I love that he calls it “race poison.” That’s the irony. It doesn’t just hurt blacks. It really is poisonous for whites as well.
Andrew Sullivan writes:
In the Clintons’ morphing into a crude version of racially angry Reagan Democrats, you can see an almost Shakespearian tragedy. Bill Clinton has a long and admirable record in civil rights; and was on the right side of the struggle in the South in his youth. He has an effortless rapport with black Americans, and they were his core final constituency of support in the darkest days of impeachment.
But like any southerner, Clinton also knew how to navigate racial resentment. In 1992, he interrupted the primary campaign to return to Arkansas to sign the death warrant of a mentally retarded black man. He made a point of attacking the radical black hip hop artist Sister Souljah in his first campaign. He signed off on welfare reform. His genius was in holding together a coalition that included enough Reagan Democrats to win, while never losing wide and deep black support.
But he never ran against a black candidate and neither did his wife. They are used to loving and supporting minorities – as long as the minorities know their place and see the Clintons as the instrument of their salvation. Obama broke that dependency and that relationship. And that was why the Clintons had to do all they could to destroy and belittle and besmirch him.
Precisely. It’s almost like a more triumphant version of the Miss Millie storyline in The Color Purple. Read more of Sullivan’s article here.
May 12, 2008 at 10:20 pm
First, I have to invite you over to THink (http://thinkoutloud.ning.com/). Next, yeah. As I stated elsewhere I did not hate Hillary. I wasn’t going to vote for, but I didn’t hate her. Then they went and made the mistake of betting against the risk of America having become a better America. Because that’s what this strategy is - betting that racial divides and illogical fear still drives the majority of the electorate. Now, it’s become a do or die vote for me. Obama or nothing. A Clinton will never again get my vote.
May 13, 2008 at 3:20 pm
What a commentary. This “race poisoning” which infects all of us puts me in mind of this movement in higher education called:
“Making Excellence Inclusive”…developed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Now, I’m no educational scholar but isn’t there a wild presumption here in our 2-4 year schools. We must all look into this…talk about infectuous and harmful to all;
May 14, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Hillary’s comments to USA Today about race were coldly calculated to get the media talking about Obama’s “problem” with white, lower-income voters in the lead-up to the WV primary because she knew full well that this would be an exit poll result that would have all the pundits talking about on primary night. She didn’t care what people would say about her injecting race into the election process. It serves her right that Edwards endorsed Obama the next day precisely because, he said, he didn’t like the storyline he was seeing spun around the race issue. He called Obama after the reports on the WV primary Tues night and said “I’ve got your back.” So for the Clinton people who are complaining that Obama’s team planned this endorsement to knock her WV primary victory off the news, I say, too bad, Hillary deserved it.
May 15, 2008 at 6:30 am
On being “liberal”:
Many people have suggested that Hillary Clinton represents the best liberal traditions, and that (of course) Republican opponents now label Obama as the most liberal.
The neocons have successfully transformed public discourse across the 30 years since the Reagan Invasion (”revolution” is too kind for what has happened). It may be helpful to revisit what the term “liberal” really means when we throw it around, and maybe should use the real definition in combating the verbal poison of the Ultra Right (from the American Heritage Dictionary):
[Origin: 1325–75; ME < L līberālis of freedom, befitting the free, equiv. to līber free + -ālis -al1]
lib·er·al (lĭb’ər-əl, lĭb’rəl)
a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
Just the top two definitions and worth remembering.
May 17, 2008 at 9:56 pm
“They are used to loving and supporting minorities – as long as the minorities know their place and see the Clintons as the instrument of their salvation. Obama broke that dependency and that relationship. And that was why the Clintons had to do all they could to destroy and belittle and besmirch him.”
Exactly! The Clintons thought this was going to be a “Driving Miss Daisy” election, with Miss Daisy giving the directions and Blacks following obediently. It probably would have, too, had Barack Obama not joined the field AND had Hillary not turned this into a color-based war against Blacks, in which Barack’s loss would inevitably be ours as well.