Sometimes, since I occasionally teach on racial politics, I think I am far too sensitive to race in the US. I over-react to things that are probably much less dire than my original reaction. But this really took it for me:
“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.” (emphasis mine).
I’ve never been a big fan of Clinton, and until she started going after Obama with a kitchen sink, I would have voted for her. I decided then that I would stay home if it was her against McCain. But this race baiting, which has culminated in her equating “hard-working Americans” with “white Americans” just reinforces the awful stereotypes that prevent the US from having a decent anti-poverty policy (thank you, Satan… I mean, Mr. Reagan).That blacks aren’t hard-working, that they skate by doing nothing and that they are lazy and somehow not as worthy of being American as whites. Last time I checked, Mrs. Clinton, Blacks are no longer worth only 3/5ths of a human being and their votes count every bit as much as a hard-working white vote.
Well, at least I’m not the only one who thought it. Big props to one of my new favorite blogs, Reappropriate.
Recent Comments