[RSCT] FW: Charges of sexism, racism fly in presidential race]

Sun Oct 19 13:11:21 EDT 2008

  This was originally sent to staff at my NYC public gr 6-12 school. I'm 
sending it:for possible use; & 2) to hopefully get some better resources 
from you all! WHAT WE WANT IS ARTICLES SHOWING HOW RACE IS PLAYING 
ITSELF OUT IN ELECTIONS. We also would like to find anything showing how 
the "Latin@/Black question" is coming into play, esp since we are having 
Latin@ heritage month celebrations. Jim Wallace

  <BCC ALL STAFF>

At the last Undoing Racism comm. meeting we discussed trying to provide 
resources for staff to use with advisaries &/or regular classes. (Kudos 
to Joe for funding something related to SCIENCE. By the way, Palin keeps 
talking about how she's a maverick & took on Big Oil in Alaska--a 
typical Rep (& Dem) ploy; she's really ut-- of them, including trying to 
block protection for the Artic Wildlife preserve. Not to mention stand 
on creationism, stem cell, & a host of other issues that are in the Dark 
Ages!)

Anyway: Here's one small contribution that isn't the greatest, but maybe 
will inspire better options. By the way, if you haven't heard, Palin esp 
is going around saying "He's not one of us!" Again, the classic right 
wing jingoistic attemt to mobilize a conservative base by creating "the 
other." And if you saw the last debate, McCain tried to use the same 
type of sleezy "turn reality on its head" tactics mentioned below when 
he feigned such hurt by bringing up John Lewis affair.

At bootm is actual LINK. But I included text at top in case it doesn't 
goe through. Jim

  Charges of sexism, racism fly in presidential race

    By JULIE CARR SMYTH, Associated Press Writer

      By Beth Boehne

Story Created: Sep 24, 2008 at 5:46 PM EDT
Story Updated: Sep 24, 2008 at 5:46 PM EDT
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — With a black man and a woman on the presidential 
tickets of the two major parties this year, allegations of racism and 
sexism have been flying.

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Yet scholars who are expert in both areas say the terms are frequently 
being applied more loosely than they should be — and sometimes with 
enough contortions of logic to make voters' heads spin.
Take this example: Ohio Republicans demanded an apology last week from 
Democrats who talked publicly about how Democratic presidential nominee 
Barack Obama's race might be discouraging support among the state's voters.

Gov. Ted Strickland, a former Hillary Clinton supporter now campaigning 
for Obama, told the Chillicothe Gazette: "There are good people who 
won't vote for Obama because he's a black man. I don't want people to 
vote against their own interests because of an unwillingness to vote for 
a black man."

In earlier media interviews, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Cleveland called 
race the contest's "elephant in the room."

The state GOP's deputy chairman, Kevin DeWine, described the statements 
as shameful slander in which Democrats had "smeared Ohio voters as 
'racists.'" DeWine said Strickland, Brown and others who made such 
remarks should say they were sorry for "playing the race card" in such a 
manner.
Here's where the twist of logic comes in. The Democrats, according to 
the GOP, had somehow just played Obama's race to their advantage by 
admitting that it played to their disadvantage.

The concept of racism had successfully been interjected into a public 
debate where it had largely been absent, though no racism had been 
committed by Democrats, said University of Massachusetts philosophy 
professor and author Lawrence Blum, a specialist in race issues.
"If you accuse someone of being racist, it's not racism," he said. "It 
might be wrong. It might be ill-founded. It might be without any basis. 
But it's not racist."
Blum sees the motivation on both sides as political.

"I see it as a concerted strategy by the Republicans to help people feel 
comfortable with their racial discomfort, to subtly tell white people 
who are a little uncomfortable voting for a black person that that's 
OK," he said. "It sounds as if Strickland was trying to counteract that, 
and it was a risky calculation on his part, by saying, 'I know you're 
uncomfortable with this black guy, because I'm like you, I come from 
where you come from, but let me talk to you about this man."

Sexism hasn't proven itself nearly as risky a business.

Nearly every variety of question or statement about Republican vice 
presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been skewered as sexist somewhere 
on the Internet. That includes questions about her motherhood, her 
personality, and her looks, which might naturally earn the label, but 
also questions on her decision-making as governor of Alaska, her role in 
the firing from the state police of an ex-brother-in-law, and her 
knowledge of foreign affairs.

Both Cindy McCain, the wife of GOP presidential nominee John McCain, and 
first lady Laura Bush have told national news programs they believe 
Palin is the victim of sexism. (Cindy McCain, only moments after 
leveling the charge, laughed off the fact that conservative commentator 
Rush Limbaugh had called Palin a "babe.")

The twist of logic here, says Estelle Freedman, a professor of U.S. 
history at Stanford University, is that Palin's selection as the nominee 
could very well be viewed as sexist.

"Being selected as a nominee largely on the basis of your gender, rather 
than your qualifications for office, one should raise the question, is 
that sexist?" said Freedman. "You need to know would she have been 
selected were there not the pre-existing political context of Hillary 
Clinton and the mobilization of the women's vote."

Edward Morgan, a political science professor at LeHigh University, again 
sees sexism as a buzzword with a political purpose.

"I call it the politics of distraction. It's a way of framing the race 
to make the Republican candidates look like populists," he said. "At the 
convention, the emphasis was on Sarah Palin's family, her religion. 
That's what propelled her into the limelight. Then as soon as the media 
started digging into her background, it was deliberately attacked as 
sexist. I call it a brilliant but cynical strategy."
Sadly, all the political positioning has overshadowed frightening 
displays of true sexism and racism aimed at Palin and Obama, respectively.

Palin's image has been plastered on suggestive action figures, risque 
T-shirts and pornography on the Internet. A life-size cardboard effigy 
of Obama was found suspended from a tree branch at a small Christian 
university in Oregon on Wednesday.

"We live in a culture that has historically been deeply racist and 
sexist," Freedman said. "There have been huge changes since the civil 
rights and feminist movements, but there are residuals. It would be 
unrealistic to say that any of us has no racist or sexist impulses. I 
would hope the question of this campaign would be how do we address it?"

On the Net:
Obama: http://my.barackobama.com
McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com

Find this article at:
http://www.wsbt.com/news/election/2008/29714429.html

--- Original Message ----
From: jwall5 at igc.org
To: jwall5 at igc.org
Subject: Charges of sexism, racism fly in presidential race
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 8:27:15 AM EDT

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