Let me start by asking a question. Did anyone see Clinton’s, McCain’s, and Obama’s Tuesday night speeches in their entirety?
I watched Clinton and Obama both, but I missed McCain. One thing that struck me about Clinton and Obama is that I didn’t notice either one of them make note of the historic significance of having the first black nominee for President on a major party ticket. In contrast, both of them noted the groundbreaking campaign by Hillary Clinton, arguing that she was blazing a path for women, but I didn’t hear the same for Obama. Isn’t that an interesting distinction between racial politics and gender politics? The colorblind ideology silences almost any public discussion of racism by black candidates, who are vying for white votes. In contrast, we don’t have as much silence on the gender front (from the candidates). That has been a fairly consistent pattern in this Presidential election over the past few months. I’m not saying racism or sexism is a greater barrier to being elected President, but I think it is clear that they operate in different ways.
Furthermore, any complicated analysis that examines the interactions and intersections of race, gender, age, sexuality, and class are almost always missing from pundits and candidates analysis. I remember the point in the election when Hillary Clinton talked about getting pushed around by the boys (apparently it was on the Ellen DeGeneres show). While I can relate to being pushed around by the boys and having that make me stronger, I don’t believe for one minute that Hillary was being pushed around by any black boys. I know I sure wasn’t. I was getting pushed around by the whites boys who I went to school with. They were all white, presumably heterosexual1, and from class backgrounds remarkably similar to my own. I never heard any TV pundits point this out–Clinton wasn’t being pushed around by black boys.
All that said, why do you think there is a difference in a candidate’s ability to talk about his or her groundbreaking accomplishments in relation to race and gender? Do you think the political realm is exceptional in this way? Or do you things may be different in other fields? Why do you think it is so difficult to have a discussion that captures the intersections and complexities of various forms of social inequality?
- Some of them may not have been heterosexual, but I definitely could say that the boys that had the most normative gender presentations and were able to create a perceived heterosexual identity were the most likely to be the ones I argued with. [↩]
In contrast, both of them noted the groundbreaking campaign by Hillary Clinton, arguing that she was blazing a path for women, but I didn’t hear the same for Obama. Isn’t that an interesting distinction between racial politics and gender politics?
There is an interesting distinction between racial and gender politics, but this doesn’t have anything to do with that. The loser is the one who gets the encomiums, at least when the loser finally gets around to admitting they lost. If Obama had lost, then both he and Clinton would have given speeches saying how historic it was for a black man, etc. That’s just part of the power-sharing system that all the parties have evolved to make it possible for all these titanic egos to get along and share mindspace.
Why do you think it is so difficult to have a discussion that captures the intersections and complexities of various forms of social inequality?
Because it doesn’t sell Wheaties.
“why do you think there is a difference in a candidate’s ability to talk about his or her groundbreaking accomplishments in relation to race and gender?”
Three words: political strategy advisers. Each candidate has their own team, and each team designs its own specific agenda with which to market their candidate. Clinton’s team decided to market her gender, Obama’s team decided to market change. Clinton’s strategy was to focus on a specific issue and thus made for an easy target. Obama’s strategy was to evangelize a concept and that allowed him to tapdance around many issues without staking him to a position.
Obama probably could talk quite eloquently about his accomplishments as a black man, and it would surely get media exposure as would anything else he says. However, his advisers have to ask, “Would that win him votes, or should we feed the media something else?”
This also helps support their public image as potential leaders. Clinton is an individualist who enjoys improvising before the cameras, while Obama performs a well-orchestrated stage play that was scripted and vetted well in advance. Hillary’s message was “I make the tough decisions and I act, even if I’m wrong.”
Obama’s: “Let me get back to you on that.”
In either case, scratch away the surface details and underneath, a politician lies.
We probably won’t know what Obama thinks about/what it’s like being a black politician until he’s an elder statesman, if he chooses to be forthcoming at all. How could it be otherwise? It is just too vulnerable a perspective to speak from.
I didn’t get enough information from the post that quoted Senator Clinton’s experience of being pushed around by the boys to say whether speaking about her perspective as a girl/woman in a boy’s/man’s world is equivalently vulnerable. My gut feeling is that it’s not as vulnerable a position, at least for her (as opposed to women in general) but I don’t really know.
That’s a distinction between racism and sexism I have been pushing since the issue was brought up during this race. It’s easier to talk negatively about gender, but it’s easier to talk about gender, period. Clinton explicitly promoted herself as a women’s candidate as the race wound down. She probably didn’t do so earlier because that is still a risky political venture, but I also believe had the positions been reversed Obama would never have promoted himself as a Black American’s candidate. In different circumstances, one is better than the other. In a pundit echo chamber on cable, for instance, it probably helps to be Obama, because pundits are free to talk negatively about gender issues. (They’re also free to talk positively about them, but pundits generally never talk positively to begin with.) And so forth.
Well, I was getting ready to say my ‘piece’, when it appears Robert pretty much has said it. So, I’ll endorse Robert’s remarks; they are my mine as well.
Oh yes, and I liked the other comments too – everyone is astute; love your blog – I’m a new reader, but will be a regular one! Diane
I thought about this when I saw Clinton supporters complain that the sexism against her was on public display – blantently and in the mainstream – in a way that the racism against Obama was not. This was true, but it occured to me that Clinton and her supporters were playing up her gender as a plus in a way that the Obama camp was not doing with his race. As a hypothetical, I could imagine Clinton saying something like, “Let’s show the boys that a woman can lead them!”, and having the remark meet mostly positive reaction, with even open misogynists reacting mainly with rolling eyes and snickering, while if Obama said something like, “Let’s show whites that a black person can lead them!”, it would probably freak the hell out of white America and his candidacy would be doomed.
Like you, I do not think this means either sexism or racism is worse, they just operate differently. Maybe the reaction would be worse to Obama because whites have more fear and hatred of blacks than men have of women, or maybe it’s because men do not take women seriously enough to feel as threatened by them. Whatever it is, it does seem that both sexism and statements of women’s power are more open and accepted in American society right now than racism and statements of minority power.
All that said, I do also agree with Robert that most (though probably not all) the difference in this specific instance was due to the political kabuki theater of praising the loser. Both Clinton and Obama verbally cannonized Edwards the moment he dropped out.
Why do you think it is so difficult to have a discussion that captures the intersections and complexities of various forms of social inequality?
This reminds me, for a few weeks while Clinton’s candidacy slowly whithered, I wasn’t on the internet and only got news and discussions from cable. I kept seeing discussions about how “women” were upset about what was happening to Clinton, and wondering if they would ever be able to embrace Obama. I also kept seeing that Obama was getting 80% to 90% of the black vote. I kept waiting for someone in the media to ask a pissed off Clinton supporter who said she couldn’t back Obama why she thought that the vast majority of women who regularly experience both sexism and (anti-black) racism were willing to support Obama despite the sexism faced by Clinton, but I never saw it. Nor did I see a news outlet actually go out and ask this question of black women. Nor did I even see any acknowledgment that half the black population is female.
Back on the internet, I see the debate raging in full. But why does the mainstream seem to fear bringing up this obvious (to me) intersection of race and gender?
I had something semi-intelligent to say until I read this:
Why do you think it is so difficult to have a discussion that captures the intersections and complexities of various forms of social inequality?
Because it doesn’t sell Wheaties.
– Robert
…
Both hilarious and so very true.
The difference between Clinton’s and Obama’s speeches can be explained by three points of distinction, mostly noted above.
1. Victory: Clinton lost; Obama won. Thus, Clinton is free from (many) electoral concerns when she gives her speech, and may speak purely to reward her followers, or shape her legacy, or simply say Fuck You to her enemies. Obama, in contrast, must continue to speak in a manner designed to attract votes.
2. Math: Women represent 50+% of the electorate; blacks represent less than 10%. Thus, while no national candidate may really want to be too closely tied to a single demographic group, Clinton risks much less by trumpeting her female identity than Obama would by trumpeting his black identity.
3. Age: Clinton may conclude that this campaign represents her last, best chance for the White House, and thus may have decided long ago that there were no bridges she would not burn if it might be useful to her. Specifically, if she concluded that she could not win by seeking to win a majority of every demographic group’s vote, Clinton was willing to pursue a Bush-type strategy of firing up some groups’ support (women, health care advocates) even at the expense of alienating other groups. In contrast, Obama has known from the beginning that he does not need to win this specific race in order to have a chance at the White House; Obama can afford to wait, provided he doesn’t sully himself too badly during this race. Thus Obama has more to lose by tying himself to groups or causes than Clinton does. Carter was able to win without tying himself to any group or cause, simply by not being Richard Nixon. Similarly, Obama may well be able to win this election simply because he is not George W. Bush.
More significant to me than Tuesday’s speech was Saturday’s speech. There especially, Hillary spoke out forcefully about her support of women and ethic minorities and GAYS. To many Hillary boosters, it sounded like music. To me, it sounded like a New York politician who had abandoned hope of ever being on a national ticket.
I think they haven’t brought up the historical aspects of the first black man to make it this far is because he’s not done yet. I think Hillary played her campaign perfectly because she tried very hard to be gender and racially neutral. She didn’t bring up the fact that she was a woman at all during the primaries, and when asked how it feels to be a woman running for president she would say something along the lines of, “I’m running for president because I happen to think I would make a good president, I just happen to be a woman”. She tried to downplay her femininity even when the media as spurning her for being a female. I think Obama needs to play the same game and not run a campaign based on the fact that he’s black but tha he’s running and happens to be black.