I'm surprised that no-one on this list commented on PK's column, June 9, 2008 (while I was out of town): >... Mr. Obama's nomination wouldn't have been possible 20 years ago. It's >possible today only because racial division, which has driven U.S. politics >rightward for more than four decades, has lost much of its sting.
>And the de-racialization of U.S. politics has implications that go far beyond >the possibility that we're about to elect an African-American president. >Without racial division, the conservative message — which has long dominated >the political scene — loses most of its effectiveness.... >But why has racial division become so much less important in American politics? >Part of the credit surely goes to Bill Clinton, who ended welfare as we knew >it. I'm not saying that the end of Aid to Families With Dependent Children was >an unalloyed good thing; it created a great deal of hardship. But the "bums on >welfare" played a role in political discourse vastly disproportionate to the >actual expense of A.F.D.C., and welfare reform took that issue off the table. >Another large factor has been the decline in urban violence.... >Let me add one more hypothesis: although everyone makes fun of political >correctness, I'd argue that decades of pressure on public figures and the >media have helped drive both overt and strongly implied racism out of our >national discourse. For example, I don't think a politician today could get >away with running the infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad. >Unfortunately, the campaign against misogyny [i.e., against HRC?] hasn't been >equally successful.< I don't know why PK views misogyny as a greater problem than racism against Blacks or as persisting longer than racism. How can anyone measure such things? Just looking at relative incomes or admissions to professional schools, I'd guess that misogyny has been shrinking much faster than racism ... Whatever the facts, I know that the reason my wife was so anti-HRC (and I agree) was that Hillary was so bloody irritating, initially projecting a feeling that her rise to the White House was inevitable (and that she was somehow _entitled_ to the job), taking credit for decades of experience she didn't have, forgetting that her real experience (in addition to a short stint in the Senate) has been as a corporate lawyer, blatantly lying about dodging Balkan bullets, etc., etc. Worst of all, she dissed economists! ;-) Jokes aside, her gas-tax holiday proposal was simple pandering. It had nothing to do with misogyny. The problem with HRC was not that she was a woman but that she was the wrong person, period. For us, BHO was simply _less irritating_ than HRC -- and that's an important matter after 7+ years of listening to one of the most irritating figures in the recent history of US politics. It's unlikely that we'll get much out of President BHO unless there's a mass movement pushing hard, but at least he's not an obvious jerk. I think PK is fooled by the fact that _overt_ racism is taboo. There's still a lot of covert racism out there (even if we ignore the Daily Show's clips of racists from West Virginia). It's just that people feel that it's wrong to state racist opinions overtly. But we still see a lot of White people (1) deeply fearing Black people; and (2) having paternalistic attitudes toward them. The second was one reason behind popular support for Bill Clinton's "welfare reform" and would be more overt if the ultra-paternalistic TANF program weren't in place. There is clearly a generational/class thing going on, however: younger Whites and more up-scale ones are more willing to vote for a Black man than in the past. The former don't have as much historical baggage in their heads, while the latter aren't suffering from the economic insecurity that sets off the scape-goat mentality. But that doesn't say that covert racism (or institutional racism) is gone. By the way, I don't think that the "infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad" is needed: there are a lot of folks who are already upset about BHO's race, along with his name. Some of the "hard-working" working-class Whites who voted for HRC will likely vote for McCain, because of these factors. PK ignores one of the major factors that opened the door for both BHO and HRC: to the vast majority of voters, Dubya has been so horribly bad that it opened voters up to _any_ alternative. His ick factor outweighed both misogynistic and racist feelings for many. In fact, that may be Dubya's only positive contribution. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
