Monday, June 02, 2008

I am supposed to be doing something else right now...

...but I had to stop to say, "Holy crap!"

When Ferraro first came out with her problematic comments about race, I wasn't quite convinced that they were racist. Silly me. How very wrong I was. This newest piece certainly provides the context for those earlier comments, and it removes any benefit of the doubt I had been willing to give her. All I can say now is

1) I so regret having worn a Mondale/Ferraro campaign button back in high school;

2) in contrast to Ferraro's attempt to speak for American women, of the feminists I know, only a couple still support Clinton at this point, and the vast majority are just appalled at the blatant racist comments she has made;

3) the fact that White people are afraid to say something because they feel they will be called racist does not automatically mean that they are being treated unfairly, nor is this a recent outcome of the Obama campaign. Hello? It's called entitlement, and it's about having become accustomed to saying racist things and not being called on them because I didn't mean anything by it! I'm not racist! I don't see color! Everyone is white to me!;

4) it is disingenous, at best, to accuse Obama of playing the race card when he was forced to give a speech on race relations in America (but nonetheless, did so with a heckuva lot more grace and honesty than we've seen from any major candidate, ever, thus far);

- and -

5) You know what? Yes, sometimes, White people, we may get called out for racism when, in fact, we have not been racist. That can and does happen. But you know what else? What happens far more often is that White people get called out for racism and refuse to recognize that what we did was genuinely racist - even if we didn't mean it to be! - as we have seen with Ferraro yet again.

I am going to go make a donation to Obama's campaign, now. Was that the effect you were hoping to have, Gerri?

Thanks to Angry Black Woman for the link.

4 comments:

Stuff Daddy said...

I hear you. I am sooo sick of white elitist entitlement trying to pass itself off as feminism. This is a very important book in the making... hint, hint...

bobvis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bobvis said...

PF, Did ABW write a post about this or did she just send you the link? (Just curious, because I would like to see what she had to say on it.)

Plain(s)feminist said...

...crap, I don't know. I thought she had a link on her sidebar, but I don't see it now, which probably means that either I credited the wrong blog or I followed some of her links and got there through a roundabout way...sorry about that!