Letters to the Editor
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are we talking about race or politics?
I'm very unclear here.
Joan writes:
I've gotten a ton of criticism in letters for questioning Obama's use of his grandmother in his landmark race speech, and it's all made me think twice. Many more times than twice, actually. Yet I hold to my view that Obama's speech, and its aftermath, could well be politically damaging despite rave reviews, and that his use of his grandmother is part of the problem. I would ask my critics' indulgence, hoping they'll join the conversation on race Obama correctly says we need, and put aside their own preconceptions while I explain my reaction.
Is she assessing the cogency or aptness of Obama's invocation of his grandmother in this context or merely offering facile musings about the potential for political fallout of the invocation?
That's question number one.
Ok, let me get back to the piece now...
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Get over yourselves!
Oh my God.
I don't know what to say.
Look, I'm a patient person.
Really, I am.
But for Christ's sake, it's extremely frustrating to hear white people get all defensive because Obama referred to his grandmother as "a typical white person" as if this was some kind of insensitivity.
For fuck's sake, it was exactly the opposite!
The problem with our discussions of race and racism is that white people are so defensive they can't bear the idea that they might harbor racist thinking or, more accurately, racist responses that anyone growing up in this country, black people included, have been conditioned to have.
We've all been saturated in negative images of black people so of course we all have negative associations with black people on some level.
The question is, what level, and are we dealing with it.
But Obama was offering his grandmother as a way of relating to white people who have imbibed racism with the culture.
He was saying it's possible to be victimized by racism and still be a good human being.
He's trying to get us beyond the false dichotomy of racist/not racist.
It's precisely this false dichotomy that keeps us stuck.
No one wants to admit they might have racist responses or thoughts because they think that means that then they're a bad person and no one wants to be a bad person.
They take "racism" as an accusation, a damnation rather than as neutral assessment.
Obama was speaking of his grandmother's racism in a neutral, almost sociological way.
It wasn't a fucking accusation, for Christ's sake.
As a black person who lives in an Ivy League world and has lived almost exclusively around white people and has married a European, all I can say is, for the love of Christ, get over yourselves, white people!
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Where is Joan Walsh's critical eye when it comes to the Clinton campaign?
One more question: Here we have Joan Walsh examining, and then re-examining, a single line from Obama's speech, questioning whether it will hurt him in the long run, and so on.
Why doesn't Joan Walsh ask similar questions of Clinton? Where were you, Joan, when the Geraldine Ferraro controversy was brewing? What was your opinion of all that?
Why did you deny that Clinton's campaign was using a kitchen-sink approach?
Why do you seem so strangely imbalanced in one favor? Is it wrong of us to notice that, and to ask about it? Do you really think this question is not called for at this point?
These are honest questions; they're not attacks. I think Salon readers deserve honest answers. Fair enough?
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Not completely PC, and that's okay with me
Joan,
I'm always a fan of yours, even when I disagree with you. I like the way you hang in there, time and time again, honestly facing the issues and your readers.
Regarding this issue, perhaps you and Glenn are watching polls that I and other readers have no knowledge of, but I strongly agree with the other posters who are encouraging you/Salon not to get too hung up on Obama's politically correct word/story usage. The numerous articles and interviews with members of black churches in the news since last Tuesday already show an impressive groundswell of support for Obama's unique role as leader (of both black and white America, as E.J. Dionne points out) and provides evidence that his speech is well on its way to being the cultural watershed many of us immediately felt it could be.
Why be defensive about Wright's angry accusations from his pulpit? He said what he said. Those are his words, not ours, and not Obama's. His anger might seem foreign, but why fear it? Anger is so not the same as hate. To me it is evidence enough that Wright is in fact a loving man who gives generously to his country that his influence on Barrack and Michelle Obama has helped shape them both into the thoughtful, big-hearted, positive and courageous couple that they are today.
The media should not be any more afraid of Wright than Obama is. You all have a profound responsibility to keep the dialogue GROWing.
I have to ask, where's HIllary? I voted for her, but her relative silence is awfully hard to take now. Obama is the only one who could have given the speech he gave, but her generous applause would have been a strong signal about her own commitment to dialogues on race in this country. She caved when the conservatives geared the country up for war and now she's caving to conservatives' fear mongering again? (It kind of makes me angry!)
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Joan, what's your expertise on race?
Another thing, Joan.
And I mean this with all due respect and in a genuine spirit of openness: what have you done to "close the racial divide," as you say?
I'm ignorant as to your career and since you're appealing to your own authority as someone with an expertise on the subject of racism, I think it might help your readers (or maybe just me) to know a bit more about this.
What is your expertise?
Because based on what I see here, your analysis seems a bit unsophisticated.
Not that I'm an expert on racism: I'm a rare black person who is working on a Ph.D. that has nothing to do with race or politics.
So I don't have an academic background in racism or theory of race or anything like that, but I have lived a rich and I daresay unique life as a black person in this country (there aren't many Ivy League blacks, so I have a natural affinity with Michelle and Barack inasmuch as that goes).
Anyway, if we're going to talk about race, let's talk about race, not the political fallout of race or the ignorance of white people vis a vis race or how somehow Obama "stepped in it" by trying to actually express something in a way people might relate to by invoking his grandmother.
How about a little generosity, eh?
A little intellectual curiosity, even, wouldn't hurt.