This weekend the New York Times Week in Review wondered which would freak America out more: the possibility of a black man as president, or a white woman? The general consensus seems to be that race trumps gender, and voters are more willing to risk a POTUS who's hysterical and prone to bombing countries when it's that time of the month, than all the myriad nightmares that racists all over the country will conjure to wring their hands over with glee.
Most interesting was a quote by Mr. David A. Bositis, a member of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. He noted, "If it's the right black candidate, I do think there is propensity to elect a black. But has to be the right black candidate."
Bositis is right, and this qualifier is the key to the PR frenzy to figure out who will sell better, Obama or Clinton. The hoops we will make these particular candidates jump through are indicative of what workers all over the country endure. Anyone in a minority who presumes to eye an upper rung on the ladder must exude the qualities of the majority in order to prove their worthiness for the job. Senator Obama will have to prove that he's not that kind of black man, just as he may very well have to prove that he's not that black. (While he'll assure his base that he is proud of his black heritage and that his race is only an issue in that acts as proof of the obstacles he's overcome.) Polls will be taken, theories will be offered, and staffers will come together to ask each other: what sort of black is the right black?
Similarly, Senator Clinton will have to prove she's woman enough, because if people are wary of having a woman in the Oval Office, they're terrified that she won't be the sort of woman who will want to decorate it to her sensitive tastes. "Does chintz make it look like I'm soft on immigration?" What kind of woman is the right woman?
Members of minorities in every professional field know this conundrum well. Women in the corporate jungle must make efforts to prove their femininity with the right touches of skirt suits, jewelry and make up. Meanwhile, the traits that propel them up the corporate ladder - aggressiveness, ingenuity, a sense of savvy - are all accredited one's ability to think and act "like a man." Workers of color must learn to speak in the tongues of the Interview. In the Blue Collar market, where even the language you speak becomes a signifier of where you cultural allegiance lies, the requirements for advancement are even more tedious and hegemonic.
Members of both racial and gender majorities don't have these tightropes to walk. Culturally, Americans have a fairly congruous understanding of what "Whiteness" and "Maleness" means, for better or for worse. It's only when some one outside of these rudimentary descriptions, someone who part of the Others, which both Senators Obama and Clinton are, that we scramble for some sort of label. In defining an Other, we can better understand it, better control it. This is America after all, and if you can package it right, anything will sell.
Can America handle the thought of a black President more than the thought of a woman in the White House? It depends which gets the shiniest packaging: the Noble Black Man, or the Woman Who Will Still Know Her Place. Democrat: It's what's for dinner!