Hillary’s Voice

I posted this diary on MyDD and it made the recommended list. One diarist suggested that we continue the conversation here.

As painful as it is, one cannot live in the USA and not talk about race. Whether we like it or not, it is either the elephant in the room or is smouldering beneath the surface. As a black professional who happens to be a Hillary supporter, I have few black friends who understand why I support Hillary. I mostly talk politics with my children or some of my white friends. My daughters have married men from all races and we speak openly about the subject.

A few years ago my secretary was mistaken for my boss just by virtue of our skin color. I have been called every name in the book because of something I cannot change. Recently I have been looked at in strange ways because I support a candidate who I think is more experienced. I am not against someone I am for someone. It has gotten so bad that I am now considered a “negro” because I am beholden to “the white man.”

Racism is not going to go away any time soon, but for every white person that has been mean-spirited, belittling and racist to me, I have found ten who are not. There are also prejudiced people within my race. When one of my daughters started dating a white man, whom she later married, one family went ballistic on how we were denying our race. My daughter was considered an Oreo cookie.

We cannot afford to be guilt-tripped into voting for Obama this time around. There are just too many tough problems to fix waiting for the next POTUS. This is not the time to bargain for power.

The Obama Bargain By SHELBY STEELE
March 18, 2008; Page A23

Geraldine Ferraro may have had sinister motives when she said that Barack Obama would not be “in his position” as a frontrunner but for his race. Possibly she was acting as Hillary Clinton’s surrogate. Or maybe she was simply befuddled by this new reality — in which blackness could constitute a political advantage.

AP 
Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama, June 4, 2007.
But whatever her motives, she was right: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.” Barack Obama is, of course, a very talented politician with a first-rate political organization at his back. But it does not detract from his merit to say that his race is also a large part of his prominence. And it is undeniable that something extremely powerful in the body politic, a force quite apart from the man himself, has pulled Obama forward. This force is about race and nothing else.

I won’t be hoodwinked or bamboozled into casting a vote just because blacks can guilt-trip whites to do your bidding.

How to turn one’s blackness to advantage?

Since the 2004 Democratic convention, Barack Obama has been known for giving carefully crafted speeches. Yesterday, he gave another one.

One of the speech’s strong points was a spotlighting of modern-day racial injustices. Among the troubling aspects were a few seeming inconsistencies.