ENOUGH ALREADY

(Image by Sol Steinberg)

Here's the short version: Judgment errors on the part of Democratic candidates, which are inevitable and frequent no matter how much you worship your boy/girl, do not give other Democrats permission to attack their character and smear entire groups of people in retaliation.

Geraldine Ferraro's remarks are racist. From the trail that's being unearthed, she has a history of making such comments and believing in them. More on that below. If she's a member of a campaign effort, then when her comment becomes public, she needs to be asked to apologize and step down from her association, and the head of that campaign needs to state in unequivocal terms what was wrong about the statements and that their campaign will not tolerate such belief. This is the decent thing to do.


Do campaigns follow this ethic? Never if they are Republicans. Not nearly enough if they are Democrats. Hillary Clinton's failure to step up is a major blow to her credibility, and it's good that this is being discussed. What's more crucial is an examination of the flawed thinking behind the comment, and I appreciate bloggers who are taking the time to do this. I really don't appreciate those with CDS who are jumping on it as chance to call her everything but the Jane Fonda word -- in the guise of "analysis".

Those political bloggers stupid enough to have revealed their biases this early on in a Presidential race have lost my interest and patience. You really did not have to come out for a candidate in order to do your job. Daily Kos has become a joke of let's-find-out-something-else-wrong-with-Hillary posting. With that level of favoritism, I don't believe they'll report as honestly and accurately when Barack fucks up bigtime, as he most assuredly will -- he's not that good, folks. He's earned our respect and definitely our vote, but he's not a shining path to manna and honey.

And, referring to the ethic above: He said nothing about Samantha Powers labelling Hillary a monster, and has not distanced his campaign from those remarks, either. Where's your outcry about that?

One good thing about the tensions of this unique Presidential season is that it affords the opportunity, for those intelligent enough to make use of it, to discuss in detail how racism and sexism function in our culture, distinctly from one another, not in comparison but as two different facets of oppression which serve to keep woman-hating and white supremacy the American norm. Those who follow only one line of the discussion are contributing to the game which keeps us all at one another's throats. I won't read you any more until you clean your shit up.

Now, some racism 101: Let's start with what she actually said on the John Gibson show on February 26:

"Ferraro: When I see John Lewis ... a civil rights leader, why in God's name did he change his vote from Hillary to Barack Obama. I'll tell you why, because he faces -- he's not going to lose a Democratic primary in his district in two years, but he sure as hell will face one if he sticks it to Barack Obama when he has a greater majority of blacks in his district ... I'm so disappointed in him I could die.

"I look at Rosa DeLauro up in Connecticut. She represents New Haven. Tell me -- I don't care what she says -- tell me why she's endorsing Barack Obama ... and then came to his defense on an issue like choice where he voted six times maybe, when he voted present -- I'm like a lunatic about this stuff ...

"If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this as a potential real problem for Hillary? If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position?"

What I read from this are several messages:
(1) Black people stick together behind black candidates, and if you cross them, you'll lose their vote.
(2) Why would a woman endorse a candidate who's not voted reliably on a key women's health issue, especially when a woman candidate who has voted reliably is available? It must be racial ganging together.
(3) The people who are supporting Obama are doing so more because he is black than because of the issues, but that "plus" would be eliminated if he were a woman because sexism trumps racism.

So, what I could do with this is call Ferraro names, impugn her generation/feminism/ethnicity/class, or use another several male-conditioning-accepted tricks to conceal the fact that I have feelings about discovering someone who's been a pioneer and has power being this flawed. At least in the above excerpt, Ferraro admitted her feelings, twice. But in the blogging world, thinking of a dozen ways to talk trash about others is never identified as unexpressed and inappropriate anger/hurt/fear. Because guys, you know, don't have feelings in the way of their ability to see and think. It's that Penis Protection Factor(™).

(See, I just did what the bloggers are doing. Doesn't make you especially want to hear more, does it? Not when it's focused on somebody other than the socially-acceptable target of women. Or fat people. Hostility is something you are going to have to GIVE UP for the revolution, or else g*d will leave you behind in the desert. You want Obama to lead you into paradise, but paradise doesn't want your passive-aggressive ass.)

Instead, I'll address the fallacies, one by one.

(1) 'Black folks/people of cullah are in secret collusion against the white masters in the big house.' This paranoia is as old as slavery. The truth is, if oppressed groups WERE able to act in unity and with shared intent, slavery would have ended the first time blacks outnumbered whites in any given county, and there would be 25 female Senators, a list of 22 past female Presidents, etc. This is not just paranoia, it's projection. Reality shows that it is WHITE people who act in racial collusion, who make choices more on the basis of gender and race than on issues or character, and who enforce the status quo by reprisal.

To give you a different analogy, the Christian Right floated the balloon of a "homosexual agenda", some sort of concerted plan to take over public schools, city councils, state legislatures, etc. Clearly none of them had ever attended any kind of queer meeting, to believe we could agree on even the name of such a movement. The folks who DID have an "agenda", a "seekwet pwan" (to quote C.J. Craig) to take over, were of course the folks making the accusation.

Here's a nearly infallible rule of thumb when dealing with those who are letting their emotions (particularly fear) run their brain: (a) They will lie, because they are rehearsing the lies imprinted on them too early to resist the conditioning, and (b) they will be convinced you are doing or about to do whatever it is they are, in fact, doing.

(2) Following up on #1, SOME people actually can sort through issues instead of being entirely swayed by identity politics. This is not to say identity politics are bad, or should be ignored -- that's as dismissive as saying we are past racism, can't we just all be friends? But there does exist the ability to hold several somewhat conflicting ideas in one's head at the same time, not try to figure out which is "the point" and instead create a synthesized view which takes into account the failings of another even as you support them. Women are raised to know how to do this. We are told from the moment we can walk and talk that we are supposed to grow up and create marriages/families with someone from a group whose conditioned ability to process emotion, nurture, maintain intimate connection regardless of sexual gratification, and maintain a household is far inferior to ours. We have to make allowances and value others for what they can bring to the table or else we'll be alone (or happily lesbian).

You know who else gets that kind of upbringing? People of color. They know who we are, as white people. They're around us all the fucking time, we're not fooling anybody. But if they don't learn how to get past our bullshit and deal with us, most of time, at face value, they wind up getting locked away. It's how groups who are target for oppression cope, and teach their children to cope. If you're in the non-target group, you will not have the same ability.

(And, I'm sorry to tell you, fans of alt rock, computer games and Battlestar Galactica do not actually constitute victimized subcultures. You think you know what it's like to be outside the box of normal, but unless you are colored, female, crippled and/or raised poor in this country, you do not.)

Lastly -- Barack Obama has been a real prick on the subject of lesbian/gay/bi/trans issues. Nevertheless, he is ardently supported by members of that community. Likewise, DOMA was a kick in the ovaries to us, but we're also behind Hillary Clinton in massive numbers. What does that make us, martyrs? Or just able to see a bigger picture?

(3) This point is more complicated, because Ferraro comes closest to naming something that I think does exist: Tokenism and belief in the Magical Negro. She comes close, but that is not what she really means -- we can tell because (a) other of her comments reveal she's not exercising rational thinking on the topic of race and (b) the fact that some white people (especially white middle-to-upper class men) engage in tokenism does not apply to the example of Barack Obama's success.

Tokens are advanced because they will not question the status quo and because they are sure to be incompetent. Think Alberto Gonzales or Clarence Thomas. They are popular in non-target groups because those groups fail to comprehend the complicated reality of racism (or whatever oppression is being questioned) and believe having a connection to someone in the target group somehow negates the possibility that they are racist.

But, overwhelmingly, tokens are not elected to office. They are appointed or otherwise put into position by those who hold the real power. Certainly they do not have Obama's record. This one is a no-brainer to prove.

Part of the efficacy of oppression is to separate (in an institutional fashion) those in target groups who would otherwise create alliance and outnumber the non-target group in power. This is done through systematic conditioning, and clearly Ferraro is suffering from its unhealed effects. There is simply no logical way to compare racism with sexism, or sexism with disabled oppression, or disabled oppression with the ownership of children, or the ownership of children with classism. There is no "primary oppression", there is no keystone whose removal will bring down the edifice to everyone's benefit: We have to address all of the lies simultaneously, as a unified force. As Paul Wellstone so eloquently put it, "Everyone does better when EVERYONE does better."

When confronted with the lies, the non-target system will at first deny they are lies. They will then say the lies only apply to the "bad" members of the target group. They will then try to get the various target groups fighting with each other about which one has it worse. We're at the third stage right now. However you engage in their distraction tactic -- either by comparing oppressions, or by venting your self-righteous vitriole on some fucking woman who dares to compare herself to you -- is a waste. Name the lie, ask for an ethical response, notice what does or does not occur, and move on.

One of the commenters at my post on Harriet Tubman states she read that the narcoleptic condition Harriet suffered from as a result of a beating as a child made her fall asleep, at times, when she was leading a group of fleeing slaves toward freedom. When that occurred, her little band would gather around her protectively and stand guard until she woke up. She obviously had a terrible disability, but that didn't keep her from being the route to another territory.

Think about that as things unfold.

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ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

(Harriet Tubman, photo by James A. Gensheimer)

I like to think of Harriet Tubman. (hat tip to Susan Griffin*)

I was thinking about her as I woke up today. I often see her referred to as "the Moses of her people". Well, if Moses had returned to Egypt 19 times over ten years to rescue more of his people, if he had grown up beaten (disabled from one blow) and starved instead of as a foster brother to the Pharaoh, if he had received no divine assistance when being pursued by those who would kill him -- then yeah, she'd be like Moses. The truth is, her personal courage and intelligence exceeds that of most other American heroes.

Why don't we hear as much about her as Malcolm X or W.E.B. Dubois? Here's a question for you: How much more attention would she get if she'd been a man?




We know what happened to the people that Moses led from slavery. Thanks to his actions, the world has known the likes of Sigmund Freud, Paula Abdul, Albert Einstein, Stan Lee, Carole King, Jonas Salk, Nadine Gordimer, George Gershwin, k.d. lang, Louis Brandeis, Katharine Graham, Karl Marx, Anne Frank, Allen Ginsberg, Levi Strauss, Frida Kahlo, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea Dworkin, the motion picture, comedy and garment industries, and, oh yeah, Jesus.

Who are the descendants of those Harriet Tubman saved? Why don't we know their names, too?

(Harriet Tubman, far left, standing with a group of slaves whose escape she assisted)

She carried scars. She was put to work at around five or six. When she was 12, she began work in the fields. At around this time, she blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer threw a two-pound weight at the field hand, but it struck Harriet on her head, leaving her with a condition like narcolepsy.

But she never lost a person in her rescue journeys. She was endlessly inventive. You should know all about her, go read about her. She worked as a spy for the Union during the Civil War, as well as a cook and a nurse. In later years, she fought for women's rights, and founded a home for the aged and infirm which still stands today. But she was denied a military pension, despite having led African-American soldiers on raids along the Combahee River in South Carolina in 1863.

White people tend to believe that slaves were kept in bondage, in part, by fear of beatings and reprisal. We are also told that ending slavery was the reason why the North fought the Civil War, and that blacks were rescued by whites. None of these things are literally true, and it serves to maintain the myth of white supremacy, of African-Americans as helpless.

When physical violence was used on plantations, the African-Americans there were more likely to run away, to destroy profit, to use all the means at their disposal to make life wretched for the whites who abused them. Of course. It has been argued, convincingly I find, that the purpose of beatings and overt acts of violence was not to "keep the slaves in line" but rather to reinforce the numbness of the whites -- to add on layers of brutality to their psyches, so they would remain in their role as slaveowners despite the obvious, daily humanity of the people they owned.

That's the way oppression works. Create a lie to cover the real reason for subjugation, and repeat it in every cultural manner available, including the use of force, to keep both sides separated.

A woman dares run for President? Woman-hating comes out from under whatever wraps it might have (barely) worn. We know what Hillary Clinton has endured for a couple of decades. We know how tough she is, and what scars she carries. She's flawed, no doubt about it, and damaged from what she's gone through. She's no FDR. But neither is Barack Obama. He's not Harriet Tubman. And while he's just as assuredly flawed, we don't know the extent of his damage yet. If elected, he WILL disappoint us. If he weren't being compared to Bush, I think we'd be able to be more realistic about him.

Those of us old enough to remember the Nixon era can remember the shock we all felt when we discovered he kept an "enemies list". It was unheard of, then. Of course politicians opposed one another, and different factions worked to undo each other's goals. But Nixon labeled those who disagreed with him "enemies" and sought to use any means available to destroy their lives. It was a window into a secret world. It could have been a great lesson, a chance to admit American use of power (the role of overseers, for example) and change.

Real change means naming the problem and insisting on either reform of those who abuse humanity or removing them from a position where they can do harm. We're approaching another such reckoning day here in this country. I hear people's fears that our Congress will not enforce change. They want a President who will lead the way to cleaning house. They point to Clinton as a moderate, an insider who will not go far enough. I can't argue. But I see no evidence at all that Obama will, either. He's already turned belly up on the issue of gay rights.

What else is new. He's moderate as well, not a thoroughbred liberal.

I think it's important to remember the typical human response to bullying, to punishment, and to torture: We do whatever is asked of us until we feel free from threat, but we do not actually change or grow. This week Canada has informed us they will not be using any information obtained by our CIA, since it is tainted from being obtained by torture and is therefore worthless.

Molly Ivins, and others, in 2000 warned the country that Dubya was vindictive -- that if he did not get his way, he (and his crew) set about punishing those who disagreed with him, in illegal and unparalleled fashion. He's had our government in a reign of terror since. We now have a Congress infected with this fear. Two of its Senators (well, three if you count McCain, but I don't) are now running for President. None of them have pushed for impeachment. None of them have actually bucked the status quo. Cleaning house is going to take longer than the made-for-TV version.

We'll have to wait for our Harriet Tubman.

Happy International Women's Day.


*I LIKE TO THINK OF HARRIET TUBMAN

(copyright Susan Griffin, from her book Like the Iris of an Eye, published by Harper and Row, New York)

I like to think of Harriet Tubman.
Harriet Tubman who carried a revolver,
who had a scar on her head from a rock thrown
by a slave-master (because she
talked back), and who
had a ransom on her head
of thousands of dollars and who
was never caught, and who
had no use for the law
when the law was wrong,
who defied the law. I like
to think of her.
I like to think of her especially
when I think of the problem
of feeding children.

The legal answer
to the problem of feeding children
is ten free lunches every month,
being equal, in the child's real life,
to eating lunch every other day.
Monday but not Tuesday.
I like to think of the President
eating lunch on Monday, but not
Tuesday.
And when I think of the President
and the law, and the problem of
feeding children, I like to
think of Harriet Tubman
and her revolver.

And then sometimes
I think of the President
and other men,
men who practice the law,
who revere the law,
who make the law,
who enforce the law
who live behind
and operate through
and feed themselves
at the expense of
starving children
because of the law.

Men who sit in paneled offices
and think about vacations
and tell women
whose care it is
to feed children
not to be hysterical
not to be hysterical as in the word
hysterikos, the Greek for
womb suffering,
not to suffer in their
wombs,
not to care,
not to bother the men
because they want to think
of other things
and do not want
to take women seriously.
I want them to think about Harriet Tubman,
and remember,
remember she was beaten by a white man
and she lived
and she lived to redress her grievances,
and she lived in swamps
and wore the clothes of a man
bringing hundreds of fugitives from
slavery, and was never caught,
and led an army,
and won a battle,
and defied the laws
because the laws were wrong, I want men
to take us seriously.
I am tired of wanting them to think
about right and wrong.
I want them to fear.
I want them to feel fear now I want them
to know
that there is always a time
there is always a time to make right
what is wrong,
there is always a time
for retribution
and that time
is beginning.

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