Letters to the Editor
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@ AKA Smith
To tell you the truth, I lived in poverty much of life. I was once homeless and once lived on $500 a month --yes in the 21st century, so I, like many people who have been truly poor have a bit of trouble feeling privileged.
If this is true, and you were living on $500 a month in the 21st century, then that means that within the last eight years, you've improved your situation to the point where you now teach students somewhere (kind of a frightening thought), presumably now have a roof over your head, and can apparently afford to spend all day arguing on the internet, instead of panhandling for dinner.
How many homeless people earning six grand a year can say this, do you think? And how is that not reflective of some sort of privilege on your part, even if it's just the privilege of having been born in a country where such things are possible?
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@ KateTex
So who said I was voting for McCain? You know something I don't know?
"Toby, the sheer tonnage of what I know that you don't would be enough to stun a brace of oxen."
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@ KateTex II
I have been up for two days -- flew to Washington so I could speak to my so-called elected representatives first hand.
Yeah, how's that going for you?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/09/clinton-supporters-send-l_n_100979.html
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Holla atcha boy
AKA Smith said:
I do apologize to you for the t-shirt crack (but you need to take a closer look at the posts of BryanS).
Seriously. That dude is hilariously awesome.
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super delegate erosion
Poor widdle Billary. Her once huge lead in super delegates- around a hundred- is down to a grand total of one. See a trend? Smith, Kate, piss, moan.
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The author is a pathetic ass
Obama should resign.
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Dear AKA
You want to know why I engage with you? It’s because you seem like your heart is in the right place. You remind me of the many older (than me, anyway) white women I’ve worked with over the years who are wise about many things but have, like another poster wrote of you, a tin ear when it comes to recognizing racism. I engage you because I think a voice like yours is important and in order to grow as a people we need to have conversations with one another to try to understand each other’s perspective. I want you to recognize that I come with no malicious intent and I think we probably have more in common than you think.
I’ll admit, your tin ear is the source of a lot of my frustration with you. You condescend to me and others by speaking (or, in this case, writing) absolutes and offering yourself up as an authority on subjects you sometimes know nothing about. For example, in response to a post I wrote about black feminism you dismiss me and an entire philosophy of feminism by equating it with something it is not.
You provoke people and then guilelessly pretend later that you had no such intent. In a post you wrote to Celia yesterday (”With the third wave, we got sex positive feminism. Now, it is okay to dress our ten year olds like sluts and girls can aspire to be strippers”) you basically accuse all women who self-identify as Third Wave feminists as those who would sexualize children. You mock people by lobbing these bombs out there, and then you act surprised when someone responds to one blowing up in their face. Then you imply people are too stupid to understand your logic. Like yesterday when you wrote to me, “As usual, when you cannot actually counter another's argument point-by-point, you resort to trying to imply that the other person is racist.” You want to know the real reason I don’t do that point-by-point thing? I have a life—when I don’t have the time to engage I simply don’t. You like to accuse Obama supporters of being condescending when, mama, you’re the queen.
I’m truly sorry you feel as if I imply you are racist. I want you to know, if I thought you were a racist I wouldn’t imply it—I’d tell you straight up. I think we live in a racist society and I don’t think anyone, whatever their color, can avoid immersion. To me, it’s about recognizing it when you see it, when you experience it, and responding in kind.
This is why I talk about privilege. You profoundly misunderstand me when I challenge people to think about privilege. I realize this when I read things like this that you’ve written: “Moreover, they enjoy painting all Clinton supporters as racist or as enjoying white privilege.” There are many forms of privilege, whiteness is just one. Class is another. You’ve challenge me about Obama’s male privilege and I would have to say I think he has benefited more from education and class privilege than male privilege, since black men’s maleness (in a dominant way) is affected by their blackness.
I have offered up reading selections to you before and I actually looked around the Internet to find a copy of a particular essay you might enjoy reading that I read in my first feminism class in college oh so long ago. It’s by a white woman (and a professor at Wellesly, Hillary’s old stomping grounds), Peggy McIntosh and it’s called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” You can find it here: http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf. She also writes about male privilege. Let me know when you’ve read it; we can discuss!
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Jennifer72
I have yet to hear Obama, his supporters or the DNC leadership tell the MSM to lay off the gender baiting.
What gender baiting?
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johncrap
yeah, quit while he's ahead. he's too black. or too white. drink more or drink less; the current dosage is off. jeff
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@Jennifer72
For what is worth to you, I e-mailed MSNBC to complain about Matthew's and David Schuster's sexism. And I did so at a time when I was really,really pissed at Hillary, generally. So some of us (actually most of us) Obamabots understand that Hillary faces an "ism" as toxic as the "ism" Obama faces. Which is one more reason to put all the bad feeling behind us. Yeah, easier to say if your an Obama supporter, I know, but we still need to do it.