Donna Brazile: "Don't Ever Put Me In The Back Of The Bus!"

At this weekend's New Yorker Festival, Donna Brazile had some frank words on the "If I Were Running This Campaign" panel, with Donna Brazile, Alex Castellanos, Ed Rollins, Joe Trippi, and moderator Jeff Toobin. According to NYer fest blogger Justin Vogt, when Toobin asked Brazile for some closing thoughts she definitely had a few:

I'm gonna say it and get it off my chest, because for the next thirty days, I'm gonna be the best Catholic woman ever....As a child who grew up in the segregated Deep South, we've come so far in this country....But I remember when I used to get on the bus: my mother would tell me, "Donna, when you get on the bus, you and your brothers go all the way to the back, and don't look at anybody." We have changed. This is a more tolerant, open, progressive society. And yet, we're having this conversation because [Obama] is biracial. He spent nine months in the womb of a white woman. He was raised...by his white grandparents...He got out of school and went to Harvard, and all of a sudden he's "uppity" and there's something wrong with him? What is wrong with us?...You can vote against him, but don't ever put me in the back of the bus. I'm not going to the back of the bus! I'm not going to be afraid! My black skin does not make me inferior! And may I add: being a female does not make me dumb!

As the audience cheered and applauded, she finished up: "Don't let people trick you, and distract you and divide you...Don't let no one take us back! Because many of us are not going back— we're going forward! And come with us!"

Pretty powerful stuff.

Update: Here is the video!

Donna's World [New Yorker Festival Blog]