Is Geraldine Ferraro correct?
Geraldine Ferraro, Clinton fund-raiser, former Democratic VP-nominee to Walter Mondale, and the first woman to hold that distinction, made comments in an interview published Friday that some have decried as insensitive and offensive. Is Ferraro correct, or are people justifiably outraged by her statements?
Rated:
from the Associated Press
The first female vice presidential candidate and a fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Democrat Barack Obama only achieved his status in the presidential campaign because he’s black. The Obama campaign called on Clinton Tuesday to denounce comments.
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Geraldine Ferraro told The Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif., in an interview published last Friday. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
Ferraro is a former New York congresswoman and was former Vice President Walter Mondale’s running mate when he was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1984. She has endorsed Clinton and has been a fundraiser for her campaign.
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said Ferraro should be removed from her position with the Clinton campaign because of her comments.
“The bottom-line is this, when you wink and nod at offensive statements, you’re really sending a signal to your supporters that anything goes,” Axelrod said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.
“There’s no other way to send a serious signal that you want to police the tone of this campaign,” he added. “And if you don’t do those things then you are simply adding to the growing compendium of evidence that you really are encouraging that.”
Ferraro also said Obama has it easy because of a “very sexist media.”
“I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama’s campaign — to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against,” she said. “For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.”
Last week, a former adviser to Obama resigned after calling Clinton “a monster.”
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OK, I guess I’ll stick my neck out. When will our country finally be able to talk about the issues of race and gender in politics like actual adults? I think Ferraro is mistaken, but why are people calling for her head on a pike? Why is it OK to talk about “the black vote” or the “female vote”, but not to speculate on the effect that the gender or racial identity of a candidate has on their support? Is it easier for a woman to be elected President, or for a black man? I wouldn’t care to warrant a guess, but I think it’s a valid question, and one need not be prejudice because they have an opinion.
In a limited sense, Ferraro may be correct – of course people are aware that Obama is a black man, and of course that’s been a factor in his public image. His is a message of change, and Obama’s racial identity is certainly a change from previous Presidents. So yeah, being a black man has surely factored into the amount of attention Obama has received, both from individuals and from the media as a whole. And if all it took was a little attention to attain the highest office in the land, then Ferraro would have a solid argument. But has Mrs. Clinton ever suffered from a lack of attention? Is Barack Obama the first black man to run for President? No, on both counts. For arguments sake, let’s go ahead and assume that Ferraro’s train of reasoning is correct and say that the only reason people know about Barack Obama is because of his racial identity. That still wouldn’t explain why most democrats are voting for him.
So is she saying that Clinton can’t win because America just wants a black man for President? Well, OK – I don’t agree that’s it, but I don’t really see it as a racially offensive statement. More like a lame excuse :)
If I were Mr. Obama, I would be offended that Mrs. Ferraro was crediting my success to being “the right guy at the right time”, rather than to running a compelling campaign. But talking about race or gender doesn’t make you a racist or a misogynist, and Axelrod is being ridiculous by asking for Ferraro’s removal.
Bingo. You win a stuffed bunny.
From an old 60 Minutes interview with Morgan Freeman:
-“You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” Freeman asks Wallace. After noting there is no “white history month,” he says, “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history,” he tells Wallace.The notion of a special month for black history may be hurting rather than helping efforts for racial equality, Freeman believes. When Wallace wonders whether racist attitudes may be harder to eradicate without the education that Black History Month provides, Freeman retorts: “How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it!”
Freeman believes the labels “black” and “white” are an obstacle to beating racism. “I am going to stop calling you a white man and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man,” he says. “I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn’t say, ‘Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ You know what I’m saying?”
-Is it an issue of being able to talk about race and gender, or is it an issue of needing to cease talking about it?
Thats awsome!
I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect to be able to discuss the roles, trends, etc that race or gender play in politics but I am not sure that there is a discussion about the race, gender of a candidate. The qualities sought in a presidential candidate have no dependency on race or gender, so what would that discussion be? The reaction to her statement was not out of hypersensitivity nor a resistance to discuss racial/gender issues. Her statement presented a causal relationship, Obama is where he is because he is black, making his race the defining attribute to his candidacy. When given the opportunity to further explain her statements, Ferraro explained that when she was asked why these two candidates were so close in the numbers, she couldn’t say it was because they both had equal experience or qualities, so she had to say it was because he was black. That is racist expression. Obama is where he is because he has moved people to vote for him, through his ideas and through his speeches. The attention paid to Obama was earned by winning primaries. Yes, he can deliver a great speech – like great leaders do. Would someone remind the Clinton gang that many of history’s greatest movements were mobilized around great speeches? I too hope we are in love with the concept of anyone becoming a viable candidate for political office.