Living in History
I am not totally immune to the excitement of living in history, even if it is political–at least at the moment. Yes, it was quite extraordinary that the main contenders for the Democratic nomination for president were a black man and a white woman. Exciting even.
I have to admit, though, that I didn't find myself thinking much about the black man versus white woman aspect. Maybe I'm so polarized that they looked to me like the straight person versus the straight person, although I'd prefer to think it's because it didn't really matter that much to me, that I don't care so much about whether the candidate is female or not-white. It seems, however, that a lot more people are a lot more bothered than I'd realized.
As you know I get most of my political news second- or third- or more-hand, and it suits me better; it serves pretty well to filter the loud, hysterical, but mostly ephemeral controversies that are quickly manufactured and then disappear almost as quickly. I was, nevertheless, a bit disturbed by some of what I was reading today about people, good, American, liberal people, who just could not bring themselves to vote for Obama because "it just wouldn't feel right".*
It seemed that if the interlocutor discussing the situation with such commenters scratched the surface a little deeper, it finally became clear that said speaker found "it just wouldn't feel right" because s/he simply could not come to grips with the idea of a black man as president.
Naive I am I suppose, but I think I was shocked to realize that. What's more, there seemed to be lurking fears that we, the country, dare not elect a black man because, you know, there might be pay-back. That's right, Obama is apparently seen as the thin end of the negro fifth-column wedge that has been biding its time until it could take over the US government and finally do something to punish white America for slavery and oppression and all the other guilt-trips that keep white-supremacists awake at night. This attitude apparently lies behind the more prosaic "it just wouldn't feel right" for those to whom the idea of somehow having a black "boss" is anathema.
What's interesting is not the racism–that's just ugly and unacceptable–but the veiled phrases and code-words used to convey the thoughts, sometimes veiled enough to keep the obvious meaning from feeding back into the brain of the speaker. I suppose this is what, in this cycle, all the talk about "electability" has been about: those for whom voting for a woman "just would feel right" versus those for whom voting for a black man "just wouldn't feel right".
Is it progress that all (or most) of the racism and misogyny become couched in euphemism? In some ways I suppose so, but as an aging gay man I don't have much patience with it, having heard enough people who would, say, never vote for a homosexual because "it just wouldn't feel right". I do take some comfort from public-opinion surveys that tell me I would be far, far less electable as an atheist than I would be as a homosexual.
Perhaps this is what was at the root of all those "analyses" that tried to say Obama was only winning because he was a black man. NB: black man, not black man. As they saw it, it was either black man versus white woman, or black man versus white woman. What a quandary! What stupid analyses!
So many excuses, so little bandwidth. Perhaps I should just go with the solid astrological analysis:
Astrologically speaking, HRC's [i.e., Clinton's] Mars Saturn Pluto is directly overhead in her solar chart, and that means she can never escape from dominant, controlling narcissistic men. Try though she will, she still ends up to be a Scorpio bottom to a Leo top. As for BHO [i.e, Obama], he won't turn out at all to be the solo heroic fireman posing for the photo op in front of a burning building holding a little baby he just saved single-handed. Not with Chiron and Neptune on his South Node in the solar seventh house.
[Michael Lutin, "Hillary and Barack: Wake Up and Start Dreaming", Huffington Post, 5 June 2008.]
Should I find this more reassuring? Racism or science illiteracy–I think I'll take neither.
As for the presidential candidate, one moderate liberal versus another moderate liberal–I think I'll take the moderate liberal.
__________
*Let's make a quick note of a funny, almost eggcorn-like mutation that I read in this context, where someone, a Hillary fanatic, referred to those on the opposing side as "Obama-files". It could become a thrilling TV series, I suppose. Of course he meant "Obama-phile", but that's a lot less fun than "Obama-file". Unfortunate, it now tags him as yet another liberal illiterate.
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on Thursday, 5 June 2008 at 22.37
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What fascinates/disturbs me is that Senator Obama can just as easily be called a white man, since he is as much the son of his mother as he is the offspring of his father. But that never seems to occur to anyone.
I think Senator Obama is in a real quandry. He can't have Senator Clinton (and her husband) as Vice-President, because she stands for all the "old politics" he rejects; but he, I'm afraid, can't win the election without her as his Vice-President, precisely because of all those people who would vote for her but won't vote for him.
on Thursday, 5 June 2008 at 23.57
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Bill, in the US there was an old rule that "one drop" of black blood makes you black. It's a racist anachronism now but plenty of people still think that way and there's a whole history of social convention backing up their feelings, I'm afraid.
I think Obama can win without Clinton, largely because I don't really think he can win with Clinton and I think she and her husband would make a horrible vice-president. I think there's still plenty of time to get past the heated hyperbole of the primary campaign, still plenty of time to make it clear that McCain is a dottering dolt.
on Friday, 6 June 2008 at 10.27
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Oh, I'm aware of that old rule. It operates in Canada, too, in terms of who can claim official First Nations status.
One of my favourite mystery series is Barbara Hambly's Benjamin Janvier novels set in 1830s New Orleans. There the race distinctions are carried out with great finesse. The first novel opens with Janvier playing at a "quadroon ball", that is, a ball for persons who are one-quarter black (as opposed to mulattos who are one-half, and "octoroons", who are one-eighth, or whatever one-sixteenths would be called). The women at the quadroon ball are mostly mistresses of white men, pimped by their half-white mothers who sell them for the highest price they can get to the white men, who go back and forth from the quadroon ball to the white person's ball next door. )"Where can the menfolk have gone," the white wives ask each other, as they fan themselves furiously, knowing full well where they are.) Skin colour becomes incredibly important; and the hope is that, at some point, the "one drop" of black blood won't show at all, and you can pass for white, at which point it ceases to matter.
It's ironic isn't it, that that "one drop" of black blood is so powerful it sweeps away the ninety-nine white ones; whereas "one drop" of white blood is completely unable to do anything remotely similar. And, of course, in the South, where Obama is least likely to succeed with voters, there's virtually no one who doesn't have at least "one drop" of black blood in their veins!