Letters to the Editor
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How dare she!!??
Joan reports on the Obama’s “injudicious” comments (“typical white …,” “ignorant”) as a way to highlight the Clinton’s skills at avoiding the “third rail” words of the God Bless America crowd.
As a former blue-collar boy with many relatives still embedded in the matrix, I know how negatively defining comments like Michelle’s “for the first time in my life I am proud to be an American” can be. She is already cast in the minds of my “laws” and in-laws as a “Jane Fonda,” this crowd’s most brutal epithet. Though many relatives were honestly considering Barack, it took not a minute’s exposure to Michelle to snap them out of it. I seriously doubt they are coming back.
But I will not accept the utilitarian argument that the plain-spoken Obama’s will not be able to win, or if they win, affect change, because they do not buy into the current paradigm. These points might be true, but to accept them is to "naturalize" the current state of world affairs. And that is dangerous as hell!
Hey, I'm still angry that Hillary was politically “emasculated,” forced to demonstrate that she would be a good White House wife after her comments about cookies. However that does not make me want to force Michelle to bend as well, to pander to my relatives and express “gratitude” (Pat Buchanan’s word) for all the “advantages” she’s been given as a black woman.
Michelle is breaking new ground (as is her husband) spearheading “anti-tribalism.” As Hillary did in 93 spearheading health care. As Eleanor did in 39 spearheading civil rights. As a Democrat proud of the better traditions of this party, I plan to support her, and her husband, in their transformative quest.