Fox News horror

One of the things I dreaded about Obama's candidacy is that I knew that if he lost, I'd have to hear black people moaning that it means that nothing has changed, white people are racist, all is lost, etc etc. ad nauseum. And as Clinton's candidacy founders, I hear the exact same thing from women and Clinton supporters across the web. Including whining that "it will be generations" before another viable female candidate...etc. etc. ad nauseum.

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This is all so much crap. The Western world has already had Meir and Thatcher. Why exactly is America grotesquely more sexist? In precisely what way does this manifest? I suspect there may never be another presidential election cycle without a woman....or women...featured prominently. To act like Hillary represents all women is simply absurd. She was the first who went as far as she did, beating the hell out of most men in her path. If the current situation holds, she was beaten by a person who is half-black and male. To claim that this is the reason she was beaten is guessing at best, reductionist pandering or guilt-tripping at worst. Trust me: the blacks who would jump first to racism to explain the issue have always seemed to me to be the most two-dimensional in thought. And people who leap to assume that sexism is the only reason why this Goddess of a super-brilliant woman could lose strikes me as exactly the same. (And the suggestion that it was somehow a disadvantage for her to be white is just another version of the "a white man doesn't stand a chance" argument I've heard since the 60's. Jeeze.) And that two-dimensional thinking is behind all racism and sexism. By reducing the argument to such simple terms, all they're proving to me is that they would be far more likely to be racists and/or sexists themselves than those who take a more nuanced view.

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Notice that even when WOMEN say things against Hillary, they are accused of sexism and misogyny? I mean, are they really the female equivilent of Uncle Ruckus on Boondocks? If they're not weak-minded, all of this is supposed to be because men have 20% more strength? But a group with a 1000% strength disadvantage (outnumbered 10 to 1) produces blacks who are self-hating, for sure, but in nothing like the numbers that would be necessary to believe that all the women who have criticized or voted against Hillary are sexist. It simply doesn't make sense. But it makes big sense to promote it as an answer: if affirms a victim position, it demonizes the opponent, it shuts-up opposition afraid of being politically incorrect. Most importantly, it allows you to excuse the flaws of your own candidate. Hillary made a long list of errors. Let the next woman avoid those errors, and she gets over the mark. Others will walk over her back, as generations of blacks have walked over the corpses of those who went before. Hell, I'm hoping for some tough young Turk of a writer to walk over mine.

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I regret that this contest brought race and gender to the fore in the same election cycle. In the beginning, I would have been all for Hillary going first, with Barack as VP, taking his shot in eight years. And I took crap from black friends about that. I have zero guilt about putting the blame where it belongs here: she had tremendous advantage, and Obama beat her. How about giving credit where credit is due? Sucker is SMART.

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ﾠThere is a reason why black women haven't been attracted to the Women's Movement in droves, and one of the things I've heard many times is that that reason is that White women don't listen, don't care, and put the gender agenda above everything else. That's fine--every group of human beings does just that, and discounts the misery of others. Don't make the mistake of thinking women are somehow too saintly to use the exact same trick.

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I ask you to remember something: 20-25% of West Virginians said they'd never vote for a black man. What do you imagine this translates into, nationwide? 5%? 10%? Between 10 and twenty million voters, perhaps? For all practical purposes, there isn't ONE REGISTERED BLACK VOTER in this country who could say the same thing about whites. Not one. If they felt that way, there would never have been anyone to vote for at all. Ten million to...ZERO.

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My honest sense is that a white person who tries to reduce this to: "feel sorry for the poor rich, powerful, white woman" would, if they were black, absolutely HATE white people, and blame them for everything wrong in their lives. I'm not kidding even a little bit.

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My whole sense of human beings being equal just clarified. I used to believe that women were a little less racist than men. I now think they express it differently, and have different priorities. But it seems that everyone plays the same games: male and female, black and white. That should make me sad...but instead, I find it a bit reassuring.

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Did anyone see Fox News contributer Liz Trotter talking about Hillary's gaff? She said "some are taking Clinton's words as an encouragement to knock off Osama--"

Her co-host corrected her: "Obama"

And her reply was to laugh and say: "well, both, if we could."

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Both, if we could.

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Is anyone listening out here? Does anyone grasp the enormity of what is happening here? The "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" You put your thoughts out, and surround yourself with the kind of loyal people who "get the job done." One of them will do it, while you can act horrified and claim innocence.

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ﾠI do, absolutely, think that this is expressive of an unconscious current of racism, a sense that black men are a threat, and their lives less important. I've seen it play out in literature and film, in police shootings and beatings, in mortality and violence statistics of every kind. I hope that you grasp that when you do not value someone's life, it is far easier to cheat, steal from, falsely incarcerate...anything else you want.

You can see the clip yourself at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman

/fox-pundit-wishes-for-oba_b_103500.html

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I have never, ever seen anything like this about any other candidate. So there you have it: an uppity woman is told to stay in the kitchen or laundry room. An uppity black man is directed to the grave yard. Anyone who doesn't grasp the enormity of the difference, and how it has played out in America for 400 years, is culturally blind and deaf. If they have similar perceptual holes in other areas of their lives, I frankly fear for them.

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Yeah, Race has been an advantage for Obama. In fact, it's always been an advantage for black people in America. Ask anyone.

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