Hillary Clinton's latest round of attacks on Barack Obama is the final confirmation that race is the snake coiled in the corner of this election. Never mind the spectacle of a former First Lady and Yale Law School graduate with $100 million+ in her purse drinking shots in a bar and calling someone else an elitist. That's just silly.
It's the subtext that's telling. By calling Obama an “elitist," Hillary is speaking in thinly veiled code to white Americans that he is a black man who thinks he is "better" than they are.
The Clinton campaign has been race-baiting ever since Hillary was derailed as Presumptive Nominee at the Iowa caucuses. Either directly or by proxy, she has been trying to incite whites, Jews, latinos and who knows who else against Obama by consistently playing on racial fears, resentments or outright hostility.
But why would a self-professed progressive Senator, former First Lady and current Presidential candidate use such a strategy? And why would a former President (husband Bill), a former Vice Presidential candidate (Geraldine Ferraro) and a renowned feminist (Gloria Steinem) join the chorus? Could it be that none of them (or their followers) can see what they're doing? That hardly seems likely.
What we're looking at is the mindset that has helped perpetuate American racism. Few people will openly admit to endorsing in-your-face racism a la the Klan. That kind of behavior has rightly been relegated to the grossly hateful and ignorant. Nowadays what we're dealing with is coded racism--subtle innuendo, misdirection or obfuscation that hides what we do under a different name. And in this case, the name is everything. “Racist” is a bad word today; no one wants to be called one. But the benefits of racism, that's something else. And so we use code to get the self-aggrandizement and perks without having to admit to being racists.
Self-aggrandizement is still a strong motivator when it comes to racism—that feeling of superiority that comes with being part of the “elite.” It's great for the ego to be “better” than someone else, and with racism, it's easy. Even the worst fuck-up can consider himself superior to Obama, Colin Powell, Michael Jordan or Wynton Marsalis just by definition.
Taking it to the next step, with superiority comes entitlement to privilege. It's only logical that superiority should entitle one to better schools, better neighborhoods, better jobs. . . a better life. It's equally logical that if any member of the superior group doesn't have the ideal life, it MUST be The Other's fault. It's the perfect scam for the scammer: offer unlimited perks and benefits, then blame it on the “nigger” when you don't deliver.
And that's what Hillary's doing when she stirs the pot. She's given up on selling her skills and achievements; the harsh spotlight of the campaign has shown her to be quite mediocre. Now it's just false dreams. In return for your vote, she'll let you hang on to your superiority.
This sort of thing didn't begin with Hillary—in truth, she's a bumbler compared to masters like Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan—but maybe she will be the beginning of the end. Her willingness to be a "progressive" race-baiter has shown that anyone can do it; it's not just something confined to racists on the fringe, the uneducated or the poor. Hillary and her brain trust are none of the above, but they're doing it anyway. Race for them is just a tool to manipulate, a way for the "elite" to stay in power.
It's been that way since the earliest days of this nation. Indentured servants, sharecroppers, sweatshop workers, child laborers and disenfranchised women could all feel superior to slaves (or any black, for that matter). It eased their own suffering in some ways, but it also perpetuated it by distracting from real causes and solutions. Doing it long enough made it a habit.
The elite back then knew that they had the ideal tool to manipulate their countrymen, a built-in bogeyman guaranteed to scare or piss off those beneath them. That's why they've never done anything about it. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
We can expect that the campaign against McCain, if it comes to pass, will sooner or later degenerate into more of the same. He signalled as much by jumping on the "elitist" bandwagon. The real elite will not let go easily.
But that's actually good. Racism has persisted for so long because we haven't confronted it fully. No one admits to racism in polite society, but too many people have grown comfortable with it. Maybe we don't understand that the hater suffers as much as the hated the way we do things now. Maybe we don't want someone to call what we have ill-gotten gains. Maybe we're afraid that we will be diminished if we can't diminish another. Maybe. . . but maybe not.
Haven't we spent enough time and energy on this already? I was a kid when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, and the Civil War and slavery ended almost 100 years before that. Why are we still talking about this? Aren't we sick and tired of hating each other, of blaming each other, of fearing each other? Wouldn't life just be that much better if we could finally move beyond this bullshit? “If it itches, scratch it.”
Race is on the table. The race-baiters put it there. Let's fix it.
Posted by Richard at April 15, 2008 09:05 PMYour point about racism is sorely overlooked in the media, as one would expect, but I think people are catching on.
As it happens, I came across this comment on a blog only today:
"The issue is it's easier to paint Obama has an elitist because it is unusual for a black man to make close to $1 million, go to Harvard, and have any job of such great distinction....it's not as unusual for a white person of ANY sex to have accumulated so much wealth and status. It's actually considered normal, but although Obama has earned less than 1% of both the other candidates, they want to paint him as an elitist because there is no way a black man could be on their level and not be considered as such. Clinton and McCain are not racist in the traditional sense but they are not above playing on racial perceptions to win. They both know damn well what Obama was getting at. They could have criticized him for a poor choice of words to make his point. That's valid. But to go far off the realm of common sense and tag him as an elitist when they both make him look like a welfare case is just ridiculous."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/hillary-clint-1.html
When Hillary and Bill's tax return revealed they had earned $109 million over the past 7 years, I knew this would not bode well for her campaign among blue collar workers in Pennsylvania. The "elitist" smear is just her last ditch attempt to distract attention from the fact that SHE is the elitist before the primary next week. But rather than turn voters against Obama, I think Hillary's (and McCain's) misrepresentations of what Obama said or meant is backfiring. We've gone through the fire with Bush over the past seven years, it's not that easy to deceive people anymore. Hillary is playing the race card, once again, because she's desperate, and it shows.
Note the reactions of commenters on the CNN site to her ad running in PA:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/14/new-clinton-ad-obama-is-out-of-touch/
Posted by: Diana at April 15, 2008 10:58 PMCould "elitist" be Hillary's "macaca" moment?
Posted by: Richard at April 16, 2008 09:20 AM.
Yeah.
Them links.
I was about to say that my Middle-Atlantic working class Irish (& Polish & Italian) Catholic brrutherrs will not long suffer this BS.
Hillary referenced the film, yet forgets: This is the land of Rocky, the ultimate underdog. And Billary is making big O into Rocky. All it will require is one more sucker-punched, hang-dog look on his part, and the crowds I know so well in bars and bowling alleys and family rooms all over PA will stand up and cheer from their Rolling Rock bellies: "Rocky-y, Rock-y, Rock-y;" just to see him deliver that knock-out punch to the bad guy, cuz, brrutherr, she deserves it. And there's nobody who knows that bittersweet taste of social justice better than us, baby, or craves it more. BRING IT ON!
And don't tell us what WE think, you media dweebs and spin-meisters! We'll freakin' bust ya one our own damn selves. Here's what we think: Give the colored guy a chance, for once. OK, we don't hang out with those guys, much. But we love Ali and Shaq and Tiger and Mookie and the Refrigerator. And when it comes time to pick our team, we want one of those guys, not one of youse guys. 'Cause we wanna win, for a change.
Da-da-DAH, da-da-DAH! [It's better with trumpets...]
Really, I hope they beat Obamas bloody between now and election night. The older folks will remember Terry Malloy, the original fictive Rocky, beaten to a bloody pulp, and still staggering to the front of the shape-up line on the docks of Hoboken, to the amazement of every man present, especially the crooked union bosses who had him beaten up.
Every man on that line, and every man who ever saw that film said to himself, "I coulda been a contender." In other words, within each of us resides a power that has never been tapped. And just as those dock-workers followed that beaten, bloodied fighter, more of us will follow our boxer, Barack, with every glove that laid him down or cut him til he cried out in his anger and his shame. Just as billions of us have followed the aboriginal Rocky since the bad guys beat him up on Golgotha, and he rose on up again. It's the gut-wrenching symbolism, stupid: Us low-life loser morons out here in Palookaville, PA actually believe this shit: You can't keep a good man down.
Seriously, Billary, does any of this ring a bell? Well, Stupid, it tolls for thee.
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Love it cosa, so frickin' funny and true.
Yeah, that knock out punch is coming. Hillary thinks she's got Obama on the ropes, I guess she never heard about "rope-a-dope."
Posted by: Diana at April 18, 2008 11:38 AM.
Another thing that will backfire is pointing out that Obama is a successful, well-educated, middle-class sort of black guy. Which means he's not a scary ghetto crack-addict kind of black guy.
Even the dumbest Pennsylvaniacs know the difference. You really don't want a scary guy in your neighborhood, no matter what color he is. But the other ones are OK. We sorta got used to them over the years here in the Middle Atlantic States.
As long as they cut their grass and keep their house painted, keep an eye on their kids and say hello at the supermarket, they're welcome at the neighborhood picnics. Sometimes they even throw one.
Yeah, you'd rather have one of them move in next door than some white asshole from Arkansas with a car up on blocks in the front yard and a black eye on his wife half the time. Hey, its the 00's. The bad old days are gone. A lot of the younger adults grew up on Michael Jackson, Gawd help them.
Now, if it was a Pakistani running . . . I mean, no offense, but them people just use too much goddam curry. And don't get me started on those freakin' Laotians! Whoa! Yer black people are practically white by comparison, I sweahtagawd.
But Billary just keeps pointing out, first, "LOOK! A NIGGER!!!," which would embarrass anybody these days. And then, "OH, NIGGER THINKS HE'S BETTER THAN US!!!" But everybody knows, ultimately, in this society, blacks are not better than whites, where it counts. Like, when a State Trooper pulls you over. Or when a judge looks you up and down. Or when you want to rent half of a nice little two-family house from the owner next door. Or when you apply for a job at a place full of white guys. Yadda-yadda-yadda. Yeah. They're barely equal, in a lot of ways. And, anyway, this Obama guy doesn't act like his shit doesn't stink. Like Hillary.
That will be the final test: Whose shit doesn't stink? That killed Kerry, and Gore, and Dukakis, and Mondale: Impervious to the smell of their own shit. Carter and Clinton, Southern boys, prob'ly grew up in an outhouse, of COURSE their shit stunk, and of COURSE they knew it. Especially compared to Ford and Bush's daddy. That's why Dubya was raised to talk like he grew up in an outhouse. Even though, now that we know him, he thinks God gilds his shit.
So, I predict that Obama will win Pennsylvania with a real squeaker: In fact, if I were advising him, I'd suggest he actually let go a squeaker at some televised public forum: A nice long loud high-pitched fart, stinky but not too stinky. And grin and blush and apologize profusely. And let the media make a banquet out of it. Because Hillary will be eating the main course: Shit.
Oh, and, uh, pardon my French. Edith, get me a beer.
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I am so sick of Hillary. She and her creepy husband just suck all the positive energy out of the atmosphere with their constant race baiting and petty sniping. What a deplorable pair. Anybody who doesn't see that is wearing blinders.
I can't wait to see Obama take on McCain. He's going to wipe the floor with that old fart. There's no contest between them.
Posted by: supa at April 21, 2008 12:56 PMsupa, I'd like to see that also, but before he can take on McCain, he's got to finish off Hillary. He needs to close the deal, as they say.
The question is how?
First, he needs to get some rest. I think he's tired out. Then he needs to adjust his style of communicating. Take the hand out of the pocket, stop pacing the stage, stop rambling or pausing, and focus his energy on what really matters. He needs to be so electrifying that whatever Hillary says just sounds like a lot of background noise.
He's got an ace in the hole, and that's the connection he's already made with the war and the price of oil. He shouldn't think he can save it for McCain. He has to use it now, and explain to people why the price at the pump keeps skyrocketing, explain to people how the futures markets work and how speculation drives the price. Saudi Arabia was right to rebuff Bush's pleas to increase production. They're right to say it's not a supply-demand situation, because it's not. But people don't understand this because no one has explained it to them. Instead, everyone who has been complicit in the war is deflecting the truth by playing the blame game. Democrats blame Big Oil, Republicans blame democrats for restricting domestic oil exploration, the financial markets blame China and the dollar. Those are factors, but they are minimal compared to what commodity futures speculators are doing to bid up the price, and that's all based on the war, and talk of more war. Exxon's windfall profits are due to increased demand for gas at the pump. They have no influence on the price of oil. They are the middle men, they buy, refine, and deliver gas to the pumps. Think about all those SUV drivers filling up their gas guzzlers. Think about the government giving Humvee buyers tax breaks to encourage them to drive those guzzlers, and thereby enrich Big Oil companies. Our government should be doing the very opposite. It should give compact car owners the tax breaks to encourage people to buy more fuel efficient cars, and Obama needs to talk about that. Those are the specifics people want to hear from him. He must clearly identify the problem and talk about the solutions.
So, when Hillary says she'll obliterate Iran with nukes, as she did the other day (to pander to AIPAC) he needs to tell the people what that kind of saber rattling does to the price of oil, he needs to explain to people where the price will go if Hillary or McCain are in the White House. We'll see crude oil shoot up to $200 a barrel "on day one" purely on speculation, and not only will gas prices jump even higher, all commodities will go up, especially food prices, as we're already seeing.
My mentor, Stella Adler, used to say "Nice is nothing." Obama is being too nice. He's being too deferential to Hillary because she's a woman. Fuck that, treat her like a man, treat her as the opponent she is. That's what she wants and expects anyway, so give it to her. I'm not saying he should adopt Rovian tactics, like Hillary, and go nasty and ugly No, not at all. He does not have to go there. He just has to speak the truth with a passion and conviction that rivets people in their seats and makes them want to jump up and follow him to the ends of the earth. He's already tapped into that, but he needs to enlarge it to reach people who respond to visceral prompts and cues more than they do to intellectual rationals. It's in his body language and his tone. People need to see him fight for the nomination like it's a matter of life and death, because it is. He can't just politely ask for the nomination, he has to CLAIM it!
He can pull it off, I think he has it in him, he just has to take the gloves off and really fight for it.
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Obama did great in PA: He cut Hillary Clinton's lead from over 30% to less than 10%, even with all the lies and low blows, the race-baiting and fear-mongering. Not to mention early poll-closings (8pm), Republican cross-dressers, and the local Machine working against him.
The real story is that Hillary has confirmed that she has slipped to second place, permanently. The PA vote changed nothing: Obama is still well ahead where it counts. This was her last stand: From now on it's all Obama territory.
The "Hillary" voters will vote for whoever the Democrats choose as their candidate in November, the ones that aren't really McCain voters. The Obama voters will stay away in droves, if he is robbed of the nomination. That's the real math. He's running a great campaign, and he's going to win, now and in November.
I really think Obama just needs to stay above it all: Look statesmanlike and trustworthy, let others go on the attack. Where are his surrogates? Why aren't they on the attack?
If the Billaries are going to sink to race-baiting and accepting aid & comfort from the contemptible Republicans, I think its time to revisit Monicagate, the Hillary Health Care debacle, and every whack thing she's been saying for months now. Nuke Iran for Israel? What is she, in the Koch Party now?
Obama needs a Spiro Agnew or a Dick Cheney to start savaging the unelectable Clintons, and that old fool McCain. You're right, Diana, enough is enough.
You're right about oil, too. Immediately after the PA election, the LA Times ran an accusation that Obama was now taking oil money. It was just chump-change from individuals in the awl bidniz, not actual corporate money. They failed to report on where the Clintons' sudden post-PA windfall came from. Any guesses?
I'm afraid we'll see gasoline closer to $5/gal than $3 any time soon. That will really hurt what's left of the economy. Obama should djinn up a proposal in the Senate for a windfall profits tax on the oilies, a gas-gouging penalty with teeth, and immediate steps to reward energy conservation for homes & businesses. It'll fail, but he can then make the point that Big Awl runs this country right now, and he will put a stop to it, not Billary or Walnuts.
His campaign could use some real meat like that. Bit too much froth. Americans still prefer Big Macs to Vente Lattes.
[So, nu. An actress, hunh? Mazel tov.]
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You're right, he did great. He closed the gap, but she's still in the game. "It ain't over 'till the last dog is dead" (as Bill was known to say). This is all about the superdelegates for her. 300 undecided could still go either way. She's counting on them to swing the nomination her way, and they could. This is the unpredictable factor, and I find it terribly unerving because we don't know what goes on behind the scenes, we don't know the depth of their loyalty to the Clintons, or what dirty tricks the Clintons still have up their sleeve. We just don't know.
I read the L.A. Times article about Obama taking money from oil executives. The headline was totally misleading. Those are individual donations (for a measly $46,000 as compared to the $40 million he raised from small doners). The point, burried in the article, is that he's not taking money from oil company lobbyists or PACS. He is, therefore, not beholden to big oil.
I agree that he has to stay above the fray, and not stoop to her level. I read today that he's committed to not going negative. That's good. But he has to differentiate himself from Hillary and McCain by speaking forcefully about the connection between the war and oil prices. That's the story he needs to drive home in a way that anyone can understand it. It's the issue neither of his opponents can speak to with authority, since both are complicit in the war, while he can speak with truth and conviction because his hands are clean. He's the only one making the connection, and that's truly extraordinary.
Obama has to try to clarify some of the misconceptions and inform the public about how the war and oil prices are connected. Slapping Big Oil with windfall taxes only detracts our attention from understanding the real underlying problem. It's all too easy to scapegoat Big Oil. Truth is, they have no control over oil prices, only gas prices, and it's really consumer demand that increases the price of gas at the pump. Obama can't play the politician and pander to the consumers need to be reassured about their spending habits. He has said that he will tell people what they "need to hear, not what they want to hear." Well, they need to hear that America's gas guzzling days are over. They need to hear that a foreign policy based on resource wars to support these habits will be our undoing unless we change course.
That's the "change" he needs to be talking about.
I think you are right. Some of her arguments are so spurious that only a racist could hang their hat on them.
Michigan? She won the vote in Michigan?
Posted by: Lilli at April 25, 2008 02:14 AMRichard, here's an article confirming your thoughts on racism in Hillary's campaign:
http://blackstarnews.com/?c=135&a=4470
Posted by: supa at April 25, 2008 11:19 PMDiana, today's news is an example of what you're saying about the war and tensions with Iran driving oil prices higher on pure speculation. I think you're right, Obama has to address this and use it against MCCain's and Hillary's hawkish statements. These two are just like Bush. They'll drive our economy to hell with their macho posturing and fear mongering.
NEW YORK — Oil prices rose sharply Friday on news that a ship under contract to the U.S. Defense Department fired warning shots at two boats in the Persian Gulf. Retail gas prices as expected rose further into record territory, nearing $3.60 a gallon.
Crude prices rose on initial reports that a U.S. ship had fired on two Iranian boats; the news raised concerns that a conflict between U.S. and Iranian forces could cut oil supplies from the region. A Navy spokeswoman said the origin of the boats was unclear.
The news was enough to send light, sweet crude for June delivery up to $119.55 before the contract retreated to settle up $2.46 at $118.52 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/25/us-ship-fires-on-iranian_n_98621.html
Posted by: supa at April 25, 2008 11:22 PM