I have been offline caring for a loved one who took ill. She is recovering well. Hospital care - -despite its many shortcomings -- has a routine excellence we don't often see in other compartments of our lives.
Healthcare also provides the chance to see modern American diversity perform at its very best. My family received good and caring treatment from people of every racial and ethnic background - -African-American, Jewish, and Arab-American doctors, nurses from every background, the ambulance drivers and others. In the face of medical emergencies, the pull of our common humanity is stronger than the tribal identities that so easily pollute other things.
While attending to personal matters, I caught Representative Ferraro's non-apology for her comment that Barack Obama is lucky to be Black in this presidential race. This is all so 1985. Ms. Ferraro seems oblivious to the possibility that Senator Obama is winning because he is an exceptionally smart, charismatic, and disciplined candidate with special appeal to voters experiencing serious Clinton fatigue. She seems equally oblivious to the possibility that comments such as hers explain why many people are so Clinton-fatigued in the first place.
Whatever the intention behind Representative Ferraro's original comments, she is truculently persisting. She is riding the talk-show circuit with the apparent, tacit approval of the Clinton campaign, on whose finance committee she sits. They seem content to play this one out, stoking racial resentments within a key market segment of Pennsylvania voters.
There are many positive arguments to make on Senator Clinton's behalf. I will vote for her, need be, come November. I will not be happy. This line of attack reflects poorly on Representative Ferraro, and on Senator Clinton's increasingly dismaying and negative campaign.
Most recently, Ms. Ferraro opined,
I will not be discriminated against because I'm white. If they think they're going to shut up Geraldine Ferraro with that kind of stuff, they don't know me.
I know enough. We are trying to move beyond this stuff. We are trying to be a better nation than Geraldine Ferraro's comments presume we are. We don't need these little drops of racial poison in our national life.
Ms. Ferraro, is there some nicer way we can ask you to be quiet?
Read more HuffPost coverage and reaction to Geraldine Ferraro's comments
Postscript: The day of my posting, the gentle Representative's time expired in the Clinton campaign. Good.
Actually, no. There isn't nor should there be a civil response to racists. But let me try.
My mother worked for the railroad in the 1950s and had to ask Black people to move to the back of the train when they crossed the Mason-Dixon line. She knew it was wrong, but she was 20. What was she going to say or do? She told me a story about a fellow employee--a white women--who was fired because it was discovered that she was married to a black man. My mother thought this was wrong and unfair, but it was the 1960s and it was legal. She said that the husband came down to work to object, but it did no good. She said he was very dignified and articulate and wore a suit. She told us these stories when we were kids. I was born in 1961. For all practical purposes, African Americans did not have the right to vote in many parts of this country until after I was born.
Well, this is not the 1950s or the 1960s. And there is something we can say and do now.
Geraldine Ferraro you are a racist and your comments are disgusting, absurd, and false. What's worse, I believe you already know this and I believe your comments are consciously designed to appeal to and exploit racial anxieties for votes. I am embarrassed as an American to have this ignorance in a presidential campaign.
And as Obama himself said, being an African-American named Barack Obama does not give him an advantage running for president in the U.S.
Ferraro is a racist and remarks like these will come back to haunt the Democratic Party.
Her add was not only meant to scare people but remind white voters about the possibility of a black man attacking a white family.
This is evident by the fact that 25 percent of voters in Ohio said race was a factor and 8 out of 10 voted for Senator Clinton.
The issue is not so much whether Senator Clinton is a racist but whether she will use race to get what she wants at any cost.
If Mrs. Clinton truly disagreed with Mrs. Ferraro, she should have criticized Mrs. Ferraro for such comments, not making excuses
That does have a amount of star draw power and we all agree on that. That is all she was trying to say not anything else the spin doctors are trying to turn in to a racist issue. It is the Obama camp and now Obama himself who is trying to pump more into it so they can suck more out of it for Political gain. Typical politics.
We had a whole tread where we talked open and honestly about things like this and now we are resorting to making that thread a sham by this kind of discussion. Here Geraldine Ferraro was relating in and open way her personal lessons learned as to why she was the VP on the ticket. Now was that her only qualifications ..no. She had some experience and had done a lot of good work and was also ask for that. She had to have political qualification other then being a woman or they would have just picked any woman with a big name or a woman off the street. Still one of the biggest factors of picking her at that time was to create star power from her being a woman. The Times and what she brought was responsible for that. The times and who Barack Obama is (all parts of him) is making him the success he is today. He could not have done this 30 years ago or even 20 years ago or maybe even 10 years ago. To say there have never been qualified African Americans before Barack Obama that could have run for office before 2008 is just absurd an not true. The list is way to long to even attempt to say that... it has been shameful and stupid that we as American have not had such ability and wisdom running for President long before 2008 just because of ones race or gender.
What she is saying bottom line is that qualification and experience is not being place on a equal standing with other factors in the success of Barack Obama in 2008 just like qualification and experience was not being placed on equal standing when she was asked to run as VP in 84. Ask yourself what YOUR motives are for sharing in this thread?
Look past the smoke screen it is not that hard to do. She is kind of right that they are attacking her and yes her being white is part of the excuse but they could care less about her race it is the opportunity to attack for political advantage that is the important part. She could be purple or any other color and they would use it. This has nothing to do with Racism in any direction ....it is just who can take and twist and turn for political gain. A show, A Act. We the people are the only ones getting hurt in all this. I don’t buy into it from either side after the fact of her first comments. My above post says what she was originally trying to say and relate to and anything and everything beyond that is just media hype and political gamesmanship.
From the Politico:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/A_Ferraro_flashback.html
"If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race," she said.
Really. The cite is an April 15, 1988 Washington Post story (byline: Howard Kurtz), available only on Nexis.
Here's the full context:
Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."
Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, "Millions of Americans have a point of view different from" Ferraro's.
Discussing the same point in Washington, Jackson said, "We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got North to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history."
Those of us who support Obama because he's been right about policy find Ferraro's comments delusional.
Hillary voted for the war and embraces the DLC and lobbyists.
She's pushing Mitt Romney's corporatist wet dream health mandate on us for peet's sake.
Making this about race when it's not is PLAYING THE RACE CARD.
Geraldine is defending the status quo establishment instead of trying to shatter glass ceilings.
Sorta the way Samantha Power apologized non-stop and offered up her own resignation to symbolize the gravity of her remarks, y'know?
Instead, Ferraro flies off the handle, caring more about her image than the people she offended, and the Clinton campaign uses the chance to accuse Obama's campaign of being racist. Now Ferraro's off trying to open up discussions/rants about white guilt. Hey - 20% of all Ohio voters said race affected their choice and 80% of those went and voted for Hillary. With Ed Rendell openly admitting that his own state of Pennsylvania is rife with such voters, why do anything to change those trends when they can help you in another primary? Hillary has NOT ONCE since Super Tuesday exhibited an ability to "rise above" the destructive arguments. Instead, she is so threatened by losing that she doesn't even have the strength or self-respect to "denounce and reject," as she demanded Obama do.