AN OLDER WHITE WOMAN'S ANGER WITH HILLARY
by Joan Wile, Founder, Grandmothers Against the War
and author, GRANDMOTHERS AGAINST THE WAR: Getting Off Our Fannies And Standing Up For Peace," to be published by Citadel Press April 29, 2008
I have many reasons for being angry with Hillary Clinton, but one outweighs the others.
I don't like the fact that she is a hawk who morphed into a dove only because she realized it would hurt her campaign if she were perceived as being a supporter of the war in Iraq. I don't like the nasty way she trashes Obama. I don't like her transparent opportunism and heedless ambition. I don't like the thought of a co-presidency with Bill, who is not the person I thought him to be.
But, what I can't stomach most of all is the fact that after almost 400 years since slavery and the continuing racism that has permeated American life and so eaten away at our democracy, she is obstructing the potential to transcend that racism, finally, by electing a black president.
She can insist that her candidacy is breaking the glass ceiling for women, but electing a female president is not as earthshaking a precedent as having a black chief of state would be. Women are not discriminated against the way black people are. They are not called names. They are not ghettoized. They are not socially shunned in many places. Unless, of course, they are black. There is a world of difference between the discrimination accorded women and that accorded African Americans. Barack Obama's presidency would go a long, long way to changing that ugly fact of our culture.
This is what enrages me so. If she were obviously the better candidate, I would not feel this way. But, she isn't. In fact, I suspect she isn't equal to Obama when it comes to "crossing the commander in chief threshold." Why, oh why, then, does she continue this, yes, selfish quest and thereby deny us the most healing event, perhaps, in our history?
So, Hillary, I'm calling on you to put aside your out-sized ambition, your sense of entitlement, so that the United States will have this wonderful opportunity to at long last cross the racial divide in our country and, hopefully, leave it behind forever. Wouldn't that be magnificent, and wouldn't its realization compensate you for your lost dream?
Come on, girl, give it up! Let freedom ring!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
I agree with you whole heartedly on every statement you made. There is just one thing that bothered me. I grew up during a time when most people were skinny. I think there was one other girl in my class that was as big as me. Everyone taunted us and persecuted us because we were so huge. I weighed 153 pounds at the time and was 5'7" tall. I've lost jobs, I've never gotten jobs, I've been beaten and sexually abused, I've been living below the poverty level for a good part of my life because the good paying jobs go to the "normal looking" people.
Before I go off on a tangent here the only thing I have to disagree with you about is that maybe normal or skinny women have not had the trials and tribulations of black people. Those of us who are and have always been bigger than the norm have experienced all the same experiences. My only saving grace is that my environment allowed me to go to school.
Joan, you know I respect you and do what I can to help your cause because I believe in what you are doing but I just had to give you an example of others that maybe could have been in your comparison. I know it just happens to come about as a black man/white woman issue but it could just as well be another demographic. Racism is racism. Persecution comes in all forms, not just as one race against another. I do believe that Obama is our best hope for healing and when I heard him say the word "heal" I knew he was the one. I believe all thinking people in this United States want that. I know I do.
I don't want to offend you and if I have I'm sorry...your post just elicited a great deal of emotion in me and I had to let it out somewhere :) Have a good night :)
YES.
Agree absolutely.
Not that we could reasonably hope that an election's outcome would end racism; neither would it fill that pesky -33% salary gap that divides along sex lines. What Obama seems to offer us is the possibility of someone unifying at least 51% of the people and that is 20% more than we have now.
Prin: Thank you so much for your very interesting and moving comment. I was so concentrated on clarifying my feeling that it was more urgent to elect a black person president than a woman because I feel that would be so much more significant for the possibility of bringing racial harmony. I can understand it arousing emotion in you. I was a skinny girl, so didn't feel the same discrimination you did. However, I had small breasts, which made me feel absolutely unattractive, and I was discriminated against as a partly Jewish person. I understand what it must have been like. Now that I am 76 and seriously overweight, I can REALLY undrstand. It just occurs to me that there is one difference, though -- we can CHANGE our identity if we're too heavy by dieting, but women and African Americans can't! Love you and your comments and your support. Joan
Dear Dragoness: I love your comment. And, I learned something -- I didn't know there was a 33% salary gap between women and men -- that's really alarming. You're right, of course. Obama won't end racism, but I have the hope that his presidency will go a long, very long way toward that goal, whereas Hillary's presidency won't have an appreciable effect, I don't think, on erasing whatever barriers there are for women in getting ahead. In fact,I can't honestly see much of anything she would accomplish, come to think of it. Keep reading and commenting. How do I find your blog, and, also, Prin's? Joan
OOO Joan! Your comment reminded me of a bumper sticker I saw once...not very nice, but funny anyway :) "I may be fat but you're ugly and I can lose weight" :) you can find all my blogs by clicking on "prin" on you comment page. That will take you to my profile page...scroll down and you will find all 6, almost 7 of the blogs that link to the main one "prin's links for social work students" I tried that with dragoness yesterday because I too was interested but all i found for her was just a profile page. Maybe she just hasn't set it up yet.
Prin: I'm very technically dumb. I don't understand what you mean by clicking on my COMMENTS page. I couldn't seem to find what you mean. Please tell me what to do. Joan
when you go to reply to this comment that i am making it will take you to your comments page where all the comments are listed one after the other. look for my name "prin" to the right of the orange blogger "B" you will see that it is underlined. just click on my underlined name "prin" and it will take you to my profile page. once you get there scroll down and on that page there is a list of all my blogs, once you get past the interests, likes, etc. Prin's Links for Social Work Students is the third one, I think. Click on that and it will take you to my blog.
It would probably be easier, whenever you find a blog that you like, to look for a place on that blog that will allow you to subscribe to that blog's feed through google's feed reader service. yahoo, msn and all the major search engines have this type of service. They are usually at the bottom of the page and may be an orange square with a dot and two curved lines in it and out beside it it says "suscribe to my blogs feed" or some such. or it might just have "posts (atom)" click on the "atom" and it will do the same thing...take you to a page where you can choose what reader you want to use. You will have to set up a reader account to do this. it is easy, basically no different than setting up an email account. I have mine set up with google because my gmail account is the one i use the most for my blogging stuff.
Now that I've totally confused you :) the address for my blog is:
http://prinslinks.blogspot.com
copy and paste that into the address bar and click the go button and it will take you there. when I first started out with all this I had a file in my bookmarks that just said blogs and saved them all to there. now i think i have four or five folders that are related to blogs that i have never opened since I figured out the reader thingy. i hope this helps and i also hope i was clear enough. good luck! let me know if i can help you with anything else. :)
Hey!
What's going on with you? Hope you and yours are doing fine. I sent you an email to the address listed in your profile joanwile263@aol.com. Haven't heard back from you so i'm wondering if your spam filter ate it? if it did I have a copy i think and could post it on here is that would be better. it would have been from me at gmail. have a great day!
Post a Comment