Race and Culture

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.

And yesterday, I cried my last tears, after I watch the venomous, vile, and vitriolic display at the McCain-Palin rally unfold over the last few days.  I was raised in a Southern Baptist church, and I was taught as a young child when things look bleak and you are backed up against a wall you just let go and let God.

The angry - even vicious - letters in the online and paper versions of The R&B, the awful editorial cartoon branding Dr. Carroll a racist and the shredding of her professional reputation was appalling.

I left the articles without having any idea of what Dr. Carrol had done to lead to and result in a finding of harassment. I also have no idea what the connection is between her salary inequity claim and the finding of harassment. That should not be.

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.

Poet-performer Jessica Care Moore’s “Love is Not the Enemy: Manifesto for 28″, Moore conveys a tough-minded resilience and a mature return to self in the face of disappointment. She isn’t sure what’s ahead of her, but there’s no doubt about how she’ll face it

The obvious, egocentric explanation for why we do this is that it makes us feel better about ourselves. But there are at least two other more innocent explanations, which are based on subtle flaws in our thinking.The first possibility is that we find it easier to consider the favourable evidence for a single person than we do for a whole group. Consistent with this is the finding that people tend to be biased when comparing any single individual, not just themselves, against a group of others.

. In other words, it is the difficulty we have thinking about the favourable evidence for groups, as opposed to individuals, that seems to be the crucial factor underlying the "above average effect".

America in flames? Sound familiar? The closing lines of Grine Kuzine are really no different from Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright’s “God Damn America” paraphrase of Irving Berlin’s maudlin patriotic tune God Bless America. As a singer of Grine Kuzine, and as a not-too-distant descendant of her fellow immigrant workers, I do not understand the recent hysteria over the U-Tube posting of an out-of-context video excerpt of one of Wright’s old sermons. Jews and Blacks and even the whitest-of-white Americans have the right — and maybe the obligation — to be enraged at polities and policies that misuse or deceive them or that fail to live up to their potential or rhetoric. The hyperbole of songs and of sermons generates reflection and vents steam and diffuses rage even as it broadcasts it.

Far more interesting and insidious than the slips-of-the-lips of members of Obama’s confessional circles is Hillary Clinton’s decades-long involvement in an oligarchical right-wing prayer breakfast group called The Fellowship, Sound like the stuff of crank conspiracy theories? Writer Jeff Sharlet of The Revealer, a New York University weblog covering religion and the media, has just completed a book on the subject. Will apologies and statements of distancing and denunciation of The Fellowship be forthcoming from the Clinton campaign? I doubt it.

What do you think of Obama? I’m riding my man Obama. I think he’s a visionary. Actually, Barack told me the first date he took Michelle to was Do the Right Thing. I said, “Thank God I made it. Otherwise you would have taken her to Soul Man. Michelle would have been like, ‘What’s wrong with this brother?’ ” Does this mean you’re down on the Clintons? The Clintons, man, they would lie on a stack of Bibles. Snipers? That’s not misspeaking; that’s some pure bulls***. I voted for Clinton twice, but that’s over with. These old black politicians say, “Ooh, Massuh Clinton was good to us, massuh hired a lot of us, massuh was good!” Hoo! Charlie Rangel, David Dinkins—they have to understand this is a new day. People ain’t feelin’ that stuff. It’s like a tide, and the people who get in the way are just gonna get swept out into the ocean.

Today, about 25 percent of African Americans are mired in poverty. In many ways, being black and poor is a more desperate and hopeless condition now than it was 40 years ago. For those who managed to enter the middle class, however, most of the old generalizations no longer apply.

On April 4, 1968, it was possible to make the generalization that being black in this country meant being poor; fully 40 percent of black Americans lived below the poverty line, according to census data, with another 20 percent barely keeping their heads above water.

But the gap in wealth, or net worth, is huge, even when you control for education, age, family size and whatever else you want to throw in. Still, African Americans control an estimated $800 billion in purchasing power. If that were translated into gross domestic product, a sovereign "Black America" would be the 15th- or 16th-richest nation on earth.

And you know what? It wasn't just about skin color. It was always first and foremost about accepting an identity of racial supremacy. Even the Irish in America were "black" before they were "white." Don't believe it? Look it up.

Wow, no wonder white folks are bitter. Having to carry around all that self-deception willful ignorance all those years. And for what? A lousy seat at the front of the bus and a place at the front of the job queue that are no longer even guaranteed by law!

Once upon a time -- not so very long ago -- there was no such thing as whiteness or the white race, just as there was no such thing as blackness or the black race. Those unscientific distinctions and associated invidious stereotypes had to be invented. It so happens that they were invented by folks who invented their own identity of whiteness to establish their moral superiority to people being held in slavery.

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.