RACE, GENDER NOT DRIVING CLINTON, OBAMA

I read this news article in today’s Sunday paper on how the public perceives the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Here is an excerpt:

Dems:  We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!

By Matt Stearns and Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers

• Posted on Sunday, October 14, 2007

C. J. Gunther / EPA / Pool

Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in June 2007. | View larger image

BOONE, Iowa — Twenty years ago, when a black man was running for president and a woman was considering it, the two were viewed mainly through the prism of identity politics: What would Jesse Jackson’s campaign mean to black political ascendancy? What did Pat Schroeder mean to the women’s movement?

Neither really expected to win; both were most valuable as spot checks for the state of the American psyche when it came to minorities and political power. Schroeder’s testing of the waters is remembered chiefly for the tears she cried when she announced she wouldn’t run.

Now, the two top candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are a woman, Hillary Clinton, and a black man, Barack Obama. Both fully expect to win. Both embrace their identities, but that’s hardly the driving force of either candidacy.

Strikingly, several Democratic voters interviewed this week in the mostly white, early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire said they stopped consciously thinking about either candidate’s race or gender months ago as they watched Clinton and Obama campaign.

Some voters said they consider ending the Iraq war so pressing a priority that it has pushed aside once-urgent social considerations.

“I’m more interested in putting the right person in office,” said Bill Bushore, a small-business owner who attended a Clinton rally at the Gigglin’ Goat restaurant in Boone, Iowa. He’s deciding between Clinton and Obama. “At this point, a woman or a minority is a non-issue for me. I just like Hillary and Obama’s approach to speaking in common-sense terms.”

Susan Arnold, conservation director for the Appalachian Mountain Club, who attended an Obama speech this week in Portsmouth, N.H., and is undecided, said, “I probably think about Hillary Clinton as the first woman president and Barack Obama as the first black president in the sense of, ‘Isn’t it a wonderful time we live in?’ ”

Read the rest of the article here:

• · Dems: We’ve come a long way, baby!

 

 

 

Another aspect of this campaign concerning Obama, centers on his “light skin”:

“Some Democrats said this week that they think Obama’s light skin, Harvard Law pedigree and upbringing by his mother and white grandparents make him easier for white voters to accept as a candidate.”

I spoke to this issue in my post,  https://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/the-jury-is-still-out-on-obama

While reading this article, it struck me as insulting that the names of  Jesse Jackson and Pat Schroeder were mentioned in their candidacy for president of the United States, but, nothing was mentioned of the late, great  Representative Shirley Chisholm’s run for the office of President in 1972. 

“The many reform movements of the 1960s were put to the test during the presidential campaign of 1972. The social and political challenges of black Americans, the feminist movement, the youth of the country who were marching in protest against the Vietnam War put the rest of status quo America on edge and notice. Could black citizens who could now finally vote, women who were now being politicized and recognizing their political power, and youth who no longer would allow themselves to be cannon fodder for the unjust Vietnam War marshal and solidify combined forces for a national mandate? Could these various new forces bring into being a new and radical change to the fabric of American life? The emergence of these diverse constituencies made the Democratic Party into a liberal party where more voices were being given accordance and validity, and among the hopefuls for the bid for President of the United States nominations were Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern,  John Lindsay——and Shirley Chisholm.

“No candidate better symbolized the “New Politics” of that period. Shirley Chisholm, Congresswoman from New York, was the first black woman to be elected to Congress. Elected on a reform slate, she was a very effective legislator for black people’s interests, and her “unbossed, unbought” image was appealing to the more than 3 million college students who identified with the New Left. Congresswoman Chisholm was also an early member of NOW and the National Women’s Political Caucus.“

“By her own admission, Shirley said her campaign for the presidency was “disorganized and underfinanced”. Also, her announcement for the presidential candidacy that she would run seemed to come as a surprise to the leaders of the constituencies she sought, which indicated that she had not done her homework necassary for the campaign. The evidence of poor support for her candidacy revealed shortcomings of both the black movement and the feminist movement.

“Shirley was “surprised” at the “coolness” of the feminists to her candidacy. Even though some local women’s groups supported her, such as the Berkeley, California, chapter of NOW, on the other hand, support from national leaders was much more ambivalent, and the central area for the political face-off that ensued  was the National Women’s Political Caucus.

“The Caucus organized in 1971 to get more women elected and appointed to public office, as well as to gather support on women’s issues. The major architects/activists of this organization were New York Representative Bella Abzug, feminist activists Gloria Steinem and Betty Freidan and Shirley Chisholm. The internal warfare struggle provoked by Shirley’s candidacy found Steinem and Abzug on one side, with Freidan on the other. Freidan, according to her account, wanted the Caucus to endorse Shirley; Steinem and Abzug had other ideas. Freidan felt that Steinem and Abzug’s goal was to take control of the Caucus in order to deliver votes to George McGovern. By doing this, Steinem and Abzug would have consolidated their own position as power brokers between women and the Democratic Party.“

In all the jockeying and maneuvering that followed, Freidan’s efforts were done in:

“The meeting of the women delegates which should have been called by the Caucus  so that all of us could swing our power behind Shirley had been called off evidently for Gloria’s suggestion”, Freidan wrote. “And she was already organizing, on her own, as a fait accompli, a move for Sissy Farenthold (of Texas) as Vice President”.  (1)“

Even the major white feminists did not work in unanimous support for  Shirley’s candidacy.

“Shirley resigned from the Caucus, having failed to get endorsement from them. In reality the Caucus was created to support a candidacy such as hers. In the meantime, Steinem, when asked whom she supported for President, stated:  “George McGovern is the best of the male candidates”. After hearing such a response from Steinem one time too many, Shirley was reported to have told Steinem:   “I don’t need that kind of help”. If Steinem was so gung ho all out for McGovern, then she should have just gone on ahead and openly supported her “male” candidate. Even when a black woman ran for the highest office in the land, she still had to face the double sword of racism and sexism from white women.  (2)“

But, the sexualized gendered racism from white women like Steinem’s was not all that Shirley had to contend with.

“Shirley later recounted an occasion when Bella Abzug insisted on introducing Shirley at a  political gathering, only to make equivocal remarks about Shirley’s candidacy. According to Freidan, within the Caucus’s inner circles (where black women were excluded) the bloc-vote advocates described Shirley’s campaign for delegates as a “quixotic joke”.  (3)

“In the end, Steinem and Freidan ran for Shirley as delegates, but, only when McGovern and McCarthy proved not worthy of feminist support. The lesson that was learned from this impact was that black women figued very slightly and insignificantly in the priorities of the leaders of the women’s movement.  But, Shirley’s candidacy had not run the gauntlet of hell yet. Her candidacy would suffer its worst hells at the hands of so-called black leaders, who in the early 1970s, were almost exclusively men. Black politicans explored many options in 1972:

1.  Run “favourite sons” in several states”

2.  Throw support behind McGovern

3.  Support a single black candidate

None in the end included Shirley Chisholm.

“She became very aware of the sexist mockery against her after hearing the results of a black strategy meeting that took place outside of Chicago and which included Julian Bond, Percy Sutton, Richard Hatcher, Jesse Jackson, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Roy Innis, Willie Brown, Basil Patterson and Clarence Mitchell III. The idea of Shirley’s candidacy received a cold response, according to her:

“What was really bothering the black males at the meeting”, she wrote, “was more directly hinted at by one who told a Washington Post reporter (anonymously):  “In this first serious effort of blacks for high political office, it would be better if it were a man”.  (4)

“The opinion of her campaign was even more succinct and crudely driven home when Shirley visited a black Expo in Chicago. When Shirley appeared, two black men, probably local political types, said loudly enough for her (and anyone else within earshot) to hear:  “There she is—that little Black Matriarch who goes around messing things up”. (5)

“Shirley’s campaign from the beginning was plagued by charges that she was a “captive of the women’s movement” and any kind of association with any white feminist movement was seen as traitorous. When Shirley came out publically supporting bail for the radical activist Angela Davis, she caught hell from men in Congress and leadership positions, men who refused to support Davis because they felt she was a threat to them and that it was political suicide to support such a person as Ms. Davis.“

(The only major male-led group to publically support and endorse Shirley was the Black Panthers.)

“In the end, Shirley was betrayed by white feminists, and black men.  It was one thing to be used as so much cannon fodder by the white feminists; this was the burden that black women have had to contend with for decades at the hands of white feminists, and one could say that in the end Shirley was on the wrong end of a political maneuver, a political maneuver that much of America was not ready for.“

But, more painful than the side-stepping, mealy-mouthed lack of support from so-called feminists, it was the sexist attitudes of black males that was tremenodusly painful to Shirley.

“In the end, the failure of Shirley’s candidacy was due more to sexism than racism,  and this was more demoralizing and heartbreaking. She summed it up:

“I love a good fight and people know I like a good fight. But what hurts me more than anything else. . . .is the brothers in politics. . . .if the brothers would only leave me alone, and stop attacking me so much and stop giving out wrong statements about me, I’d continue. If they would just say, “well, she’s half crazy and we can’t work with her”, and just leave me and let be I wouldn’t mind. But they won’t get off my back. After all, I’m only human and how much can I take of all this constant pressure and lies.”  (6)“

In 1983 Shirley announced that she would not seek another term for the White House.  Shirley retired to Florida.

On January 1, 2005, New Year’s Day, Shirley Chisholm passed away.

 She is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY. In February 2005, Shirley Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed, a documentary film chronicling  Shirley’s 1972 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, was aired on U.S. public television. Directed and produced by independent, black woman filmmaker Shola Lynch, the film was featured at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. On, April 9, 2006, the film was announced as a winner of a Peabody Award.

To the end, Shirley remained, “unbought, and unbossed.”

 

It is good that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are running for President of the United States. But, I do not want people to forget all the hardwork, nor the path that was blazed through the travails  that Representative Shirley Chisholm fought to pave the way for Obama and Clinton.  I do not want all that Shirley contibuted through her hard work to be forgotten.

It is good that America seems ready for a woman or a black as President of America.

But. . . .

Upon reading the end of this news article, I see where much of America is still not ready  for someone other than a white male to lead this country:

“John McKinney, a railroad conductor from Boone, Iowa, who’s undecided, said he saw the phenomenon as “as a sign of the maturing of American society.” Race and gender “are basically irrelevant,” he said.

But it’s difficult to gather data to test that premise, said David Redlawsk, a University of Iowa political scientist and pollster, and some polls suggest race and gender do matter.

A University of Iowa poll conducted last March found that 90.9 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers said a candidate’s race wasn’t important to them; 92.9 percent said gender was irrelevant.

But when asked whether Obama’s race or Clinton’s gender could hurt them in a general election, 40.4 percent said yes for Obama and 51 percent said yes for Clinton.

“We’ve reached a time when social convention suggests it’s not appropriate to express these concerns openly,” Redlawsk said. “But in the privacy of the voting booth? People don’t necessarily understand their own reasons much of the time.”

Yes, that may be.

But, in the privacy of their homes, and the privacy of the voting booth, people in the end really show their true thoughts and actions.

Come first Tuesday in November, 2008, we shall see if America really has come far enough to either want a real change politically, economically, socially, equally, in this country or if it will be more of the same apathetic voting for the “best male” candidate for the highest office in the land.

REFERENCES:

1.   Betty Freidan, It Changed my Life:  Writings on the Women’s Movement (New York: Random House, 1963, 1975), p. 178.

2.   Shirley Chisholm, The Good Fight (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 77.

3.   Freidan, op. cit., p. 177.

4.   Chisholm, op. cit., 31.

5.   Ibid., pp. 31-32.

6.   Shirley Chisholm, interview, the Civil Rights Documentation Project (Moorland-Springarn Collection, Howard University, Washington, D.C.), p. 29.

7.   “Unbought and Unbossed”, by Shirley Chisholm, Houghton and Mifflin Publishers, June 1970.

8.   Photos courtesy of Wikipedia.

[NOTE: The above footnotes are from the book, When And Where I Enter: The Impact Of  Black Women On Race And Sex In America” by Paula Giddings, William Morrow & Company, New York, 1984.]

UPDATED LINKS:

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1.  Chisholm ‘72 – Unbought & Unbossed by George Wallace (IV), George McGovern, Ron Dellums, and Betty Friedan (DVD – Mar 1, 2005)        (7)

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