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.
