Jesse Jackson used to have a stock story tying diversity to his mother’s patchwork quilt, which featured all the colors of the rainbow. After Jackson used the line at the 1984 convention, comedian Mark Russell riffed on that, saying that at their own convention, the Republicans could unveil their own quilt, which also featured all the colors of the rainbow — like white! Off white! Bone! Ivory! French vanilla! Cream!
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose:
(Via.)
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Last week, Stephen Colbert mentioned that the Democrat’s convention had gone green: “But don’t worry, the Republican convention will still be all white.”
Notice something else about that crowd that is a bit different from the Democratic convention? Apparently, for the first time this year, a little more than half of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention were women. But the Republicans are actually putting a woman on their ticket, so I guess that balances out.
Well, I think if you squint, there’s a woman or two in the back row. Clearly, that’s because the GOP is the pro-woman party.
Anyone else notice how old they all are?
Ha! Too funny. As Jeff Fecke points out, the woman are AT THE BACK. Ah, so it’s the party of white old men (cowboy hats optional) with a few honorary women positioned well away from front and center. Unless of course, there is a woman who can ‘motivate the base’ with anti-choice keep your kids in the complete dark about sexuality platform.
Yes Myca, I noticed the senility on display as well, especially in the speakers. Moldy senescence wafted through my screen so thickly, even in what Little Caribou Barbie was saying, that I had to open a window.
Regarding the grand old party’s literally appalling whiteness, how sickly ironic that the speakers kept citing Lincoln as a forebearer!
At least the Washington Post came through with its quadrennial head-scratching on the topic:
“In a More Diverse America, A Mostly White Convention”
Okay, in fairness to the diversity of the Republicans, we have to remember that probably a third to a half of those guys are gay. But please be polite and not mention it in public.
Yeah, left wing groups are never conspicuously monocultural. I mean, just look at this picture from a London anti-climate-change demo.
Oh, wait –
Well, we were comparing the Democratic Party in general to the Republican party in general. But yes, the whiteness of the environmental movement is a problem. Although, I would also suspect a bit of suburban self-interest in a group of people protesting the expansion of an airport, justified with prtty left-wing climate-change talk. Could be wrong.
“Little Caribou Barbie?”
It’s not that I can’t appreciate the wit of the wordplay, but that appreciation only made a brief appearance before it was overwhelmed by pure fury.
Dude. I don’t like her politics any more than you do. But I like the blatant misogyny here even less, so how about you shut the fuck up with the sexism, ‘kay?
What Elkins said.
My apologies for the offense. I see the derisive label “Caribou Barbie” as a comment on why she was (cynically) chosen and how she’s being (cynically) packaged and presented, not a common on HER as whatever kind of woman she really is. Saying that critiques of Palin that address the political use and packaging of her particular femininity are automatically sexist seems to me a way of falling into a trap, one that was set by the very selection of this particular and otherwise clearly unqualified woman. But, I’m not a woman, and I can appreciate that others would hear the label differently, so I respectfully withdraw the label.
Thene, there are definitely a lot more women in the climate change demo pic than the RNC pic, and I spot a white-haired black guy right at the front of the image, and there is a wide range of ages, and several long-haired men. (And my little brother is right in the centre of the pic, which has nothing to do with anything, but squee, baby brother!)
I’m not saying there’s no racism in left-wing circles, but that’s not a picture that demonstrates your point very well. For one thing, attending a demo is a lot more risky than attending the RNC; given the way the police treated my two parchment-white, middle class brothers, I don’t think that demo would have been a safe place for anyone who had any skin pigmentation that might have led ignorant police to suspect they might be “Arab”. Also, Britain is not the US, and climate change protesters are not a major political party, so I don’t think you can blame the Democrats for the (alleged) lack of racial diversity in the British militant left.
Thank you, Macon.
I understand your political point, and I certainly agree that how Palin’s candidacy is being marketed mustn’t be considered immune from criticism. However, I think (hope?) that there must be ways of approaching that issue that don’t transmit such a strong and immediate sense (whether intended or not) of gender-based dismissal and contempt. Your withdrawal of the label is appreciated.
Being only a few months from AARP eligibility myself, could I also make a plea for holding down the ageism? The equation of, er, maturity with senility especially rankles.
Thanks Elkins. I’ve been thinking about it, and it seems such phrases might be permissible if they’re basically put in the mouths of “those others who say and do such things.” As in, “a candidate who’s being packaged and presented to us as a sort of Caribou Barbie,” and so on. Does that work?
I was reminded of this discussion this morning when I saw this toon. I like it, but it seems sexist in the same way as the label I used for Palin . . .
Individ-ewe-al – I once did a headcount at a CCC gathering of 600-odd people – there were less than ten non-whites. The CCC does indeed have a pretty even gender split in terms of attendees but when you actually get to open-floor, those women very rarely speak or even ask to; meanwhile, a large proportion of the event organising work is done by women, and women are never panel speakers unless they’re talking about events they’ve organised.
My conclusion is that environmentalism is a white-boys club just like all the other white-boys clubs, and that if they think about discrimination at all they view it as entirely incidental to their movement rather than, you know, a clearly visible part of it.
Thene,
For another data point, the last CCC crew I worked with was mostly (80%+) Latino. A Latina was in charge.