For most of this decade, the conventional wisdom has had it that feminism in America is dead – or, at least, irrelevant. The New York Times talked to female students at Yale and found them to be mostly interested in becoming housewives. Sex and the City told us that even the ones who became career girls were more interested in men and Manolos than in their actual careers.
What? That’s what you got out of Sex and the City? FAIL. Please try again.
And more that makes me sigh with irritation:
While I’m a feminist and Steinem is one of my heroes, I didn’t share her enthusiasm for Clinton’s candidacy, partly because getting to the White House by having been married to a president seemed rather more an affirmation of traditional women’s roles than a shattering of the glass ceiling.
So, all the political work she’s done her entire life, and the work she’s done in the Senate mean nothing, compared to “been married to a president”? Jesus – FAIL again. WTF? Read something about Clinton before you say stupid shit, please.
I’m afraid to keep reading the whole thing. I did scroll down to the bottom to note that “Chrystia Freeland is managing editor of the FT’s US edition.”
Holy Maude. That’s really bad.
Abdul apparently didn’t have any adequate defense to stAllio’s post, so he shot back with this:
Steph,
Go get a drink and relax. You are way too uptight. I thought you would have mellowed out after getting married.
To which I pop my head up from gardening the front flower beds and pronounce a particularly insightful: “What? WTF is he on about?”
I guess he thinks Ben Berg and I are the same person? I kinda wish, actually. He’s a better writer than I am, and a cool local artist. I do have a lovely piece of his art in my home:
Shakespeare’s Sister has an ongoing multi-part “Obama Racism Watch” documenting incidents of racism in the media directed at Senator Obama (similar to their multi-part series “Hillary Clinton Sexism Watch” that is at 106 entries and shows no signs of stopping.)
I won’t go into every incident because they cover it much better than I, but I wanted to note some of the stuff that has happened just in the last few days, because it is just beyond my understanding, and I have to say something about it because it’s so – shocking.
Fox News’ “Terrorist Fist Jab”
Apparently, after introducing her husband to the crowd, Michelle and Barack did a “fist bump” as seen below. Now if you know anyone under 25, they’ve done this — it’s a thing that young people do – an alternative to high-fiving, or shaking hands, specifically done by people when they are awesome. I think I’ve probably done it, although I probably shouldn’t. It’s not a black or white thing, it’s just another way the youths of America are expressing themselves because they are cool.
I think the only people interpreting this as a “Terrorist Fist Jab” is Fox News. Now it’s not hugely surprising to me that people at Fox would not recognize how awesome people greet one another, because no one at Fox is actually awesome. But how did the word “terrorist” get inserted in there? Really, anything you don’t recognize done by people who aren’t the same color as you is now terrorism? How old are these old farts anyway? And when do we get to shuffle them off to the retirement home?
The “Obama as Curious George” T-Shirts
Kelly Newcom of Ash Flat, AR made these T-shirts of Barack Obama as Curious George. But he specifically claims that the are “not racist” ignoring the years and years of shameful history where people used monkeys as derogatory images depicting African Americans.
Racist Anti-Obama Shirt
The reason the image in the above shirts has a bag over his head is because just recently Marietta, Georgia bar owner Mike Norman got in major copyright infringement trouble for selling this shirt in his bar:
Racist Anti-Obama Shirt
What’s bothersome to me is the huge number of blog posts out there with the titles of “is this a racist image?” as though there’s really some possibility that it isn’t.
FoxNews declares Senator Obama’s wife is his “Baby Mama”
Fox News does it again with this caption they showed yesterday under a picture of Michelle Obama:
Racist Fox News Caption
For those of you who may not be familiar with the term “Baby Mama” it means a woman who is the mother of your children, but with whom you are not in a relationship. It is a term used somewhat in the African American community, but not widely, and it’s denounced by some African Americans.
But Michelle Obama is MARRIED to Barack and is his wife, not his “baby mama.” Fox using the term seem to be trying to imply that Senator Obama and his wife aren’t married to each other.
The Obama Sock Monkey
Apparently, someone actually thinks that this Obama Sock Monkey is a viable product for sale and not a unbelievably racist image. Feel free to contact them and tell them they’re douchebags. I can’t even imagine how someone could create this, let alone mass produce it.
Racist Anti-Obama Doll
Racism aimed at Senator Obama’s Young Daughters
Even Senator Obama’s young daughters are under attack. Michelle Obama Watch notes that an “artist’ named Yazmany Arboleda in New York produced an “Exhibition” titled “The Assassination of Barack Obama” that was investigated by the New York Police and the Secret Service.
Among the images in this exhibition are a giant picture of Senator Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, under the title “Nappy Headed Hos.”
Racist Insults to Children
I don’t even know how to conclude this post, really. I know that racism is, unfortunately, still alive and breathing in the United States, but it still feels like a kick in the stomach to see things like expressed like this so publicly. As if these people actually expect the people around them to nod their head in agreement instead of wanting to kick the crap out of them.
There’s a video clip circulated by notorious nutjob Michelle Malkin making the rounds; it’s of Democratic advisor Mickey Kantor, who is currently advising on the Clinton campaign.
The scene is an edited clip from the 1993 movie “The War Room” about the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign. The movie followed Kantor, Stephanapoulos and Carville as they worked to get Clinton elected. In the clip, Kantor is discussing a memo of poll numbers put out by the Republican party, where the numbers had been faked one explanation says faked, other say talking about Ross Perot’s poll numbers. In it, Kantor appears to be saying about the Republicans putting out fake data “These people are shit. How would you like to be {inaudible}?”
The circulating video clip from the movie has been edited to make it sound as though Kantor was talking about the people of Indiana, who’s poll numbers he mentions right before he makes the derogatory remarks. The filmmaker says the inaudible section was dubbed or manipulated to say “a worthless white n**ger?” In the original movie, this section is not clear, according to the Huffington Post.
It also leaves out the origin – suggesting that the video is recent and from the current Clinton campaign, not from 1992.
UPDATE: According to the filmmaker, the sound was edited from the original, and everyone in the room including the filmmaker agrees that he never used the N-word. Other people claim they hear it even on the original DVD. Until I hear the DVD for myself, I can’t tell. I doesn’t sound like this on other clips posted on YouTube.
The edited version appears on YouTube with comments and ratings turned off, and is being circulated around Indiana now. You can see it here:
I saw part of the movie back in 1993, but I didn’t remember this scene; just lots of video of Carville and Stephanapoulos with their heads together, so I recognized what I was seeing pretty quickly as being from the 1992 clinton campaign.
If Kantor had actually said this about Indiana, it wouldn’t just be coming out now. It’s getting dugg and heavily circulated, so I’m blogging about it in hopes that people watch the actual movie and see what it’s saying before leaping to conclusions about it.
Also — the fact that Malkin is pushing it obscures where it’s coming from, but I can’t see something this hacked up coming from Obama’s campaign. Smells like McCain to me.
NOTE: The reason I’m blaming Malkin for this one is because the story about it first “broken” on her blog and on the Drudge Report, with other discussion following pretty widely after that in the blogosphere. But she’s definitely one of the primary voices pushing this out there. That’s also the reason I think McCain is behind it rather than Obama.
Also, I got a couple of nasty right-wing comments on the post defending Malkin, which I deleted, per my comment policy. Comments are closed due to conservative dickishness.
Looking back through modern U.S. campaigns, there’s simply no media model for so many members of the press to try to drive a competitive candidate from the field while the primary season is still unfolding.
…And the fact is, the media’s get-out-now push is unparalleled. Strong second-place candidates such as Ronald Reagan (1976), Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, and Jerry Brown, all of whom campaigned through the entire primary season, and most of whom took their fights all the way to their party’s nominating conventions, were never tagged by the press and told to go home.
“Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history,” wrote Steven Stark in the Boston Phoenix. “When Clinton is simply doing what everyone else has always done, she’s constantly attacked as an obsessed and crazed egomaniac, bent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of her party.”
…No longer content to be observers of the campaign, journalists now see themselves as active players in the unfolding drama, and they show no hesitation trying to dictate the basics of the contest, like who should run and who should quit. It’s as if journalists are auditioning for the role of the old party bosses.
Shakespear’s Sister refers to this sexist phenomenon as the “take your boobs and go home” media push.
Leave it to an idiot Hoosier to embarrass the state of Indiana now that we’re in the national spotlight. I’m sure it’s the first of many bonehead moves Hoosiers will make when they see television cameras. From the Chicago Tribune:
INDIANAPOLIS – The college student who got a stinging brushback from Chelsea Clinton when he asked about the Monica Lewinsky scandal said Wednesday he’s a Clinton supporter who was trying to get her to show “what makes Hillary so strong.”
Evan Strange, a Butler University student who works on the school’s newspaper, The Butler Collegian, said he had asked Chelsea Clinton her opinion “on the criticism of her mother that how she handled the… scandal might be a sign of weakness and she might not be a strong enough candidate to be president.”
…
Strange’s question at Chelsea Clinton’s appearance Tuesday at the school brought a stinging rebuke from Clinton’s daughter. “Wow, you’re the first person actually that’s ever asked me that question in the, I don’t know maybe, 70 college campuses I’ve now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business,” Chelsea Clinton said during the campaign visit for her mother.
Evan, you’re a dumbass. And you’ve made us all look like dumbasses. Thanks, idiot. If you want to know what Evan looks like so you can, perhaps, throw a mudball at his head if you see him in the street, here’s a video of the moron trying to explain is his idiot question.
What the hell is this about? Do they actually think that WE think this is news? Do they think anyone seeing this wouldn’t recognize it for the sexist, misogynist smear job that it is? I was sorta halfway still on the fence between Obama and Clinton, given how close they are on issues, but I’m not anymore. I’m going to vote for Clinton because the media is fucked up. Not a rational reason I know, but I don’t give a shit.
The economy is in the toilet, it’s the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion and other countries are refusing to convert American money for travelers because the dollar is so weak. THIS is what ABC has to say? Unbelieveable.
Slate has an interesting series of articles posted by several liberals who supported the Iraq war in its early stages, entitled “Why Did We Get It Wrong?” I applaud their willingness to recognize that they were indeed wrong, but I wonder why they’re not asking the other question — why didn’t they listen to the people who had it right? There certainly were a lot of them who did have the right answers, but they were pretty much shit on and ignored by Slate and lots of other liberal hawks.
Reading each of the essays is an exercise in skepticism, because none of their arguments really ring all that true. They sound like excuse-making after the fact. Among the cheap rationalizations, Richard Cohen’s argument stands out in my mind as particularly pathetic:
Anthrax. Remember anthrax? It seems no one does anymore–at least it’s never mentioned. But right after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, letters laced with anthrax were received at the New York Post and Tom Brokaw’s office at NBC. In the following days, more anthrax-contaminated letters were received by other news organizations–CBS News and, presumably, ABC, where traces of anthrax were found in the newsroom. Weirdly, even the Sun, a supermarket tabloid, also got a letter, and a photo editor, Bob Stevens, was fatally infected. Other letters were sent to Sen. Tom Daschle’s Capitol Hill office, and in Washington, D.C., a postal worker, Thomas L. Morris Jr., died. There was ample reason to be afraid.
…
For this and other reasons, the anthrax letters appeared linked to the awful events of Sept. 11. It all seemed one and the same.
Anthrax is never mentioned because people on the right want it swept under the rug. I said it at the time and still believe it — the Anthrax letters were sent by a domestic, right-wing Christian terrorist. It’s the only explanation that makes sense, given the targets of the attacks — liberal politicians, the figures prominently labeled as “liberal” media. Notice no one from Fox News got a letter.
Another telling clue is that false Anthrax scares had been directed at abortion clinics country-wide, including here in Indianapolis, for months and years before the real ones took place in 2001 and 2002.
(In fact, that’s where I first met the late Julia Carson — at a candlelight vigil on the Circle to call attention to the threats here in Indianapolis, sometime in 1998 or 1999. No one had called her and asked her to speak; she just showed up because she heard about the vigil and wanted to light a candle and stand with a group of women. I had a long conversation with her about Planned Parenthood, women’s rights, gay marriage and a number of other topics. She was funny, articulate and very kind.)
But back to the point — Anyone with eyeballs could see that the two threats had nothing to do with one another. I can’t imagine why Cohen is making the excuse that they’re linked. He suggests Saddam had “messed with anthrax” but I never heard any evidence of that. It was clear from news accounts the source was from inside the United States; that it wasn’t smuggled into the country, there wasn’t any evidence that any foreign-born person could have gotten close to getting ahold of the substance; all the links to the strain used were domestic, and people with right-wing Christian beliefs. His excuse is just silly, and strains credulity.
Why do these guys never get fired for shit like this? Anyone else would. I guess if you want to be a sexist, homophobic asshole unchecked, get a job in the media.
“A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.” No shit.
Whedonesque discusses the “Republicans Buffy Villains” idea. The problem is they are also assigning villain identities to Democrats. Everyone knows the Democrats are Buffy heroes…
