Geraldine Ferraro said this (blame Mother Jones magazine if the quote is incorrect):
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
Some of this does sound a tad racist coming out of an older white woman's mouth. But she does bring up a valid point about the country being caught up in the "concept" of who Barack Obama is, and God bless her for sticking to her pistols and not apologizing or backing down and getting all politically correct on us. She did resign from being an unpaid advisor to Hillary Clinton, but I don't think that's a big loss for Ferraro.
I don't necessarily agree that if Obama were a white man he wouldn't be in the position, that of Democratic presidential front runner. American political history has examples of white men who were eloquent but had little political experience to brag about, John Kennedy being the most obvious. So if Barack Obama were Barry O'Bama instead, he might still be where he is now.
But the United States of America is indeed caught up in the concept of who Barack Obama is, and that includes the issue of race, but not necessarily in a racist way though. Talking about race, mentioning one's race, and being racist are two different things, and I don't Geraldine Ferraro was making a racist comment, I don't think Obama is a racist when he mentions his background and I don't think America is racist when it looks with fascination at Obama.
Obama is who he is and there's nothing wrong with being who he is, nor is there anything wrong with Obama pointing out his personal history. His personal story is a story of race to a certain extent. He is obviously muti-racial. But Obama popularity is not as a story of racism, or the concept voting for or against someone based on race. Obama is popular, or at least of interest to many (including a fawning media) because of who Obama is at this point in time in America. Obama looks a lot like what America, or more to the point, Americans, look like now, and what we as a people will continue to look like more and more in the future. Obama's personal history includes a black father, a white mother, and an Indonesian step-father. Obama is multi-racial, multi-cultural and had a multi-continental upbringing.
I haven't any scientific data in front of me, but I don't need any. I have eyes to see. The US is more and more a place where marriage occurs between people not just of different ethnic groups or different religions, but between people of different races and cultures. White marries black, Hispanic marries Asian, etc, etc. This is a good thing and when Obama talks about race it is to point out his background, one he is proud of, but also to possibly make a politically advantageous point that he looks like you, America. It is not racism, it's just a fact. When Ferraro made her comments, she was not speaking from a racist viewpoint, but from a viewpoint that reflected some truth: Here is a guy without a whole lot of experience, but is well spoken and intelligent and if he were anything other than who he is, he wouldn't be here because America is very taken by what the multi-racial, multi-cultural candidate he is stands for right now. There's simply some truth to that, and that doesn't make anyone racist to think that.
Obama made his speech today about "the race issue" and I think it was a darn good one. He brought up a lot of good points. He spoke of black anger that still brews, but also mentioned the anger and fear the white middle class has, and how people of all races can and should unite to fight the things that could destroy all Americans, regardless of race, or else we will remain divided, by race and ethnicity and class, and thus never move forward, continually distracted by issues left unsolved, or worse, unspoken of.
As you said, it is who Obama is on all levels that gives him that something special that makes cynical dreamers like me get teary eyed, vote in primaries we've never voted in before, and write checks. And part of who he is is the racial background he comes from. I think there was bitterness and negativity in Geraldine's statement. The kind of bitterness and negativity that Obama addressed in the wonderful speech he just gave.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that he reacted as he did and said what he said has only reinforced why I believe in him as a candidate. And again, it's because he's biracial that he understood where both Geraldine and his minister were coming from. So yes, Geraldine, it is precisely because of who he is that he has gotten this far. :) And that's not a bad thing for our country.