Stating The Obvious
Apr 9th, 2008 at 8:54 am by Susie
Salon’s Joan Walsh:
A very angry Obama-fan reader sent me a transcript of Rush Limbaugh quoting something I said on Campbell Brown’s CNN show last week. What a nice gesture, on both their parts! Rush has quoted me before, but I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to have what I said reach a wider audience. Here’s what he quoted:
Walsh: I think that Senator Hillary Clinton has faced much more overt sexism than Barack Obama has faced overt racism in this campaign. She was greeted with jeers, “iron my shirts,” in New Hampshire. She’s asked by debate moderators, “Why are you not likable?” Rush Limbaugh ran pictures of her looking old and said, you know, the country isn’t ready to look at an old woman. And when you go back to that very seminal moment where a woman asked John McCain, “How do we beat the B-word?” and John McCain laughed, I mean, you cannot imagine that happening, “How do we beat Barack Obama and somebody using the N-word,” and laughter. So, you know, a kind of genial sexism is so much more okay in our society than that kind of racism. It’s just true.
Thanks, Rush! I really appreciate your getting that point of view out to more people. Sadly, you’ve got a bigger audience than I do at Salon, at least temporarily. But I’m thrilled to have that statement reach a wider audience. Because, yes, it’s just true.
I see the flaws readers pointed out in the Essence/CNN poll on America’s readiness for a black or a woman president that I wrote about Saturday. And I certainly don’t mean to diminish Obama by talking about this; as I’ve written many times, he has run a better campaign to date than Clinton has, and he’s an extraordinary, admirable politician. But I thought many of the letters about my post helped prove the point that sexism is more pervasive, and far less conscious, than racism is in the Democratic primary this year. So did the letters on Carol Lloyd’s Broadsheet post about Randi Rhodes calling Hillary Clinton a “fucking whore.” I honestly never thought I’d see the day when Salon readers, including some I respect, would defend that kind of attack on a female politician, as people did in that letters thread. (I started to type “female Democrat” and stopped myself. I honestly never expected to see Salon readers defend people calling female Republicans “fucking whores,” either.)
If you disagree, and you’d like to argue on behalf of calling female politicians “fucking whores,” please marshal your best arguments in my comments section. But also, if you feel that way, please feel free to stop reading Salon. I passionately want to grow our audience, and I’m proud to have tripled it in the three years I’ve been editor in chief. But truly, some readers we can live without. There must be someplace where people who want to call female leaders “fucking whores” will feel welcomed and at home, but this isn’t it.
Wow.
I read a tiny fraction of the comments on both Joan Walsh’s column and Carol Lloyd’s.
McCain is going to win, isn’t he?
it depends on if all of the people who have decided that its Hillary or the highway can be mature and suck it up and vote for the nominee when it is Obama.
If they decide to take their toys and go home, then McCain will win.
Regardless of what happens, I am sure that HRC will somehow be able to survive despite the oppression she has faced as she traveled from her upper-middle class upbringing in Chicago, to her Summer house in Scranton, to Wellesley then Yale, to the Watergate hearings, to her law firm, to the positions as First Lady in Arkansas and the White House, and to the hell she must face everyday with her 100 million dollar fortune, five bedroom, four bath house with pool in Chappaqua, and life as a US Senator.
primary bickering aside, you can’t really argue that walsh isn’t absolutely right. racism is still a horrible problem in this country, but racist language has been discredited in a way that sexist language has not.
and steveboy, your comment isn’t really relevant to the point of the post. yes, clinton had a privileged upbringing. but does that mean that people can’t use sexist language when talking about her? in this context, your comment really makes no sense.
I think the racism in the campaign isn’t malevolently directed at Obama, but benevolently directed at Hilary. She is experiencing white privilege. By this I mean that she is so clearly loosing. What else besides white privilege would account for her sagging, limping campaign being allowed to continue? What else besides the fact that a white person of any gender should not be allowed to lose against a Black person in a political campaign of this stature. I understand the argument about sexism. I do agree that she is being smeared with that brush. But she should have bowed out a long time ago. If she wins, it won’t be a victory for wimmin, it will be a slanted victory for white domination. Sad. True. Ugly. The campaign isn’t just about Obama being Black. It’s also about her so glaringly being an affluent white politician who would rather fall on her own southern sword than lose to a person of African descent.
The irony here is that Clinton herself is a militant, Christian fundamentalist. She is a heterosexist, anti-feminist, war mongering Republican politician posing as a moderate Democrat.
I strongly object to the way Rhodes worded her comments on Ms. Clinton being a bought politician. Rhodes simply should have referred to Clinton as a bought politician. But, I also think that it is insane for anyone to the left of John McCain to support or even condone Hillary Clinton. The Clintons and Bushes support the same agenda, but slap on different branding.
Also, the level of white supremacist hate from the Clinton campaign and some of its most hardcore supporters far surpasses even the level of sexism targeting Clinton. Also, there is a key difference. The sexism is not coming from the Obama campaign, while much of the racist hatred is part of a deliberate, albeit foolish, campaign strategy by the Clintons.
sexism is more pervasive, and far less conscious, than racism is in the Democratic primary this year.
I think this is probably right, and it’s probably going to be worse in the general election. This is part of why the Clinton argument that we can’t nominate Obama because he’s black makes my grit my teeth so much. For these reasons Walsh identifies, Obama would probably have much more success, and catch much less flak, for arguing that Clinton is unelectable because she’s a woman, though I’m very glad he has not done that.
One big reason for this is that it’s not only men who are biased against Hillary for her gender — as Walsh pointed out, it was a woman who pleaded for McCain to “beat the bitch,” and he chuckled good-naturedly. A Newsweek poll found that men were more likely than women to say that the country is ready for a female president — assuredly part of this is because women have a clearer picture of what the glass ceiling looks like from below, but it’s probably also because there are close to as many women who don’t want a female president as there are men.
It’s often pointed out that the country gave black men the vote earlier than it gave it to women. Maybe it’s meaningless, but maybe it suggests that sexism was a stronger force than racism even before the civil rights era.
I note with amusement that failing to have a portfolio of any significant accomplishment, Obama has run a campaign based entirely on personality and destruction of Hillary and when I read Steveeboy’s comment…
and have to wonder why, after running this campaign that uses misogyny as its linchpin, would he actually expect a substantial number of Hillary’s supporters to actually be motivated to vote for Obama. Randi Rhodes gave her own personal style to the narrative that Obama’s campaign has bee trying to say with a little more subtlety.
As for libhomo…
Clearly here is a vision of unity…
maybe it suggests that sexism was a stronger force than racism even before the civil rights era
i think the which “ism” is worse discussion is worth getting into. i don’t know if you ever can rank them like that. they’re both bad, but they’re both different problems. in some ways racism is “worse” and in some ways sexism is “worse”. who knows which one “wins” when you add all the negatives up. and, when you get down to it, who cares? bad is bad. let’s just focus on the badness of each when they emerge, like how sexist language is tolerated a lot more than other kinds of bigoted language.
i don’t think you have to be a clinton supporter to think this is a problem.
doh! i meant “i don’t think the which “ism” is worse discussion is worth getting into…”
White_n_az @ 6: “failing to have a portfolio of any significant accomplishment, Obama has run a campaign based entirely on personality and destruction of Hillary”
And all I can say is what a shame it is Obamamaniacs are so quick to use the politics of personal destruction against Clinton whilst you Clintonians consistently take the high road.
Would it matter to you to know as of today Barak Obama has more experience than Lincoln, FDR, Carter, Clinton, or Bush, Jr. did when they all took the oath of office? All Lincoln did was win the Civil War and save the Union; all FDR did was get the country through the Great Depression and win WW II. Imagine what they could have accomplished had they been something other than empty suits with great speaking skills.
She continues “after running this campaign that uses misogyny as its linchpin,…” and all I can say is please prove that the linchpin of Obama’s campaign is sexism. I truly appreciate Sussie’s efforts to elevate the level of discourse in the comments here, but reading that and not replying with condescension and snark requires all reserves of temperance I posses. Yeah, white_n_az – keep telling yourself you’re the one on the high road.
Snuzzy @ 7. Look, assuming we are talking about the United States there is simply no question which “ism” is worse. If you want to argue that any of the forms sexism and misogyny has taken compare to the middle passage, slavery, and lynching be my guest.
That is NOT to say that sexism isn’t wrong, destructive, poisonous, etc. But please, having voting rights denied until 1920, facing job discrimination, and the other forms sexism has taken aren’t as bad as slavery and lynching. And before any Captain Obvious type replies with the gotcha claim that many black people are also women, relax, I’m a pretty sharp guy and I know that. Here’s the question that matters: were female Africans captured, imprisoned, transported and sold into slavery because they were female or because they were black?
And to Joan Walsh and all other writers who support Clinton I will again say of course when you support Clinton you get an in box full of sexist crap. Does that prove Obama supporters – as a group – are worse than Clinton supporters? Try a simple thought experiment; you write a pro-Obama piece. Will your in-box soon fill with sexist comments from Obama supporters? I’m guessing no. Will your in-box fill with racist comments from Clinton supporters? We might have a winner.
Come on, of course you get flamed by people on the other side. If you consider that a news flash (ever read Michelle Malkin? Ann Coulter? – this crap is their stock in trade – write pieces mocking liberals, wait for the flame emails, then publish those as an example of how “unhinged” the left is) maybe it’s time to give retirement some consideration.
And as for taking the examples of the few and claiming they prove something of the group, that sounds suspiciously like bigotry to me. I once knew some black people who were lazy, therefore all blacks are lazy; I have known women who were so emotional they couldn’t function under pressure, therefore all women fail under pressure; I got 20 sexist emails from Obama supporters, therefore all 13,000,000 people who so far have cast votes for Obama are sexist.
It seems unseemly to argue which kind of bigotry, racism or sexism, is worse or more pervasive. Both should be exposed and resisted. Pitting one group of victims against another in this way is counterproductive and buys into the divide-and-conquer strategy of the bigots.
I honestly never thought I’d see the day when Salon readers, including some I respect, would defend that kind of attack on a female politician, as people did in that letters thread.
Has she never read the letters at Salon before? It’s an MRA-infested cesspool, *especially* at Broadsheet. And that’s *after* they did away with anonymous commenting to get a handle on some of this stuff.
Oh, and libhomo? Perhaps you haven’t heard that Obama attended the same prayer meetings that you’re claiming make Clinton unacceptably fundamentalist. Not that I expect this little meme will die anytime soon.
Look, assuming we are talking about the United States there is simply no question which “ism” is worse. If you want to argue that any of the forms sexism and misogyny has taken compare to the middle passage, slavery, and lynching be my guest.
i guess you missed the part where i said deciding which is worse is foolish (maybe it was my fault. i did leave out the “don’t” in comment #7, see comment #8)
the two are different, not easily compared with one another on a single one dimentional scale of “better” vs. “worse”. which is why i don’t think there’s any point in getting into the “bigotry A is worse than bigotry B”. they’re both bad. why can’t we just oppose both whenever we see them without worrying about which is the badest? (i.e. what comment #10 says)
besides, my point is not just that comparing the badness of the two is senseless, but also that sexism and racism express themselves in different ways. and, as i said above, it seems rather obvious that sexist language is not treated nearly as serious as racist language when it comes up in the media. look at the the don imus controversy last year, for example. imus was fired for making a racist remark (i.e. “nappy headed”) not a sexist remark (i.e. “hos”) even though his remarks were both. call someone a “nigger” on tv and you’ll be fired. call someone a “bitch” and probably nothing that serious will happen to you.
once again, i am not saying that sexism is worse than racism. i’m saying when it comes to speech in the public sphere, sexist language is tolerated more than racist language.
call someone a “bitch” and probably nothing that serious will happen to you.
(except maybe an FCC fine)
MDavidson @ 11. I agree that what’s wrong needs to be addressed. Nonetheless it is possible to make objective arguements regarding who has suffered more. I didn’t start that discussion because I think it’s far down the list of what is really wrong with out country, but if people are going to insist on playing in that arena, it’s perfectly reasonable to point out the differences.
“[Why] after running this campaign that uses misogyny as its linchpin, would he actually expect a substantial number of Hillary’s supporters to actually be motivated to vote for Obama.”
Well, let’s put aside the bullshit that obama’s campaign has “misogyny as its linchpin”…
One would expect that one would vote for whomever the democratic nominee happens to be because having McCain as President would be a total fucking disaster.
But, if you feel better by not voting for obama because you will be striking a blow for all oppressed rich white former first lady senators that got called a “whore” by Randi Rhodes, then by all means, do what you have to do.
That’ll show ‘em!
But until then, please, spare us the bullshit hyperbole vis-a-vis the obama campaign and its “linchpin” of misogyny.
Holy fucking shit.
The wank meter, both for the blog and for the comments, is seriously pinned in the red right now. It’s like reading “No Exit”, except it’s not an existentialist play, it’s real.
Lordy, Susan, who ARE these people?
Whatever happened to Switzerland? =(
hey, that’s a good point. what did happen to switzerland? (not that this post is particularly unswiss, but some of the others definitely are)
bob@10
Funny thing about this statement…it fails to list a single accomplishment of Barack Obama and compares him to people who history has elevated as if Obama has done a single thing to merit the comparison.
Sorry…doesn’t work that way but nice try.
as for defending the notion of the campaign of personality instead of substance…it’s a deliberate choice…See the NY Times profile of David Axelrod which I would say has some depth and is very fair considering that it is a meta extension of the campaign of personality.
As for misogyny…guys rarely notice but women always notice it.
Amazing.
I read all of these comments (many from obviously intelligent writers) and no one has actually mentioned that there is a relatively good way to get to the answer and cut through inherited biases:
If the question is whether racism or sexism is the more powerful force, shouldn’t we ask the people that are both black and female?
Shouldn’t the voices of our (and I mean all of our) black American women have some level of superior standing over all of us?
What the average black woman sees of this race should (in any logical debate) take some level of greater importance and be one of the first places we look.
Now here is the part that obviously supports my point (But stay with me. I am trying to be fair). Black women in America (and this is a huge generalization to be fair) see their race as a larger hurdle than their sex. They are (based on the votes and polls so far) more angry at the way Obama is being treated than they are about how Hillary is being addressed. That can mean two things:
1. Black women (for whatever reason) are incapable of making a logical judgment about what -ism is worse and more damaging and aren’t grasping reality.
or
2. They are fairly logical and their point of view is one that has to be (at least) addressed.
All I know is that Mrs. Angry Black Guy is smarter and more knowing than I am.
And, to paraphrase her words, she thinks it sucks way worse to be a black person than it does a woman.
That’s not the answer to the question, but it’s a d*mn fine Exhibit C to the summary conclusion in my book.
Where am I wrong?
Oh, and she’s way better looking than I am too.
[You never know when your wife will wander down and what you're typing. Might as well get extra credit.]
angry black guy…
You’re not wrong but Hillary didn’t become a racist overnight. Hillary became a racist because Obama’s campaign narrative made it so.
It’s probably not different than the outcome of the OJ trail…that justice had been so unfair to blacks for so long, who could forgive them for winning one when the defense was vigorous enough to give them cover.
I understand why the black community would rally behind Obama and don’t blame them except that the reason for it was faulty, contrived, calculated.
That said, I think to some extend, it ultimately works to Obama’s disadvantage because as he becomes identified as a lock to dominate the black community votes, he seems to lose white votes. This I’m sure is why he doesn’t go to Memphis for the 40th anniversary of MLK’s assassination, why he skipped Travis Smiley’s symposium, why he ducks any appearance where Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton might be.
Curiously, Jesse Jackson was a regular guest of Bill Clinton, which is not to say that Jesse Jackson is some kind of barometer but does indicate that neither Clinton will disassociate even with controversial blacks.
One thing that seems to be overlooked here by those who claim racism is worse (and cite lynching, etc) is the fact that for most of human history, women have essentially always been slaves. Women were sold into marriage, sold into prostitution, and it was considered perfectly acceptable and within his rights as master for a husband to beat his wife. The problem is so deeply entrenched in our worldview that it is almost invisible, and so it seems “less bad”. Let’s not forget the spate of fairly recent all-female victim shooting sprees, or the absolute atrocities (genital mutilation, vaginal destruction, honour killings, genocidal rape) that are still going on in our world, in many countries of varying ethnicity and cultures, yet we simply tolerate it. Apartheid was brought down due to world outrage, why have we not done more for the atrocities of sexism?
that’s TAVIS Smiley oh great knower of black men…
steveeboy@26
Thanks for your diligence, though I wish for accuracy sake you had picked up that I misspelled ‘trial’ (trail), and should have said ‘who couldn’t have forgiven’ instead of ‘could have forgive’ but you definitely nailed it…I am less than perfect and I admit this here, now and forever.
anon @ 25: We are discussing a primary campaign in the United States of America (which for the sake of argument we’ll define as beginning with Jamestown in 1607 - the first English settlement in what would eventually become the USA) to the present; we are not discussing the entire history of the human race. Within the parameters under discussion, there really is no question which “ism” is the more severe.
Picture a rice plantation in the Carolinas circa 1800. Look out back at the slave quarters, mud and branch huts next to a mosquito infested swamp. Life expectancy for a slave is 7 years - seven! And considering only young, healthy males are brought in that’s an incredible indictment of the system. Now look at the beautiful plantation house, ready for Better Homes and Gardens. It’s maintained by a full time staff of somewhere between 6 and 24 slaves, depending on how big and how much entertaining goes on. And over there, in the first floor drawing room, there’s the lady of the estate. She can’t vote, she’s restricted from land ownership in a lot of ways, she is certainly restricted in her ability to live her life as she sees fit.
But she is not being held down anywhere near the same way the slaves are being held down.
Look, I didn’t bring this up but if you’re gonna discuss please discuss it in a meaningful way. And I know, a poor woman had it worse than the lady of an estate, but still nowhere near as discriminated against as slaves.
In the grand scheme of the Democratic Primary in the year of our lord 2008, this is actually pretty far down the list of discussion points. But it does matter. Here’s why. Saying the lady of the estate suffered in some equivalent but different manner from the slaves is an insult to the memories of those slaves, the sacrifices they made, and the better world they helped create for their descendants. That doesn’t mean the women didn’t suffer – they did. But not as much as slaves. I’m flabbergasted that this statement could be deemed controversial.
And today which is a more poisonous force in America? Both are wrong; both need to be challenged; both need to be pulled out and exposed for what they are. But the one that is an outgrowth of capture, the middle passage, slavery, Jim Crow and lynching just might have historical, cultural and social roots and implications far greater than the one that is an outgrowth of legal restrictions.
Shirley Chisholm:
Although Chisholm made a point of saying that she was not the women’s candidate, she had always been a strong supporter of women’s rights. One of the four founders of the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, she often said that during her twenty years in local politics “I had met far more discrimination because I am a woman than because I am black.”
Bob @ 28
Thanks for your historical perspective.
I am completely uncomfortable with equations such as this, especially when the point is assign a relative value to whose plight is worse as if the worse plight is a more noble cause. Seems to me that injustice is still injustice.
More women are enslaved today than men…does that equate for you?
More asians are enslaved today than blacks…does that equate for you?
The simple fact is that there are injustices and inequities of all types all over the world, many of them gender, many of them race, but all of them because they can get away with it.
My point is that all of these prejudices exist and no one is really any better or worse than the other and we should fight for equality for everyone.
bob@10 says–Would it matter to you to know as of today Barak Obama has more experience than Lincoln, FDR, Carter, Clinton, or Bush, Jr. did when they all took the oath of office?
uh, wow bob, let me know what school u went to so my kids don’t go there. Perhaps you have a point with regards to our current president, but all your other examples are just plain wrong. Please cease and desist with this incredible distortion of history. And for god’s sake, go read a book.
I think some of you are mistaken - or obfuscating…. no one is trying to argue one “ism” is worse than another. They’re arguing that one “ism” (racism) is being called out, while the other “ism” (sexism, which affects more than half of the population) is being ignored… until now. Women are pissed.
Abraham Lincoln: 14 years national political experience
Franklin Roosevelt: 20 years national political executive experience
Jimmy Carter: 20 years political and executive experience
Bill Clinton: 20 years executive and national political experience
George W. Bush: 6 years executive political experience
Barack Obama: 12 years political experience, none executive