Letters to the Editor
-
You're wrong LindaHewitt
Stop assuming that black people are voting for Obama because we share the same skin. What if I assumed that you as a white woman and every other white woman supporting Hillary is doing it because you're white and female? Hillary started off in the lead position for most blacks by default. The loss of her black support is her own doing. Good golly, I remember when the issue of Barack not being black enough was a major topic. Where did that issue originate? In the black community. Were you not a Salon reader when Debra Dickerson was peddling that crap? There have been enough black politicians who have let us down that for many of us, the move in his direction was not a given.
If anyone is arrogant, you are. In fact, your mentioning how well he speaks several times in your post indicates to me that you think any black person who isn't speaking in Ebonics is an uppity Negro. I totally disagree with you in your assessment of what Sen. Obama did as a legislator in IL but you are entitled to your opinion. Hillary doesn't have any more experience other than in trench warfare with Republicans. She's no more experienced in legislative decision making than Sen. Obama, in fact, she has less. You didn't like how he had to compromise on the nuclear facility. Many Dems didn't like Clinton's knee-jerk hawkishness on the war. She was clearing pandering, just like she is on the gas tax holiday. It's about judgment. Don't get me started about her pandering to the GOP and the leaders of the Vast Right Wing conspiracy and the wingnuts over at Faux News. Hillary Clinton has been a wet dream for many repukes. She galvanizes their party better than anyone other than her husband. When repukes can't handle an argument based upon facts, they always resort to "clinton" as if that is an explanation in itself.
You are so insulting it is nauseating. Many of us want someone who is above the pandering to prove she has the right stuff. Believe me, if there was someone white speaking about changing the tone of partisan politics, black people would be lining up behind that person too. In the partisanship that has dominated US politics since 1994, latinos and blacks have been the whipping boys. We're tired of it. So stop being racist and assuming that our reasons have to do with Obama's race. If you somehow failed to remember, he's half-white and half-black. Meaning he's as much white as he is black.
-
How not to sound racist?
People who are racist usually have trouble talking about it.
These people need deep therapy and consciousness- training. But I have an easier path to suggest for starters.
They need to read African-American writers. That way their eyes will start to open and they'll have the additional benefit of reading some of the best literature ever published in the United States.
After that, perhaps they'll have the courage to approach some actual black people.
I'm ready to bet that most of the people you're so concerned about have never done any of these very basic, and not at all difficult things. One can tell, because people who have usually don't have such a big problem talking about race.
Barbara Guetti
-
Can Joan Walsh learn to talk about race?
It's more than a little disingenuous, not to mention embarrassing, to see Ms. Walsh trying to write about race given the horrible, horrible way she's echoed the hateful white-centric rhetoric emerging from the Clinton campaign. There's also a bit of the self-congratulatory tone that accompanied Ms. Walsh's claim of impartial writing about Obama, and her boasts about how tall and intimidating to men she is.
Complaints about Clinton-camp race-baiting aren't in the least bit overblown or unfair. This latest "hardworking Americans" thing veers dangerously close to Hillary out-and-out saying, "Look, I'm white and he's not. Do you really want a Negro in the White House?"
As far as the Brazile/Begala confrontation, Begala seems to think -- as Hillary Clinton would like us to believe, I might add -- that this is a zero-sum game, and only those Democrats who vote for either candidate will then vote for a Democrat in November, as if all those other voters just vanish from the face of the Earth. And Brazile's response marginalized no one, instead pointing that working class whites aren't the only people who vote or matter.
I sincerely doubt Salon gets much fan mail from Donna Brazile these days. On one page we have Joan Walsh endlessly rehashing Rev. Wright in order to invoke white fear of the black boogeyman, on another page we have Sean Wilentz making a total ass of himself imagining a fairer, better, whiter world in which Hillary Clinton had the nomination clinched, and on yet another a blogger on Broadsheet says smoking pot during pregnancy will make a woman give birth to a crunk dancer.
And for those wondering if that last example is true: unfortunately it is. Salon apparently makes a habit of providing a voice for some serious douchebags.
Democrats who care about changing the Republican dismantling of American government are going to pull together behind Barack Obama and vote for him. Those who refuse to do so because they're uncomfortable with blacks, or who believe the endless hype about Rev. Wright (see point one) or because they inexplicably think Obama is a Muslim... frankly, those people aren't the sort that have much to offer the better America of tomorrow.
The way Democrats (and everyone) learn to talk about race is by talking about race, and doing so while honestly expressing just and unjust emotions they have regarding the same. The way not to learn is doing what Ms. Walsh does: pretending to be totally impartial, or even progressive, on the subject while demonstrating with words and actions precisely the opposite.
-
TexasGirl
You sure are showing your true colors. I can see you're proud. Proud to be a racist. You definitely sound like a repuke. Blacks are your go-to whipping boys. All are welcome in our party, except your kind (insecure white people afraid of the big black guy).