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Levy Rivers

Marcia G. Yerman: Race, Gender and the Media in the 2008 Elections - 0 views

  • Several themes coalesced over the two-day period. A prominent one was the oft repeated, "Did race trump gender?" Dr. Cynthia Neal-Spence, Associate Professor of Sociology at Spelman College, spoke about the dilemma of the black female. Asking, "Are we as a group more gender conscious or race conscious?" she then suggested "the media coverage had helped black women to choose sides." Despite Obama offering a post-racial approach, she sensed the same "tensions resurfacing that were in place during the suffragette movement." She also saw the media's analyzation as being "racialized."
  • However, Vojdik said, "Those in the media insisted on gendering her candidacy, taking her from the public sphere to the private construction of her identity as a wife and a mother." This was often accomplished through the use of specific language. She gave as examples the terms, "shrill, emasculating, castrating," with oft used analogies of Hillary as "the hectoring mother," or "the wife as ball-buster." Hillary was not male, but she "had failed as a female." On the other hand, Vojdik saw Sarah Palin as seeking to be elected because she was a woman in the "good wife and mother" mode. Projecting herself as stereotypically feminine, albeit a "pit bull with lipstick," she "appeals to the 80's concept of the superwoman." "But," Vojdik asked, "where are the supports for ordinary women?"
  • Although feminine for Sarah Palin is an asset, "feminine" attributes in general are considered a negative. "The process of gender," as phrased by Vojdik, is a methodology employed by the Republicans where they "feminize" a male candidate -- to his detriment.
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  • Frank Rudy Cooper, Associate Professor of Law at Suffolk University, spelled out that "Obama had to deal with the media representation of black masculinity." He posited that Obama had to be "a unisex president." Despite trying to run a "post-racial campaign, Obama had to be careful avoid "the angry black male" stereotype by not being too aggressive. Cooper explained that in pitting McCain against Obama, the masculine vs. feminine style is emphasized. Obama's empathetic style has been criticized, and as "feminization is a slur," he is forced into a precarious balancing act.
  • That concept was illuminated by Anthony E. Varona, Associate Professor of Law at American University. He pointed out why the 2004 Karl Rove election strategy based on the "unease felt by religious and social conservatives" wasn't going to work in 2008. Plainly put, "Things have changed. New media and the blogosphere have made it impossible."
Levy Rivers

Op-Ed Columnist - Rebranding the U.S. With Obama - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • We’re beginning to get a sense of how Barack Obama’s political success could change global perceptions of the United States, redefining the American “brand” to be less about Guantánamo and more about equality. This change in perceptions would help rebuild American political capital in the way that the Marshall Plan did in the 1950s or that John Kennedy’s presidency did in the early 1960s.
  • In his endorsement, Mr. Powell added that an Obama election “will also not only electrify our country, I think it’ll electrify the world.”
  • Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, which conducted the BBC poll, said that at a recent international conference he attended in Malaysia, many Muslims voiced astonishment at Mr. Obama’s rise because it was so much at odds with their assumptions about the United States
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  • “It’s an anomaly, so contrary to their expectation that it makes them receptive to a new paradigm for the U.S.,” Mr. Kull said.
  • But Jamaica’s 95 percent black population elected a white man as its prime minister in 1980, and kept him in office throughout that decade.
  • Likewise, the African nation of Mauritius has elected a white prime minister of French origin. And don’t forget that India is overwhelmingly Hindu but now has a Sikh prime minister and a white Christian as president of its ruling party, and until last year it had a Muslim in the largely ceremonial position of president.
Levy Rivers

Quiet Political Shifts as More Blacks Are Elected - 0 views

  • In 2007, about 30 percent of the nation’s 622 black state legislators represented predominantly white districts, up from about 16 percent in 2001, according to data collected by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a research group based in Washington that has kept statistics on black elected officials for nearly 40 years.
  • “There’s a fair amount of experience out there among white voters now, and that has lessened the fears about black candidates,” said Dr. Hajnal, whose book about white experiences with black mayors, “Changing White Attitudes Toward Black Political Leadership,” was published last year by Cambridge University Press.
Levy Rivers

In poll, African-Americans say election a 'dream come true' - CNN.com - 0 views

  • "Polls show that whites and blacks tend to have different views on the amount of racism in the U.S." said CNN polling director Keating Holland. "So it's not surprising that they would have different views on the likelihood of an African-American president."
  • "A majority of blacks now believe that a solution to the country's racial problems will eventually be found," Holland said. "In every previous poll on this topic dating back to 1993, black respondents had always said that racial problems were a permanent part of the American landscape."
Levy Rivers

Racial Gerrymandering Is Unnecessary - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • Not so. Mr. Obama's 43% share of the white vote in the general election was actually a tad larger than that of John Kerry in 2004 (41%) or Al Gore in 2000 (42%).
  • Consider Iowa, with only a miniscule African-American population. The 5% of voters who said race was the most important factor in their choice of whom to vote for backed Mr. Obama 54% to 45%. Or consider Minnesota and Wisconsin, also overwhelmingly white, where Mr. Obama's lead was 18% and 21% respectively among the 5% to 7% of voters who made race their highest priority.
  • The aggressive federal interference in state and local districting decisions enshrined in the Voting Rights Act should therefore be reconsidered. That statute, adopted in 1965 and strengthened by Congress in the summer of 2006, demands race-driven districting maps to protect black candidates from white competition. That translates into an effort to create black representation proportional to the black population in the jurisdiction
Levy Rivers

Tavis Smiley Obama's electio as seen by Rev. Gardner Taylor - 0 views

  • Taylor: Well, I think it says that the country feels a great relief about getting rid of some of its past. I have the feeling that across the nation, people, Black and White, feel a sense of relief, of anticipation, of hope about the future and about the future of the nation. I'm rather inclined to feel that if this had not happened -- and I don't know, nobody knows what will happen -- but if this had not happened, the nation was on -- is on so precipitous a downward plunge economically, ideologically, religiously -- any way you want to put it -- that how the nation would fare in the years ahead is hard to determine and it's hard for one to feel great confidence about what it would be like. And we don't know what President Obama's going to do and what he's going to be, but he has infused into the nation a new sense of hope and promise and fulfillment.
  • Taylor: Yes. Well, I have a theory -- it's maybe not a sound one -- that every 35, 40, 45 years, the nation passes through a kind of traumatic change
  • And I think -- and each era seems to spend itself and to start off in a kind of enthusiasm and euphoria and confidence and then is worn down by events and by experience until it becomes cynical and doubtful
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  • ohn Winthrop's sermon as the Arabella came toward American shores with the people who were coming to settle here. And he said a thing in the quaint language of that day. He said, "If we can abridge ourselves of our superfluities and see about the necessities of others, we shall be --" some things between that -- "as a city set on a hill."
  • There was a -- when Mr. Obama was standing for Senate seat, there was a marital -- how should I put it? -- a marital indiscretion by his opposition which ended that candidacy, and Mr. Obama came into the Senate. I'm not sure he would have been elected to the Senate, because the other person was a Harvard graduate, had a different color from Mr. Obama's, and was a person of wealth. But then that propelled him there. And now we come to a situation where a particular confluence of developments has taken place. We've had these eight years of sad direction and of disillusionment; a war. We've had the financial collapse now of our economy. There was a candidacy of a person 70-odd years old with a person joined to him of dubious capability to handle the affairs of a nation. All of these things came together.
  • I believe it's divine intervention. I don't think any script writer could have produced this kind of scenario. It is almost beyond belief that all of these things would have come together at this particular juncture in history. Now, you mentioned hermeneutics -- there is a word, "chyros," in the New Testament. It means the fullness of time, that things come together to produce certain events.
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    Is this another verison of history operates in swings or movements in search of thesmes or clock like movements
Levy Rivers

Business Reputation: Creativity and Happiness: Reputation: Building on Trust - 0 views

  • One of the major outcomes of the attacks of 9/11 is the clear contest between forces that believe that the world civilization so based on trust can endure the counter views of the terrorist. The question for me is to what degree do our USA national reputation and organizing principles engender trust and freedom.
  • Barack (Lets reason together) is clearly for recapturing our lost status and McCain wants to extend the tough guy image of the Bush doctrine (Fear US - USA reserves the right to attack first).
  • This is especially understood - but not excused - in those of my generation and older, both from a black and white perspective.  For blacks its owed to us based on time in the country - as if a quota could make such a tactic make sense or even worse is he black enough to get back what racism over these many years has taken from us. On the other end are whites that figure that any black person smart enough to become President must be smart enough to take back from them all the advantages that they have accumulated.
Levy Rivers

iZania.com - Obama's Speech on Race: Not Just Empty Words, or Another "Eloquent Speech" - 0 views

  • it had discovered the bone in Obama’s closet that would derail his run for the Presidency, Barack kicked down the door of the closet that holds America’s worse skeletons, its race closet.
  • So the race closet, stacked to the top with 400 years of skeletons-from the Middle Passage through today’s colorblind racism, is closely guarded by those who know and understand this vile and twisted history. However, this time America started it by trying to radicalize Obama and racialize Obama’s Minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Barack finished it by stating that if you really want to have a conversation about somebody’s racial views - then let’s talk about America’s racial views, in its totality. It was substantive, and it was eloquent.
  • Let Hillary Clinton call this speech “just empty words” or another “eloquent speech.” And let those who claim Barack ain’t “black enough” hang their hat on this speech while those who try to diss his “too black” pastor realize that Barack is “too black” to allow himself to be separated from his church and his community. It was a historic moment. We can truly say that after this week, “a black man” is running for President. And by most accounts, he’s still the best candidate in the race.
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  • They’re back to doubting that a black man can represent a white nation (don’t get it twisted-America is still 69% white). America was poised to default on Obama. The default position is, of course, that only a white can represent all the people. Well, name me one President in the history of America who has represented “all the people?”
  • Only two, Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson, sought to eliminate the legalized race caste systems (of slavery and segregation), though both tolerated and participated in societal norms that affirmed racial inequality and separateness (while they were President).
  • The thought here is, “White people know he’s black, no need to throw it up in their face” and never blame anything on race - even the obvious racial attacks or the codified ones. As authentic a person as Barack is, it’s his authenticity that has most come under attack from Whites and Blacks. From Whites - in no Black could possibly be this perfect (so hopeful yet non-critical); from Blacks, that no Black could really be “black” and not talk about race. Well, Obama showed how authentic he really is last week, in not running from race and not running from his own. The media could neither “blackball” nor “whitewash” Barack Obama after last week’s speech (and trust me, they were trying to do both). Barack pulled it off.
  • For a country that always has something to say, most of it (except for the ideologues and the racial extremists) stood speechless and/or complimentary on the nation’s first publicly televised race speech by a Presidential candidate. There was nothing empty about the speech.
  • We just needed someone “black enough” (and honest enough) to talk about it. In trying to castigate one man, the door to America’s race closet was opened by another. The man who would be President, if he would have just remained “post-racial.” Now, he’s black and America’s new race conscience. If America is willing to face up to its past and grow up in the race reality of its future (multi-racial nation), Barack Obama still might be elected President of the United States.
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    This is what billy wants to have defened that I simply refuse - Barack is American and ANY ONE OF US!!!
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