Black Women Face Quandary in Democratic Race - Racism By any Other Name…
Linda Wertheimer over at NPR neglected to bring her racism and sexism detector to an interviewed aired April 9th, 2007 on the show All Things Considered.
The premise of the story reads as follows…
Sen. Hillary Clinton is the first woman frontrunner for president in either party. But right behind her looms Sen. Barack Obama, the most competitive black candidate for president ever. What conflicts might this pose for black women in Democratic primaries?
The answer is it should create no dilemma for black women…or black men…or white women…or green Martian US Citizens…the color of your skin and the type of genitalia you have between your legs shouldn’t matter one ounce when a person decides who should lead one of the most influential country’s in the world. To base such an important decision on such a trivial basis is stupid and by its very nature racially and sexually discriminatory on the most base level.
If I were to say that as a white male my choices in the democratic primary are between Joe Biden and John Edwards because they are white males…with an outside shot for Hillary becasue at least she is still white…I think Don “nappy-headed hos” Imus, Michael - Cosmo Kramer - Richard’s, and Trent “Thurmond would make this country a great place” Lott would breathe sighs of relief that they hadn’t said that. Surely if I was being interviewed on NPR I would be called on to justify my obviously racist attitude…and rightly so.
But when Sally McMillan, a black female student at Morgan State University one minute and 50 seconds into the story is asked what she would be making her decision on when deciding between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton she states that her decision will be based on the merits. What are the merits you ask? The candidate has to…
…know how to influence others properly to get the desired results. I think that’s something Hillary Clinton, as a women, will be able to do.
As is only women have that power. Someone get JFK and Ronald Reagan out of their graves and interrupt Bill Clinton from the campaign trail to let them know that women ultimately have the ability to influence others to get the desired results. Sheesh!
3 Minutes and 30 seconds into the story Linda Wertheimer interviews Dawn Walker, a chemistry major at Morgan State University, who has this gem of wisdom to share…
So she’s [Hillary Clinton] a women…but because she’s not a black women though, you see what I’m saying? See the hierarchy is
white man white women black man black women
I guess my teachers forgot to explain that in Racism/Sexism 101 my freshman year of college. She continues,
So she’s a white women…and I’m a women…but, I’m like two doors down from her…even still. Yeah she’s all about women’s rights and da da da, and pro-choice, and this and that…but I’m still black and she knows that she’s white. So, it’s like…she’s not really thinking about us. She’s not thinking about us and I know that Barrack is thinking about us…and he’s a man, but because he’s black it’s just going to be like that, you know? You have to think about that when we go to the election and vote.
So white people just don’t think about blacks? Or is it just white women? Or is it just Hillary Clinton that is not thinking about black people? And how can she be so certain that Barack Obama is thinking about these things? Was there a talking points memo disseminated? Was I off the list because I am a white male? Should everyone always vote according to who is closest to their background on the Dawn Walker hierarchy of race/sex? Would that only be racist for white males to admit to using…why does Dawn Walker get a pass when making an utterly bigoted remark such as this?
6 minutes and 30 seconds into the story, Nelly Montaine, a Catholic Choir Singer at the St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church in Maryland was heard stating…
Some people will be voting for Barrack Obama because he is black, but we still live in white America ladies and you know it.
uh-huh…what’s that mean? It sounds as if she is insinuating that white Americans would not vote for a black man. She continues,
When the majority of America, which is white, looks at Barack Obama they see a black man. They don’t see a man of mixed racial heritage, all they see is a black man. Like I said, this is till white America. I think the reality of the thing is he’s going to have a struggle.
It sounded to me that all the sweet old choir lady saw, when she looks at Barack, was his skin color. If white America will never vote for a black man, is that a bad thing in Nelly’s mind? If so, and I hope that it would be a problem in her mind, why isn’t it a problem that she seems to know people that will vote for Barack simply because he is a black, or mixed race, person? Listen to the interview…the tone of her voice shows no disgust at the idea of people voting for Barack based on his skin color…but much annoyance that she believes white America would probably vote against him for the same reason.
In the immortal words of Ayn Rand ‘A is A’ and likewise racism is racism, regardless of the color of the speaker of racist ideas. The same goes for sexism. In this hypersensitive world we live in the idea that multiple racist and sexist remarks could go unchallenged by a tax payer funded journalist is just unbelievable. That is it’s unbelievable until I tell you that black women are speaking the bigoted remarks and the venue is NPR.
Skeptical Brotha when will you denounce these racist remarks as strongly and as loudly as you did the Imus idiotic remarks?
Vox ex Machina where is your denouncement?
Unrepentant Marxist…I am waiting for your thoughtful post on this issue.
Lean Left…will you add these people to those we need to leave behind?
Pat Dollard…will you denounce this?
Some shaming on this NPR peice can be found at Elephant Biz and at Logical Meme. That’s it for now. We will see if any of the above mentioned blogs find it worthwhile to denounce all racisn/sexis…or just the stuff that fits the conventional wisdom about what a racist/sexist comment is defined in todays society.
Update: As I suspected all of the blogs that screamed bloody murder a couple of days ago about the racism/sexism of Don Imus have nothing to say about this issue when the racist is not a white male. I will update thi post if any of the people I put ‘on blast’ (see comments for explanation) actually respond to the NPR report.
Update II: Vox has responded here. In a nutshell the story has a racist sexist premise but for the most part the individuals in the story do not appear to have made much of any racist/sexist statements. A good read.
on April 10th, 2007 at 1:03 am
My denouncement does not exist, mainly because: a. I don’t listen to or even get reception for NPR. b. I’ve been at work, and this ran, what, four or five hours ago? c. I am not a Democrat and have only barely been following the race. d. I have talked out the Obama/Clinton race/gender hysteria on many forums, in many places, and really don’t feel the need to do so again.
Because you targetted me, I’ll be happy to listen to the segment when I have time — which will be several hours from now, because I have to go right back to work in five hours, and have plans after that — and post about what I think.
In return, though, I do have a question. Why did you feel the need to call me out on my lack of immediate response to a radio station I don’t even listen to and have never mentioned on my blog, when I’ve never even heard of you before in my life?
on April 10th, 2007 at 4:26 am
I was surprised by the well reasoned responses, given the premise of the report. I didn’t bother listen when I heard the tag on the radio, the responses you linked to confirmed my suspicions. NPR seemed to be baiting these people to offend listeners, especially those who don’t accept the premise that one is complicit in racism today just by being white in America.
This premise may be pretty difficult to accept, I can see. The Finger Lake’s own Thin Black Dude has talked about women of color feminism quite a bit. And he has discussed the premise in his post about the question of how much has racism become structural. I’m not qualified to discuss that any more than to give links and references.
Glossing over the balanced views in the report, I’d like to put one of the more racist views into perspective. This isn’t to say that I know what Dawn Walker,should have said or meant, or anything like that. But, there is a hierarchy for many people, in that if you are a minority, and you watch the television, the people who get to discuss the most weighty issues of the day are overwhelmingly white male, then white female, then black male, then black female. If I broke the society of those in power into four domains, I would rank them that way, too. I think it is appropriate to break power into those four because there are historical prejudices that do so, and so if there continues to be prejudice today, it is likely that they follow the same pattern. To Walker, it does.
Your sarcasm seems to imply that you don’t think Walker knows that Clinton doesn’t care about black women or that Obama does. I went to hear Obama speak at a black church last year, and it is clear that he can connect with black audiences better than Clinton can. He is able to elicit from them more candid reports about their lives. He is able to sympathize with their problems, and he is able to rally them to action better. This isn’t because he vilifies whites in his speeches (far from it), but simply because respect isn’t as much of an issue in his interaction with a black congregation, while many fear that Hillary doesn’t respect them in the same way. Walker may not have heard either of the candidates speak, but in black communities Obama has a growing reputation as an able representative of the black community, which is evidenced by Obama’s growing support among blacks (and Clinton’s shrinking).
On the other hand, if you are mostly criticizing NPR for an exploitative piece which was short on context and long on … well … poor context and silliness, then more power to you. NPR clearly didn’t do a good job reporting on a subject that definitely ought to be discussed.
on April 10th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Vox,
To be fair, I had no idea what you would say or who you are. I am not calling you out for any reason more then a technorati search on the term racism in the past 24 hours. I notice that only one type of racism is denounced…I am not one to believe that just one race of people is responsible for racism and that only males are sexist. I was just looking for people who evenly denounce all types of bigotry.
I wrote this a bit mad off after hearing the report on NPR. In hindsight I might have taken a less wide-spread post. But that is the beauty of the blogosphere, conversations can be started between two people who don’t know each other and may never speak again about an issue that interest’s both parties.
on April 10th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Shane,
Maybe I just should have used your last paragraph as a post. You nailed it.
The idea that people vote this way is interesesting but not evenly denounced uniformly…you would expect an NPR report with massive amounts of time to explore the idea of racial and gender based vote casting habits. The presumption of the whole story is about this topic but never really questioned.
A secondary point is my question of a lack of outrage at idiots spoiewing racist/sexist points of view when we all know what the reaction would be if a white guiy said the same thing.
on April 10th, 2007 at 7:44 am
In defense of SkepticalBrotha, I would imagine that he’s in the same boat as Vox. I don’t think that it’s the nicest thing in the world to put them on blast like that, AND then also go and post on their blog the same blast. http://skepticalbrotha.wordpress.com/2007/04/09/warning-this-is-a-profanity-laced-tirade/#comments
Frequently, SkepticalBrotha refrains from posting until he has cooled down a bit simply BECAUSE issues like this bother him so much.
In the blogging world, a slow response does not translate to apathy.
Not all of us are tied to our computers.
Since we really and truly are among friends, it might be more helpful next time to build a more solid front on the issue if we didn’t quarrel amongst ourselves and instead emailed each other articles with something along the lines of “Hey, thought you might be interested in this.”
Through cooperation, we might actually be able to make a difference.
All the best,
~Benjamin Jancewicz, concerned reader & fellow activist
on April 10th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Sadly, most of the outrage about these things comes from other idiots. I do look forward to the coming discussions about race and gender that Clinton and Obama (and Richardson and (religion) Romney) will force on us. Too bad about this one, but its early. Perhaps this is an opening salvo to real national debates. But NPR is has a reputation that makes this surprising and depressing.
on April 11th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Thank you, Benjamin.
Chris: Unfortunately, NPR hates Mac users, and I was not able to listen to the interview nor view a transcript. To be honest, most of the snippets you posted do not seem racist. Perhaps in context they may have been, but honestly, I think that if there was any racism and sexism here, it is in the leading questions and the constant fixation on Barack Obama as “the black candidate” and Hillary Clinton as “the woman candidate,” and the attempts to force black women to choose whether racial issues or gender issues are more important to them, rather than simply laying out the voting record and merits of each candidate and asking people what issues they see as most important. If there was racism, I don’t think it was on these students’ part.
I have a more thorough explanation in my blog, if you care to read it. Really, though, this discussion is old news. It’s been covered on Salon and by several major newspapers since long before either Obama or Clinton declared their candidacy.
on April 11th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
[…] 11th, 2007 by Vox Blogger Chris Silvey drew my name out of a hat and called me out on not responding within hours to an NPR radio show I don’t listen to. (To […]