Letters to the Editor
BryanS
Published Letters: 365 Editor's Choice: 1
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@ damnthatxanadu
[Read the article: Ferraro resigns from Clinton campaign]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think I understand your frustration, and I'd like to try and explain why I think Ferraro's comments were more bigoted than they might appear to you.
First, in certain very specific areas, Obama's race has been an advantage to him. For example, I don't think any reasonable person can claim that being a black man hasn't given him a leg up (to put it mildly) when it comes to securing the votes of black Americans, a cornerstone of the Democratic party. But I thought that Obama handled it very elegantly when he said that most people would disagree with the idea that being an African-American named "Barack Obama" was an advantage when running for president.
Not all Democrats like black people. My hometown is a very poor, very blue-collar New England quarry town that votes Democratic because of labor affiliation, but I wouldn't ever recommend trying to date their daughters if you're a black guy who doesn't like getting his ass kicked on a regular basis. (And by the way, Obama won the primary in my hometown.)
My aunt and uncle are very involved in a state Democratic party and have been for years. But when my mother teased them about the first black family that moved into their neighborhood, my aunt replied, "They know their place." And she wasn't kidding.
And then there are a lot of Democratic voters who are simply uncomfortable with black people. My parents, for example, turned new shades of pale when I dated a black girl for about 15 minutes in high school, and although they didn't expressly forbid me to see her, they sure didn't extend the dinner invitations that my other girlfriends got. They didn't vote for Obama because they "feared for his safety" if he was elected, and they didn't think that white people would vote for a black man, despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary (13 million and counting!). As my dad put it, "There's a lot of rednecks out there."
So when Geraldine Ferraro said that Obama wouldn't be in the position that he's in now if it weren't for his race, it was obvious that she saw Obama as a black man first, and everything else second, so that must be why he's doing so well in the primaries. She was discounting all of his very real and legitimate achievements and experience that have brought him to this point. But he's not an affirmative action case. He's got a résumé of public service that's as long as your arm, and at the age of 46, he's accomplished more than most of us ever will in our lifetimes. And that's in spite of, not because of, his race.
Maybe Ferraro was tapped to become Mondale's VP in 1984 because the Democrats needed a PR stunt in a race against the most popular incumbent of the last 50 years. But no one tapped Obama for anything. His candidacy wasn't born in a marketing meeting. He got out there and started doing his thing, and a lot of us began to respond to it, and over a million of us are financially invested in his campaign, because we believe in him as an agent of change.
Maybe we are just naïve and deluded, but we're not doing this out of a sense of liberal white guilt or black rage or political correctness. At least I'm not. And I'm offended at the accusation that I'm not capable of looking past color and choosing a president because I think he makes sense and speaks honestly and directly about things that matter to me.
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@ Joan and Alex
[Read the article: Ferraro resigns from Clinton campaign]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One more thing, and then I'm off to bed:
Joan and Alex, I'd like to add my voice to the chorus of readers who are disappointed that Salon didn't cover this issue when it broke. I know that there's been a lot of he-said-she-said in this campaign, and sometimes the War Room is in danger of turning into a litany of talking points from the two campaigns.
But I don't think that this was just another dust up. Look at the passionate responses that it has elicited from your readers. Watch the Keith Olbermann commentary, and see if you still feel that this was not newsworthy.
Salon gets accused of bias a lot by the partisans on these boards. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that, in omitting coverage of Ferraro's comments, you erred on the side of not wanting to appear biased by refusing to cover what you saw as just another tempest in a teapot. If that's the case, I think that it's fair to say that you dropped the ball. And I think that you owe your readers an apology for hoping that this would just fade away, rather than have the courage to examine it.
(Stepping down from my high horse now.)
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Thanks, Alex
[Read the article: Reexamining the Ferraro fracas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with some of your points and disagree with others, but most of all, thanks for finally covering this, especially in such detail. As a fan of the site and your work on it, I appreciate it.
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Laaaame
[Read the article: MoveOn launches celeb-studded competition for Obama ad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would trade Eddie Vedder, Ben Affleck, and Moby for Samantha Power in a heartbeat. As a matter of fact, you could keep Samantha Power if it meant we got to seal the three of them in a steel drum and drop it in the ocean.
Obama could get a lot more out of their support if he raffled off $500 tickets for a chance to kick them in the balls.