Letters to the Editor
-
@ AKASmith
Are you kidding me?
Hillary is not running as a feminist candidate.
While she may not use the word "feminist" outright, she OFTEN refers to her gender as a good reason to put her in the white house.
-
AKA
Come on and be real AKA. Hillary has said the boys are beating up on me but she as a graduate from the women's college she could take it. She has made many statements about her gender. If Sen. Obama (not his surrogates) had said they are beating up on my because I am black after a debate he would not even be a candidate anymore.
Again, it was not black people that brought up race. Why is it that when anyone talks about race in any coversation they try to bring up names whites love to hate? What does Jessie Jackson has to do with Obama?
Could it be you want to push buttons that scare other people? Sen. Obama has not once drew on Jessie or Al Sharpton. He has stayed away from them as far as we know. But I a sure someone is going to find a picture of them together.
AKA you say you don't want to not talk about race but it sounds like you know all the rights talking points.
-
Logical Salad
After your last column (which, bottom line, was irresponsible and irreverent of logic), I thought it fair to say (in your defense), "An 'Obamaton'? Is that someone who threatens to stop reading a publication because a columnist is biased?"
But you know, this is really off-putting on a fundamental level. Like, as a reader, I feel really insulted. To the point where it feels fundamentally futile to write this.
It's really, really sad. This column is a discredit to your occupation. You should be ashamed of yourself. He got the line on his grandmother right the first time. Your self-righteous brow-beating and disregard for your own irresponsible remarks is... Even when I don't agree with you, I enjoy your column.
As I get older, I start to understand things I'd hear when I was younger (euphemisms, biblical concepts, stuff like that). And I now understand what people meant when they said a writer is insulting their readers.
You're biased. As a reader that thinks it's okay for a columnist to be biased, you come across as pro-Hillary/anti-Obama/whatever. But this column is just Wrong. You went from "hopefully she lets it go and doesn't feel too bad - she has a tough job and I imagine she's learned to deal with stuff like this and move on" to "As a reader, I feel like she owes me an apology."
-
Oh, I get it....
I watched the video. I kind of wondered if maybe you were going to keep going with this because a billion comments from Obamatons is something advertisers like.
Sacrificing your own integrity for "ratings"... Is that what people are referring to when they use the term "tabloid journalism"?
-
AKA
Less you forget AKA guess who was one of Bill Clintons spiritual adviors when he was dealing with Monica? You guessed it Jessie Jackson. LOL!
-
@AKA Smith
Hillary is not running as a feminist candidate.
And Obama is not running as a black candidate either. Saying that Obama supporters really wanted to talk about race all along is a bit much. I suspect most were whistling past the graveyard, like doomed extras in a Wes Craven flick.
I'll recast my point again: The dems didn't choose any of the "safe white male" candidates, and there were many of them. Instead they chose Hillary and Obama. So we were going to get these "conversations" (a very generous characterization, I know) about race and/or sexism, guaranteed. Now, and in the general. If one's sole motive is to avoid the race conversation then go ahead and choose Hillary. Be prepared though to trade the race conversation for the sexist conversation. Either candidate will have to fight through the mud to win in November. It's still a judgement call as to which candidate has the best chance to survive the mudslinging.
Personally, I wouldn't mind talking about something else for a bit. Like say Iraq. This issue will keep. Is Bill Mahr right and the neo-con definition of success in Iraq, is staying a 100 years? Is McCain/Libermann/Bush really trying to start a war with Iran?
The dems are pretty good about beating the crap out of each other. Against the republicans, not so much.
-
@ weeping for brunnhilde
That something so straightforward should be used to cast doubt on...on what, exactly? On whether Obama likes white people? On whether he talks about unity now to get elected but once in the White House he'll appoint Louis Farakkhan Secretary of State? Really, I don't get it. In fact, in keeping with the charge to understand one another, let me ask: anyone who was offended by the comment "typical white person," would you explain to me, with as much honesty as you can, the nature of the offense?
To start with your last question, I am not horribly offended by "typical white person". As I said, I think he didn't intend it to offend and intentions mean something. The reason that it is offensive at all is that it is a stereotype. Now, stereotypes are not always "bad" and to some extent they usually contain a kernel of truth, but I would guess that in 99 of 100 cases that particular phraseology is used negatively. You say it's the equivalent of "the American people" but more accurately it is the equivalent of "typical Americans". When some other nationality, let's say the French, say typical Americans, odds are they are not complimenting us. If you were to walk into a room at the end of a conversation and heard a man talking to his friends and saying "typical woman", would your first inclination be that he was saying how loving and nurturing she was? My guess is not.
With regard to Secy of State Farrakhan, I think people who are concerned about Obama run the gamut. I think few believe he would actually appoint Farrakhan, but I have no doubt that some believe he would be influenced, if not by Farakkhan directly, perhaps by Wright who is seen espousing many of the same beliefs, or perhaps just by his 20 year exposure to those beliefs. Some may be troubled that among the 10-point Vision on his church's website is a "non-negotiable commitment to Africa", especially since there is no comparable commitment to America to be found there. I know these things are somewhat simplistic, but your previous call to use hermeneutics might be just a little optimistic when it comes to the general electorate. I know I don't have to tell you about the political search for soundbites, and US of KKK-A, God Damn America, and typical white person are a gold mine.
Full disclosure, I am a Clinton supporter but I still try to have rational discussions with Obama supporters whenever possible. It is not always easy. I have multiple problems with Sen. Obama, none of which have anything to do with his race although I'm sure there are many here who I could not convince. For me the Wright issue was not a deal breaker but rather a reinforcement of one of the concerns I already had, namely great speeches, less than great evidence of action. I spelled out in my previous post a few of the questions that I thought Obama needed to address in his speech. To summarize, I question not why he didn't disown Rev. Wright, but given the central message of his campaign, post-racial, transcendent, conciliatory, why during his 20 year association with that church did he make no effort at fostering reconciliation? The Wright videos raised questions that Obama needed to answer, but while his speech was brilliant (nobody ever said he was not brilliant) it did not address those questions. A previous poster in this thread, "marield", made the point well.
Instead of explaining his lack of action, he re-cast the problem as not his own, but the American people's. That it was not he who had failed to do something, but we who had.
Sometimes reading through these posts it is stunning how differently people are viewing the same set of facts. I'll leave you with an excerpt from a piece written by Susan Estrich the day after the Obama speech which I found insightful:
Obama supporters describe themselves as being moved and touched, and their candidate as being brave and nuanced and forthright. They breathed a sigh of relief this week, convinced, more than ever, that America needs Barack Obama to be President.
Talk to Obama critics and you wonder, for a minute, if they heard the same speech. It reminds me of nothing so much as the days of the O.J. Simpson trial, when we – black and white parents, who were sending our children to school together - discovered we simply couldn’t talk about the case, so different was what we saw and heard as to leave all of us shaking our heads in wonder and disbelief that our friends, with whom we agreed on so many things, could see this thing so differently
-- Susan Estrich
@Uncle Fester
I apologize if I over-reacted to your post. Your calling for Joan to write about other issues and stay away from Obama fell right in the middle of a bunch of nasty posts calling for her to step down or take a vacation. I guess I was reacting more to them. Sorry.
@ AKA Smith
How do we put the genie back in the bottle?