The Black Guy, the Woman, and the Gays

I have a confession to make.

One time, I watched Will & Grace.

Hear me out. I was sick, all of my friends were out of town, and I could only slice through the sea of static to a single channel with the help of my ancient antenna's reach. While I know no amount of excuses could possibly pardon this crime, there it is. That's my case for why I watched this shitty, shitty sitcom.

There's more, too. I...learned something... from Will & Grace.

See, the whole episode was about Will's conundrum regarding who he was going to vote for in a citywide election. He had two candidates to choose from: black guy and a woman.

Those are the names they use throughout the episode: black guy and woman. Will, Grace, and Jack know nothing about the candidates. They only know the candidates are refreshingly different than the uptight, old white dudes currently running the city. How are they different? They have no clue other than one is black and the other possesses a vagina.

Welcome to Election Year 2008. Will it be the black guy or the vag-carrier?

And it's not Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton's fault for being America's Black Guy and Woman. Their respective race and sex don't disqualify them from being president, though it seems some liberals have been tricked into automatically assuming Barack and Hillary are progressive because of their minority statuses.

This isn't the tired "Is he black enough?/Is she feminine enough?" argument.

This is the: Are They Poor Enough? argument.

Barack Obama didn't grow up in rural Louisiana sharing a swamp shack with seven siblings. He is from a middle class family that made sure he attended wonderful schools and received the finest education. Hillary Clinton can fake that southern accent all she wants, but she was raised in an Illinois household in a family that ran a successful textile business. These two are no strangers to wealth.

The basic conundrum in this country is that only one TYPE of person is considered presidential. This person is traditionally white and male. However, a different TYPE of person can be considered electable, but they still must be corporation and free trade-friendly.

This is why Hillary has to remain tough on her vote into Iraq. It would be feminine and weak to admit her wrong-doing. One need only ask John Kerry about the power of being labeled a "flip-flopper."

Likewise, Barack has to be careful that he distance himself from anything too "black" i.e. the poor. This is why Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were hesitant to jump on the Obama boat. Under careful scrutiny, Barack isn't really the "black guy." Like Hillary, he's still very much the old order of candidate: business friendly.

And they both must remain corporation-friendly. It's already old news that Hillary is pro-big business. After all, the woman once sat on the board of Walmart. How much more corporate can you get than that? However, we all held out hope for Barack, the man who claimed to be out of Big Business's clawed grasp.

I feel bad for Barack. You can tell he wants to be a revolutionary, but he has to pay his way into the White House, and it's tough to be a maverick when you're at the mercy of lobbyists. Hell, Barack is tighter with the insurance companies than most other politicians in the Senate. He even wants them to help him create a new health care program, which will surely be quite a breathtaking juggling act if he gets the chance to try it.

And now Barack is claiming that Democrats can achieve all their political and social goals whilst simultaneously reaching out to corporations in a classic case of trying to have our cake and eat it too. John Edwards dismissed Barack's cake paradox as a "complete fantasy."

This brings up to the weirdest aspect of Election Year 2008. In this bizarre Opposite Land, the only person shaking things up is...a southern, white dude.

Don't get me wrong, no one wants to punch John Edwards in the face more than me. Whenever he mounts a stage, I want to sob violently. The hair, the suit, EVERYTHING about John Edwards makes him look like a typical, lying politician.

Except, Edwards is the ONLY candidate gunning for the rich, which is weird because HE'S rich. He even pays way too much for his haircuts, you might have heard. It's like the ghost of Christmas Future visited Edwards and showed him his lonely, unfulfilling fate if he kept pedaling for corporate interests.

The new Edwards is thirsty for the blood of multinational corporations. I'm inclined to believe him because he's risking everything by choosing this road to the White House. He actually told CBS: "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy."

Say whaaaaat? Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. D.C. is stuffed with corporate fat cats who bully and cajole politicians into voting the right legislation through for the right price.

How the hell does Edwards expect to win with "Fuck the Rich" as his platform? Who does he think he is with his "publicly funded election?" Eugene Debs? COMMUNIST, I say! SOCIALIST!

Get this: Edwards thinks we should totally reform health care WITHOUT the help of the big, insurance companies that dicked us in the first place. What MADNESS is this?! Now I know why his perm is so expensive. Stalin is living in his hair!

In my opinion, the biggest threat facing America isn't terrorism or the Chinese. It's the widening class divide. The rich are too rich, the poor too poor, and the only candidate seriously addressing this issue is John Edwards.

I want to see him go head-to-head with Barack Obama in debates because Barack could still end up taking on corporate lobbyists, but I think only if John Edwards presses him to the left. And I hope he does just that.

Comments

[jade7243]

The author of the post is accountable for the content and she's gotten something else wrong.

Barack Obama did not grow up wealthy. The story line is familiar and in print via his own hand. Read "Dream of My Father," by Barack Obama.

His father abandoned his mother and him when Barack was two. She was a single parent. She remarried and moved with Barack's Indonesian stepfather to that country. She had a daughter. That marriage fell apart and they returned to the US. Barack lived with his grandparents -- not wealthy -- in Hawaii where they were living.

Please Allison, if you are going to take it upon your self to write about someone's biography, do some research and get it right. Other people have already taken you to task on screwing up the plot line for W & G. If you're lazy about that little point, how do your readers trust anything else you write.

If you're going to talk politics on a political blog, work harder, read more, write better.

[ERod]

Ms. Kilkenny should issue a factual correction. She got the episode of Will & Grace wrong. In that episode, Will supported a gay candidate, and Grace supported a Jewish female candidate. When Will and Grace held a campaign fundraiser for the two candidates, Grace finds out that her candidate is a racist (the candidate says she's happy to see so many white faces in attendance) and Will finds out that his candidate wants to deport all homeless people from New York City. It's only at the very end of the episode that someone merely mentions that there's also a black candidate. Will and Grace then dump their candidates and rush to vote for the black candidate.

[clr2]

How can Edwards be "gunning for the rich"? He is the rich! He isn't too rich he is too, too rich. And where did he get his money? He is an ambulance chasing lawyer. Sorry I don't vote for lawyers especially those kind.

[realitytrumpsbull]

File it all under 'promises, promises'. I don't care what your ethnicity is, and your gender isn't that important in latter-day america,
mainly the thing that people seem to care about these days is how much money you've got, and what strategy would best enable them to relieve you of that problem.
Now, 'the government' isn't exactly the Mob,
but there's some kind of issue, there, and there's nothing stopping anyone from instantly catapulting themselves into 'the middle class' by signing up for one of them there Government Jobs. Get yourself a fancy government job, presto, guaranteed income, healthcare, you can be part of one of them union things, your ticket is punched, shy of a depression or screwing up so egregiously that they HAVE to fire you. So, GO for it. Black, white, male, female, hot-pink with purple pinstripes hermaphroditic sulphur-breathing mutant wonder of nature, doesn't matter, just get you a Government Job, and it'll make it All Better...

LOL

[brooklyncitizen]

This a good post and wonderful piece of writing.

I'm still not convinced about Edwards especially his foreign policy views. No one candidate will be all to any one constituent. But God help us if we get stuck with Hillary: we got stuck with her in NY and what has she done for us lately?????????

[Kissydee]

Well put. This blog sums up my feelings exactly. Which is why I'm praying that I have a chance to vote for John Edwards in my late-February primary.

[yappnmutt]

you have summed up the electorate. the great majority are stupid and vote based upon stupid and/or ignorant information. the candidate who is able to harness this ignorance wins.

despite the substance of edward's campaign he will trounce the other candidates in the pretty boy vote.

[seted]

Thank you for the article,
I couldn't agree with you more. I know a lot of people are for him here in SC.

[bodhibabe]

If Americans were brave enough, we would elect Dennis Kucinich. Funny little eccentric guy who speaks the truth and knows what he's talking about. Not electable? What does that mean anyway? He gets spit out of the American political machine?

[Qbear]

Funny you Bring up Will and Grace concerning a Black and a Woman candidate...because it very well might be decided by LGBTs and single women voters.
go know...not such a sh*tty sh*tty Sh*tty show afterall.

btw. if you couldn't laugh at Karen, you might want to check the fluids in your sense of humor....you sound a quart low.

[LeeFromVA]

Edwards was never anti-corporation when he was in the Senate and could have made a difference, nor was that his platform 4 years ago, so it comes across as insincere. The wonderful thing about this election is that there is a black man and a woman running and race and gender have little to do it. Obama is consistent, he isn't going to develop some populist position this late in the game to win votes. He's always been someone who is able to see both sides of an issue, probably because he grew up with his own identity issues. He's exactly what this country needs right now, and people are starting to realize that. He wouldn't have gotten anywhere just being the black guy, and he'll have mad respect when beats someone as formidible as HRC.

[Nommo]

"The Black guy or the woman", and thus we are reduced to terms of an equation, the sort that a racist, sexist society can easily digest, when they have to digest at all.

[imfedup]

Why you dissin' Will and Grace?

[Metacortex]

Excellent analysis. I fully agree with your priorities. Probably the most pressing issue for me is whether or not the next president will rollback or further advance the unprecedented powers granted during Bush's term.

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. "
~Thomas Jefferson (another white dude)

[ThisIsAllJustADream]

Yes, to think we could have all that AND a democratic candidate who has a better chance to win the white house than Hillary or Barack, and yet so few voters are biting.

I thought us democrats were supposed to be smart? Pay attention, people!