You're so unlike...anything.

Whew!

Reading your letter confirms that you fit right in, at least in this regard: regular posters seem to have a love/hate relationship with salon. I am truly interested in this community's siren call to otherwise sane people.

Jessied44, you make a very good point. I also think that picking Hillary as vp would be a sign of strength. But I am no longer hopeful, because I do not believe he has that kind of strength, nor does he have true convictions about much of anything that is important to me.

I have been thinking about why I have taken such dislike to Obama from so early on. I think it is because he has been running against both Clintons, the whole baby boom generation and everything that generation, of which I am a member, stood for and accomplished, whether good or bad. His whole campaign is based on "change", and the change he is talking about is to throw us out. Baby and bath water.

Since he became the presumptive nominee I have been waiting for some indication from him that he respects me (and the rest of my generation) and wants my vote. It has become increasingly clear that he does not. His treatment of the Clintons is disgraceful, and just another example of the underlying weakness of his character.

Joan,

You've repeatedly brought up how you've been called a racist. I assume from this post that you believe that you were called a racist because you were critical of Obama. I only know you from your posts here, your responses to letter writers and the one time that I saw you on Hardball. I have no basis to call you a racist and have not and would not do so. However, I was one of the letter writers who commented that Salon's coverage of the campaign was racist. I stand by that.

I started reading Salon regularly late last year hoping to get more insights into the campaign and to learn more about the candidates. I make no bones about not supporting Hillary from the outset but I was genuinely interested in learning why others thought she was the better candidate. Salon's coverage of her and her campaign, and specifically your posts, helped to harden me against her.

I felt that in your posts you deliberately went out of your way to dismiss and belittle anyone who was alarmed and/or troubled by Hillary's repeated insensitivity to black voters. African Americans are a core part of the Democratic party. Yet Hillary's campaign felt it was appropriate to diminish the importance of African Americans as a voting block, and to over-emphasize the importance of "hard working Americans, white Americans" and Latinos. A candidate who needs African American votes is making a huge mistake when she argues that MLK was less important to civil rights in America than Martin Luther King (not, perhaps, a factual mistake, but definitely a political one), yet you insisted that her comments were 'tin-eared," and that too much was being made of them.

In fact every comment that either Clinton made that was racially insensitive was, according to you, a gaffe, a mis-speak, tin-eared, or taken out of context. Meanwhile, I, and millions of other African Americans were wondering if for years we had misjudged the Clintons. I don't believe that they revealed themselves to be racists. I believe that they revealed themselves to be typical politicians. I had believed that the Clintons were somehow different than other white politicians and other Republicans who use the history of racial divisions to advance their own careers. I thought they were somehow above that. This campaign revealed to me that they are not. Bill Clinton was the first president that I was old enough to vote for. I, like more than 90% of African Americans in 1992 happily pulled the lever for him, and I felt betrayed by his comments. I also felt infuriated by writers, like you, who insisted that this was no big deal.

You also insisted on posting 3 separate pieces on how sexism is worse that racism and how Americans seem to be more ready for a black president than a woman. Despite numerous entreaties from your readers, you refused to run a piece in Salon that commented on how for millions of women in America, racism and sexism are inseparable. You also posted these pieces after describing yourself as someone who has worked for racial equality in America, something I found incomprehensible. I still am at a loss to understand why someone who recognizes how pervasive both racism and sexism are in the US would think it was appropriate to repeatedly make the argument that women are more aggrieved than black men.

You refused to write about Geraldine Ferraro (yes, I know, you were on vacation). Instead Salon's coverage of Ferraro's repeated racist ridiculousness essentially amounted to Alex Koppleman writing a tortured and illogical defense of her. There was nothing from you, there was nothing in Broadsheet, there were no calls for Clinton to renounce her and make a big speech about gender and/or women of color. Instead, you asked over and over again, for Obama to comment about gender, to comment about the "pimp out" controversy, to comment on any topic that Hillary wanted to keep in the media. Meanwhile, you refused to hold Hillary responsible for just about anything (her misremembering about Tuzla: a gaffe, she was tired, what do you expect?!).

The deciding factor for me though was your repeated hammering of Obama on Rev. Wright. You claimed for weeks after the controversy had largely played out that this was still a huge issue. You openly insinuated, without reference or citiation, that Rev. Wright was anti-semitic and anti-Israel and that therefore Obama was going to have a huge problem with Jewish voters. You repeatedly implied that Rev. Wright and Farrakhan were similarly disturbed and dangerous. You insisted that Obama answer for every word that Rev. Wright might or might not have said. In doing so you held Obama to a much higher standard than you held any other politician, most especially the Senator Clinton. In doing so you also repeated the very racist practice of insisting that African Americans are responsible for the comments and opinions of anyone else who is also African American that whites feel threatened by.

So as a fellow and sympathetic American, woman and human being, I understand your hurt and frustration at being called a racist. There isn't American adult alive who hasn't said something offensive and racist in her lifetime, and that includes me. However, if we recognize the moment when of our prejudices and assumptions reveal themselves and take ownership and responsibility for our actions, we can learn and not make the same mistakes again. By defensively insisting that you (and the Clintons) are victims of over-zealous "Obamacans," I don't have much hope that for as long as you are editor of Salon the issues that are important to me and the viewpoint that I represent will be respected and/or appreciated.

I've pretty much stopped reading Salon on a regular basis now, yes the campaign is over, but also I feel like I've got a handle on what Salon is about and who Salon is writing for and I guess it's not for me.