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• Tuesday, November 18, 2008 09:29 AM

  @ Joan

  The idea is not that having a black first lady will narrow the scope of what we talk about. I think the idea is that devoting an entire article to an intelligent, educated female public figure's ass is simply beyond the scope of discussion to begin with. I was much more offended by Gary Kamiya's piece, for example, which reduced Sarah Palin into a piece of meat (many, many letter writers were and I'm frankly surprised to see he's still writing after that one). Ok, Sarah Palin is hot, ok, lots of people like to comment about it. But if you're going to attack her, by all means do it on the issues, a place in which she is exceedingly weak in the first place.

  Same with Michelle Obama. If you're going to venerate her (the way Kamiya villified Palin), don't do it based on something which sexualizes her and dehumanizes her as much as her ass. There are plenty of reasons to respect and admire Michelle Obama without stooping to the level of publicly analyzing her body. A ghetto booty may be a symbol of power among black women, but it's no more real a power than the power that pageant looks gives Sarah Palin: It just makes her an object for men's desires and fantasties, and subsequently, of women's jealousy or admiration over that power. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that booty power is anything more glorious than that.

  I'm a bit disappointed, Salon. Your article on lolcats was much more worthwhile and entertaining than this one.

  —Rosenkavalier Read Rosenkavalier's other letters
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