. Then there was another story where one guy thinly veiled their prejudices by explaining how Barack Obama doesn’t “get” Latinos, that he doesn’t “get quinceñeras, piñatas, our values…tacos.” Seriously. Someone said that. Because you know that’s what being Latino is all about. Yet, to this guy John McCain gets it. Yeah…John McCain is the pinnacle of Latino advocacy. He’s done a terrific job with immigration. Like immigration is the only concern that Latinos in America have. Like all Latinos came here from Mexico. Way to monopolize the Latino voice. This is the same John McCain who belongs to a party that refers to many hardworking Latinos as “illegals” no matter if they were born in Poughkeepsie. The same party that has members who insist that English being constitutionally protected as the nation’s first language.

It’s fucking disgusting that some Latinos would forsake unity among minorities and soft shoe for a candidate who could give a rat’s ass less about them because they are too racist to vote for a Black man. A man whose father wasn’t even born here! Talk about being the son of an immigrant. How does Barack’s story of being raised by grandparents and his single mom less reflective of Latinos than the privileged upbringing of John McCain? And again: what about the issues? Last time I checked, a majority of Latinos were not sitting pretty in America. Do you truly think that John McCain is the answer, or are you just as close-minded and conservative as he is?

Oye: "La revolucion de la gente empieza con la liberacion de la mente."

Invisible as always: Asians and the election

I typed in “Asian vote” in my search engine and this is what I got. What gives? Maybe I have been under a rock, but this entire election has ignored Asian voters. Maybe they want to be ignored. I don’t get the invisibility and I am perturbed by this oversight. I can’t speak for Asian-Americans, but if I were them, I’d be pissed.

Seriously: where the hell is the Asian “bloc” and why doesn’t anyone care about them? There are some 11.9 million Asians in this country. Maybe the live in states where the vote is already locked up? I don’t want to assume that all Asians consider race to be their main and sole identity. Are they just lumped in with white people because they’re not Black or Latino? I don’t get it. Are they not elite, or working class? Women concerned about choice? People who have sons and daughters serving in Iraq? People who have a stake in the economic crisis?

I guess this indicative of racial realities and history in the U.S. Asian-Americans are often marginalized even in conversations on race. They are pushed into footnotes and cursory paragraphs (like here). Asian-Americans represent such a diverse range of incomes, values, identities and geographies that I can’t dare assume which party possesses the most members. I’m honestly at a loss on this group, so if you’re Asian and reading this, make some noise!

Al, Jackson and Co: Blacks who do more harm than good

There are just some Black people who do Barack more harm than good by publicly voicing their support for him. Rappers like Ludacris: He wrote a song that included the lyrics attacking Hillary Clinton and degrading her in order to show the world how much he support Barack Obama. How many Black people has the Obama Campaign had to say thanks, but no thanks to because their “endorsements” were collateral to Obama’s professional, political image? Too many (that includes you, Rev. Wright).

I find it disappointing that they are Black people out there voting for Obama, but can’t tell me why besides the fact that they think “our time has come”. Our time? Our time for what? My brother, you can’t spit knowledge on how dope his health care plan is, but like the Lily White Voter, you think a Black president is all we need to stop the hate. Just like women who voted for Hillary simply because she has a vagina, you are despicable for voting for someone just because they share the same skin color as you.

And while we’re talking about those Blacks, let’s talk about Black Republicans. Man, did we think Black folks would jump ship when Obama came on the scene. Is there a law that says that if you’re Black, you have to be Democrat? No. But do Black Republicans continue to amaze me? Yes. Now, I know that Black Americans aren’t a bloc. We don’t have the same money, live in the same places, possess the same degrees. I get it: there are bonafide reasons why some Blacks are Republicans. Nevertheless, Colin Powell befuddles me. So does, Condi. I can’t help but wonder why Black people of any ilk choose to be part of a political party who has done everything in its power to disenfranchise other Blacks. (I’m talking to you, Ken Blackwell and Clarence Thomas.)

If anything, this election has proven that Black Unity, no longer exists, if it ever even did.

This isn’t a race to the bottom…

This should be a march towards unity. During critical times like these, people need to let go of their misperceptions and fears. We need to move towards understanding what plagues us all and work together to find solutions. This is what Barack Obama is all about, yet the only man to talk about true unity is the same one who suffers from ugly divisiveness.

This election is historical and important. Not just because of what is at stake, but because people have really shown their true colors (no pun intended). It shows us that we’ve made significant strides towards catching up with the rest of the world by electing people based on merit, not identity, yet it also reveals just how ass backwards people in American can really be. So keep your heads in the sand, or pat yourself on the back for being so “progressive’ now because we won’t know who is who when we’re all shit on in the end.

You're My Boy Blue: Historic Day, Historic Nomination

Tonight, Barack Obama will become the first Black person in this history of the United States to be nominated as a major party's presidential candidate.

That sentence alone could sum up the day's excitement. But there's no use having a blog if you aren't going to chat a bit on it.

When I was younger, my parents, especially DadGrace used to tell me that it didn't matter what color your skin was, it only mattered who you are inside. I used to think that he was some sort of genius for the comparison, but later learned he just coopted it from a genius--Martin Luther King, Jr. Forty-five years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. marched on Washington D.C. and delivered one of the most infamous speeches in American history. Indeeed, Dr. King had a dream that day. We all did. But the dream was just that--a dream.

Until now.

I'm not saying that we're in a post-racial society. We aren't. I'm not saying there isn't racial tension or racial divisiveness. There is. I'm not even going to make the "we're better off than we were before," comment, because until we are at full equality, it really doesn't pay to look back. But I will say this: tonight marks an important moment in that journey.

See as an inquisitive young mind, even though DadGrace told me people could be judged by their character and not their appearance, I learned differently. I looked around and saw a white-washed society in every place that mattered. I knew in my heart of hearts that he was right, but I questioned whether everyone else knew it.

Tonight that might change a little. A young Sam Grace tonight might not have to ask why things work in theory, but not in practice as a young, charismatic, Black man takes the stage and accepts the Democractic nomination for president. Even for one night, we might, just trancend our past for just a moment and look towards our future. We might just see a dream come true.

Forty five years ago today, Dr. King gave a speech in Washington D.C. that he first gave in my hometown of Detroit. Tonight in the suburbs of Detroit, a young white woman will remember why to have hope and why to dare to dream.

Good Point

In this article, Frank Rich questions the fact that the media hounded and continues to hound Obama about Rev. Wright, but why the same standards aren't held to when it comes to white politician's religious friends. I mean, aren't a lot of them just as bad if not worse than Wright?

And to be fair, how is it that Obama's "elitist" comments about white people in rural Pennsylvania and his association with Wright are newsworthy, but the comments and policies of white men such as McCain that hurt people of all colors are just not as notable? Maybe race does have something to do with it after all.

Enjoy the article.

(My comments are in bold.)

------------

McCain's Preacher Pal Calls Catholic Church the 'Great Whore' -- Where's the Outrage?

By Frank Rich, The New York Times
Posted on May 5, 2008, Printed on May 6, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/84386/

Bored by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Mr. Hagee is not a fringe kook but the pastor of a Texas megachurch. (I despise megachurches.) On Feb. 27, he stood with John McCain and endorsed him over the religious conservatives’ favorite, Mike Huckabee, who was then still in the race.

Are we really to believe that neither Mr. McCain nor his camp knew anything then about Mr. Hagee’s views? (I wouldn't think we need to assume that.) This particular YouTube video — far from the only one — was posted on Jan. 1, nearly two months before the Hagee-McCain press conference. Mr. Hagee appears on multiple religious networks, including twice daily on the largest, Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Any 12-year-old with a laptop could have vetted this preacher in 30 seconds, tops.

Since then, Mr. McCain has been shocked to learn that his clerical ally has made many other outrageous statements. Mr. Hagee, it’s true, did not blame the American government for concocting AIDS. But he did say that God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins, particularly a scheduled “homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came.” (Yeah...just as bad, really.)

Mr. Hagee didn’t make that claim in obscure circumstances, either. He broadcast it on one of America’s most widely heard radio programs, “Fresh Air” on NPR, back in September 2006. He reaffirmed it in a radio interview less than two weeks ago. Only after a reporter asked Mr. McCain about this Katrina homily on April 24 did the candidate brand it as “nonsense” and the preacher retract it. (What, he didn't go to a dinner or the Washington Press club and make a big issue out of it on the wings of a media who just won't let go?)

Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.

That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (Great! Violence is always the answer--especially religious violence.) (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.” (And that was enough to satisfy Stephanaopoulos, huh? Interesting...)

I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full “Great Whore” glory. But Mr. McCain didn’t have to fear so rude a transgression. (Why would he? He's an old white dude--those guys are off limits.) Mr. Hagee’s videos have never had the same circulation on television as Mr. Wright’s. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man. (Touche.)

Perhaps that’s why virtually no one has rebroadcast the highly relevant prototype for Mr. Wright’s fiery claim that 9/11 was America’s chickens “coming home to roost.” That would be the Sept. 13, 2001, televised exchange between Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who blamed the attacks on America’s abortionists, feminists, gays and A.C.L.U. lawyers. (Mr. Wright blamed the attacks on America’s foreign policy (which is not that ridiculous a claim).) Had that video re-emerged in the frenzied cable-news rotation, Mr. McCain might have been asked to explain why he no longer calls these preachers “agents of intolerance” and chose to cozy up to Mr. Falwell by speaking at his Liberty University in 2006. (OOOOOOOOOOOOhhhh, how convenient.)

None of this is to say that two wacky white preachers make a Wright right. (Frank Rich is funny. :))It is entirely fair for any voter to weigh Mr. Obama’s long relationship with his pastor in assessing his fitness for office. It is also fair to weigh Mr. Obama’s judgment in handling this personal and political crisis as it has repeatedly boiled over. But whatever that verdict, it is disingenuous to pretend that there isn’t a double standard operating here. If we’re to judge black candidates on their most controversial associates — and how quickly, sternly and completely they disown them — we must judge white politicians by the same yardstick. (A-to-tha-men!)

When Rudy Giuliani, still a viable candidate, successfully courted Pat Robertson for an endorsement last year, few replayed Mr. Robertson’s greatest past insanities. Among them is his best-selling 1991 tome, “The New World Order,” which peddled some of the same old dark conspiracy theories about “European bankers” (who just happened to be named Warburg, Schiff and Rothschild) that Mr. Farrakhan has trafficked in. Nor was Mr. Giuliani ever seriously pressed to explain why his cronies on the payroll at Giuliani Partners included a priest barred from the ministry by his Long Island diocese in 2002 following allegations of sexual abuse. Much as Mr. Wright officiated at the Obamas’ wedding, so this priest officiated at (one of) Mr. Giuliani’s. Did you even hear about it? (No, I didn't, but I find it VERY interesting.)

There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. (Agreed.) The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as we learned during the Mark Foley scandal, even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.

A near half-century after the civil rights acts of the 1960s, this is quite an achievement. Yet the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits on the right passing shrill moral judgment over every Democratic racial skirmish are almost never asked to confront or even acknowledge the racial dysfunction in their own house. (A glass house, perhaps?) In our mainstream political culture, this de facto apartheid is simply accepted as an intractable given, unworthy of notice, and just too embarrassing to mention aloud in polite Beltway company. (It's kind of an apathy of sorts that we allow ourselves to fall into because, well, those old white foggies are doing more than the last old white foggies...but are they?) Those who dare are instantly accused of “political correctness” or “reverse racism.” (No such thing as the latter.)

An all-white Congressional delegation doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the legacy of race cards that have been dealt since the birth of the Southern strategy in the Nixon era. No one knows this better than Mr. McCain, whose own adopted daughter of color was the subject of a vicious smear in his party’s South Carolina primary of 2000.

This year Mr. McCain has called for a respectful (i.e., non-race-baiting) campaign and has gone so far as to criticize (ineffectually) North Carolina’s Republican Party for running a Wright-demonizing ad in that state’s current primary. (How nice of the big Pappa McCain to walk in and tell everyone to get along. Maybe we'll all listen now!) Mr. McCain has been posing (awkwardly) with black people in his tour of “forgotten” America. (He's about as comfortable around black people as my cats are around the vacuum cleaner.) Speaking of Katrina in New Orleans, he promised that “never again” would a federal recovery effort be botched on so grand a scale. (We'll just botch them on smaller scales from now on.)

This is all surely sincere, and a big improvement over Mitt Romney’s dreams of his father marching with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Up to a point. Here, too, there’s a double standard. Mr. McCain is graded on a curve because the G.O.P. bar is set so low. (Old white foggies, anyone?) But at a time when the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll shows that President Bush is an even greater drag on his popularity than Mr. Wright is on Mr. Obama’s, Mr. McCain’s New Orleans visit is more about the self-interested politics of distancing himself from Mr. Bush than the recalibration of policy.

Mr. McCain took his party’s stingier line on Katrina aid and twice opposed an independent commission to investigate the failed government response. (Hmmm...if you don't want to repeat the mistakes, shouldn't you figure out where things really went wrong?!?) Asked on his tour what should happen to the Ninth Ward now, he called for “a conversation” about whether anyone should “rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is.” Whatever, whenever, never mind. (What he really wanted to say was "Just bulldoze it.")

For all this primary season’s obsession with the single (and declining) demographic of white working-class men in Rust Belt states, America is changing rapidly across all racial, generational and ethnic lines. The Census Bureau announced last week that half the country’s population growth since 2000 is due to Hispanics, another group understandably alienated from the G.O.P. (And don't forget exploited by the G.O.P.)

Anyone who does the math knows that America is on track to become a white-minority nation in three to four decades. Yet if there’s any coherent message to be gleaned from the hypocrisy whipped up by Hurricane Jeremiah, it’s that this nation’s perennially promised candid conversation on race has yet to begin. (Amen.)

© 2008 The New York Times

AlterNet is making this New York Times material available in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

You Want To Know Why Hockeytown's Slipping Away?

An article on Freep.com today talks about the struggles of the Red Wings to put asses in the seats at Joe Louis Arena. In the past few years ticket sales have sunk so low that even the playoffs had available seats.

I've been thinking about this issue for a long time. I heard Nick Lindstrom on the radio a month or so ago talking about a program to get kids in the metro area back into hockey. The program neglected the main factor why the sport is failing here--division. The racial divide, the class divide and the gender divide all play pivotal roles in the decline of the sport in local history.

As a young working-class girl it was impossible for me to get into hockey even though I wanted to desperately. My struggling parents couldn't pay the associated costs (equipment that kids grow out of monthly, jerseys, team fees, ice fees, etc.). On top of it, I was a girl--and as we all know, girls don't play hockey, do they? So although part of my heart will always be true to the Wings, part of it is disenchanted with a system that didn't want my involvement anyhow.

As a new generation comes up in Hockeytown they aren't as devoted to the Red Wings as previous generations once were. The gender divide plays into this somewhat, but it's more the class and racial divide. Let's be honest--hockey is not an inner-city sport, yet the team is located downtown. For good or bad, that's going to play into it when you're talking about the most segregated city in America. Furthermore, in these tough economic times when it comes to buying your kid clothes or buying a hockey ticket, the more practical matter always comes first.

In order for Hockeytown to truly bloom again, these factors need to be addressed. The Red Wings organization should start programs to bring minorities and girls into the game at a young age. They should sponsor programs to pay for ice time, equipment, etc. And for crying out loud, lower your GD ticket prices or offer a greater value--people can't afford that even if they want to come down.

The fact of the matter is that the sport will die if it is to remain an upper-middle class, white, male sport. And that's a sad thing to lose such a brilliant history in this town. But it will continue to dwindle if we just assume that the value of a ticket is the only problem. It's the value of the experience that needs to be addressed--and fast. Otherwise, Hockeytown will rise no more.