“I been a lady up to now, don’t know how much more I can take
Queens shouldn’t swing if you know what I mean
But I’m bout to take my earrings off get me some Vaseline…”
Jill Scott
Let me just clarify: I have never been a Hillary-hater. She advocates the right policies, most of the time. She’s tough as nails and sharp as a switchblade. And a lot of the rage that her detractors feel towards her is expressed in ways that are patently misogynist. Newspapers and websites of all leanings frequently publish hideous photographs of her, the likes of which would be thrown out as the photographer’s folly were they of anyone else (except, notably, George W. Bush). These same images are then distorted by less reputable media outlets to resemble the garish, leering figures that the Nazis and the Allies, respectively, used to vilify Jews and the Japanese during WWII–suggesting a threat so overwhelming as to justify her isolation and humiliation. These images of Hillary as a woman out of control, in need of containment, expose the ugly face of post-feminist sexism in America.
I both denounce and reject them. Whether posted by the conservatives who have always hated her or by Obama’s supporters, these caricatures degrade us all. Furthermore, they disable any legitimate criticism of her politics, as supporters and detractors alike must check and re-check themselves against Hillary’s bar of fairness.
Let us raise that bar, and hold Mrs. Clinton to it. Regardless of the injustices she has suffered, there is no excuse for the exacting way in which the Hillary Clinton campaign has attempted, from the outset, to use Obama’s race to marginalize him. Geraldine Ferraro’s statement that if Obama were “a white man, he would not be in this position,” and Clinton’s failure to explicitly reject that statement and remove Ms. Ferraro from her finance committee are only the most recent examples of this phenomenon.
In fact, there was a time when Obama wasn’t black enough. (Remember, way back before Christmas?) The Clinton campaign rolled out the endorsements of Democratic public figures that made their names during the civil rights movement—Rep. John Lewis (GA), Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Charlie Rangel (NY), and businessman Andrew Young were all early Clinton supporters. At the same time, Hillary Clinton eagerly hearkened back to Toni Morrison’s Lewinsky-era assertion that Bill Clinton was the first black president, joking with reporters that she’s in an interracial marriage. The strategy, it appears, was to discredit Obama by suggesting that even those who, to simple minds, should support him, don’t–to convince the American public that his candidacy wouldn’t be as historic as his “latte-sipping” liberal white voting base would like to believe. (To put it less diplomatically, if even black people won’t vote for this guy…)
Those, it now seems, were the good old days. When Obama won the South Carolina black vote by a 4:1 ratio and repeated that success in state after state with large black populations, suddenly, the rhetoric changed. Bill Clinton immediately reminded reporters that Jesse Jackson’s success in the state had not represented the broad-based support necessary to secure the nomination. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has discounted Obama’s victories in heavily black states as irrelevant, saying that only the big states (which also happen to be whiter and browner) matter. This is worse than the usual Democratic pattern of taking the black vote for granted in general elections—it suggests that, at least in Southern states, black votes don’t matter at all. In 2008, the only thing worse for race relations than the question of whether a candidate is black enough is the tacit suggestion that he is too black to win.
I take this personally. I am not black, but I am young, having grown up after the civil rights movement and benefited my whole life from integrated public schools and workplaces. Yet I was aware from a very early age that my black classmates still bore the burden of racism and economic disadvantage—and that we, as a white children, bore the burden of history. Our generation’s struggle is to realize the opportunities that civil rights legislation permits, but does not itself achieve: to demand equal respect and reach equal representation in positions of power. This does not mean that we have to vote for the black candidate. However, it does mean that, as much as possible, we must reject white privilege. As a bare minimum, it must become unacceptable for white people to consciously and openly decide to use race privilege for their own advancement. The Clintons’ race rhetoric blatantly disregards this principle. It sets us back. And it is the one reason why I will not vote for Hillary.
As I said earlier, she’s right on most of the issues. But she’s wrong on the principles. And if there are a lot of things that the MTV generation, my generation, isn’t as wise about as, say, Hillary’s demographic, race relations is not one of them. Her campaign needs to take a cue from that other group of voters that she just can’t seem to win—young people. Especially considering the damage she’s already done, she now needs to strongly reject any racist comments and work to root out the racist overtones of her campaign. Instead of discounting the black vote, she should try to win it. Even if she doesn’t succeed, a more inclusive campaign would give her some ammunition against the charge that she’s divisive.
For now, though, Hillary is a stumbling block. Ferraro has publicly reiterated her racist comments, and in an amazing feat of contortionist reasoning, Clinton’s campaign manager has accused Obama of bringing race into the debate because he complained about the race-baiting. Hillary’s apologist reaction to the whole affair attempts to reduce this to a personal issue between two candidates. But the feminists of the 1970s taught us that the personal is political, especially when the two people involved are competing to be our country’s leader. Personally, I want the next generation to grow up accustomed to a fair playing field and healthy race relations, not as bearers of the baggage that the Clinton campaign seems content to saddle them with. To quote (completely out of context, I admit) neo-soul singer Jill Scott, a Philadelphia native whose vote, in the eyes of the Clinton campaign, is irrelevant, “You’re gettin’ in the way, of what I’m feeling…”
