So disappointed in Ferraro
I’m so disappointed in Geraldine Ferraro. I was excited to campaign for her, when she was the VP candidate. I was really impressed by her public speeches at the time (and distressed by the mud slung at her). But her recent comments are very obvious signs of white privilege, and display her clear ignorance of the systemic nature of racism in this country.
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2 Comments
Dagmar commented on 13 March 2008:why do so many feel that geraldine comments were racisit or a sign of white priviledge just because she names the obvious?
black men&women do feel the need and desire to vote black first and have suffered their way through to the kind of solidaritry women can only dream of.
" yes we can" do together all trhe things we could not do alone. one fine day women too will arrive to the place where our internalized oppression will not keep us divided and " yes we will" elect a woman to the ultimate daddy jo, the us. presidency.
until that day lets be fair : just because white men&women also appreciate and support Obama does not deny the reality that without an almost total commitment from the black community he could not hope to win the nomination and that that almost blind trust could not ever be given by any black person to any white person, male or female. easter blessings / rev. dagmar braun celeste
Dagmar, Geraldine Ferraro was saying racist things. I can't believe she doesn't understand that! Is resorting to any and all tactics really what campaigns are about? Because if it is, then I don't want Obama to win, because I want him to be able to help all of us believe that more is possible. I DO think that if the roles were reversed Obama would be running differently -- because the roles WERE reversed for the whole first part of the campaign, when Clinton had all of the money and most of the superdelegates, and almost all of the party machinery. And at that point Obama made different choices, and so far has continued to do so. My biggest fear is that he'll get drawn into this slimy stuff.
Note: HE has not called Ferraro's words racist, I HAVE. And as a white woman who loved watching her run for VP, it's my responsibility to do so. And my shame to carry the recognition that I, too, carry those privileges.
If you don't believe that she is racist, then you haven't read any of my work on issues of dismantling racism (there's a chapter in the book of mine that I gave you, and another one in the book that is coming out)
But to the point, SO AM I. In other words, there's no way NOT to benefit from systemic white privilege in the US if you look white. Silence is complicity, the process is the goal, and as a white person if I don't work constantly and consistently to dismantle racism, I condone and perpetuate it. In this case, Ferraro not only was NOT silent, she was actively using systemic white privilege to disadvantage Obama.