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My Evening With Harriet Christian
It was when the DNC's Rules & Bylaws Committee made its ruling on Michigan that Harriet Christian came into my life.
From a few rows behind me, her piercing, wizened, New York voice rang out through the awkward silences in the auditorium of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.
I wish now I could remember each and everything she said. All I remember is that I was glad she was saying it. The DNC had just committed a crime, and I was happy that there was someone unashamed to reveal her fury to all those present.
As we all exited the ballroom -- many of us in disgust -- I saw the cameras swarm in on our Harriet. I decided to stay and watch her in her glory.
In fact, I have a confession to make. It was I who encouraged Harriet to stay and to face the cameras. Each time she wanted to storm from the lobby in a fiery exeunt, it was I who stopped her, consoled her, turned her around, and told her "Your anger needs to be heard, friend. Don't stop."
Did I think that she could have been more coherent at first? Yes, I did. Did I feel that she was flirting with the edge of reason? Yes, I did. Would I have had her change a thing? No, I wouldn't.
I would like to add that I don't condone any correlation between the words "black" and "inadequate." It is my belief that she was not *equating* "black" with "inadequate." I believe she was saying that *Obama* is inadequate, and that he is where he is because of affirmative action tactics -- much as Geraldine Ferraro has said, and not unlike Joe Biden's misspeak last year. Again, though, not words I personally would have ever chosen.
Many have criticized Harriet for what is being categorized as her "circus antics." What they call "antics," I call the red blood of Democracy. She was angry. She was angry as I was angry. We were angry as thousands of people were angry. That anger needed a voice that wasn't couched behind cold, intellectually dishonest reason.
The DNC had committed an act of war, and Harriet was firing back with bullets of passion. Was she the best marksman? Perhaps not. But did she reveal to America the depth of frustration that many, many people are feeling right now? That she did.
We all know that -- had she been as calm and collected as so many of you feel she should have been -- that she wouldn't have the nearly 800,000 YouTube hits she now does. Her voice has been heard.
Is that to say that I believe that Harriet was seeking attention? Not at all. As I've said, it was I who kept the fires of encouragement lit beneath her. She has since confessed to me many a time how she now fears that her emotions might be used to hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign. That is the last thing she wants. She simply wanted to cry out against injustice... as so many of us often want to do, but so few of us actually do.
And, for the record: No, she hadn't been drinking. I had the fortune of talking with Harriet well into the night that night. (It was 2am when we finally said "Good night" to one another). While I was knocking back my white Russians and my margaritas, she touched nothing but her Diet Coke. She hasn't touched alcohol since 1985. The only thing she was drunk on that afternoon was indignation.
I hope you will all take the time to get to know Harriet as I have. Harriet is salty. Harriet is a firecracker. Harriet is many things. But Harriet is not a lunatic. She is a life long New Yorker who has worked for civil rights for over forty years. She's a woman full of life and passion. She's a woman who gave her emotions free reign for a few well-televised minutes.
Let those of you who have not exploded in anger cast the first stone... whether or not you were on TV when you did so.
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It needs to be repeated: Women have also benefitted from affirmative action. It's possible Harriet Christian is one of them.
It's offensive is she is parroting a talking point, the same one that Republicans and people like Rush Limbaugh are using to discredit Sen. Obama.
I never thought I'd see or hear a fellow democrat behave in the manner a lot are doing. It's really opened my eyes.
Well, what it did for me is a loss of all respect I had for woman. I used to think they were infinitely smarter than men, but this contest has shown me they can be just as stupid. First of all what she claimed simply was not true, substract Limbaugh's chaos votes and Hillary would not have been in the lead with the popular vote. Didn't anyone notice after Ohio the comments "Ha Ha, all thirteen of us Replublicans voted for Hillary" Why was that a secret? Second the popular vote did not count. Third, the NY supreme ruled that a political party has every right to choose it's own candidate. We were lucky to even have a say. Finally it would not have made the difference regardless how they voted. Finally it was McAullife who a few years back claimed that if the rules were not followed chaos would result in subsequent elections. You forget the 17 million of us who would vote for McCain if Hillary would have taken the momination away. Finally, the four million who will vote for McCain out of spite probably are part of the 20 million Limbaugh dittoheads. Oh, I think the Replublicans know how to use google as well as I, so they really wanted Hillary to be the nominee. Try it and see what you come up with. Have you happened to notice what is going on?
It's time to move past this now.
Will
that was a wonderful comedy post. How you kept that dry irony going all the way through was masterful. When your next stand-up show?
Harriet may be a salty firecracker of a woman, but she made a jackass of herself and presented the country with a parody of all the disappointed "older white women" who were angry about Clinton's loss. That's the problem. Of course she has the right to speak up. She apparently chose (thanks to your unprincipled nudging) to explode on camera. Not a smart decision. But since you encouraged her to do so, why didn't you get out there and yell with her, show a little solidarity? Was it because you were too smart to make a fool of yourself? Was it because you were under the influence of reason, unlike this very angry woman who spoke in the heat of the moment and probably will come to regret her outburst?
I wouldn't be proud of being the one who encouraged Ms. Christian to stay and make a complete fool of herself. I would be apologizing.
There was no crime committed, not even close. The Rules Committee was being generous to count any of the delegates from the bogus primaries. If anything, Obama was the one who was robbed by Clinton getting more then half the delegates. Teh Rules committee had stated the primaries "would not count." Clinton said they "would not count." To turn around and count them was a travesty. The delegates for Michigan and Florida should have been allocated on any other basis but the primary elections, If, without considering the invalid primary elections, no other reasonable basis could be found, then 50% to each was the only reasonable allocation.
Ms. Christian didn't appreciate this and instead made a fool of herself ranting about calling people Black and Whie and her being a nonentity and basically throwing a whining temper tantrum. You, Mr. Bower should be deeply ashamed for inciting her.
I'm glad she spoke out, too. She showed the true face of the Clinton campaign.
Crime? Act of war? Trolling for Ickes? Look, if you don't understand politics maybe you should take a course.
It's really simple, troll, so I'll use small words that you might be able to understand. Clinton was awarded zero (0) delegates from Michigan and Florida because those states ran unrecognized delegate selection contests. Those states then presented challenges to the RBC to reinstate their delegations in full and with full voting power. The RNC voted to do so only with one half voting power. The only other issue was delegate allocation.
The Florida primary at least had both candidates on the ballot so despite being restricted from campaigning in the state, there was at least a semblance of fair reflection, so the delegate allocation based on the primary was a fair compromise.
Michigan, on the other hand, did not have both candidates on the ballot, so the fair part of fair reflection just wasn't there. Since the primary was unrecognized and there was no way to determine fair reflection, an alternative delegate allocation was crafted by the state of Michigan and accepted by the RBC. Clinton did not have delegates stolen from her, she was awarded delegates to which she otherwise had absolutely no claim.
As Donna Brazile has pointed out, there were enough votes off camera (and out of Ms. Christian's awareness) to make it a 50:50 split. It was the Obama people that recommended that the committee compromise and given Hillary the 69 delegates that the Michigan state's representatives recommended (including Gov. Granholm, a Hillary supporter!). Obama's people did this as an "olive branch". Hillary wanted 100% of the vote she received in an invalid primary election, and 0% for Obama (This was also in Ms. Brazile's Huffington Post article several days ago.) Yes, this was 4 delegates fewer than the "primary" results would have allotted Hillary. But research showed that Hillary was the second choice of many of those who voted for her, because Obama's name was not on the ballot. This point alone would suggest the 73 delegate count would have been excessive. In addition, the research showed that 75% of those who voted "uncommitted" were trying to vote for Obama. Also, there were 30,000 write-in votes (out of approximately 600,000 votes) that could not be counted, because Obama (and the other three candidates that removed their names from the ballot) were not registered, pursuant to their understanding of the DNC rule penalizing Michigan. Harold Ickes' disingenuous rant/sound bite exacerbated the situation. I thought he was one of the initiators of the rule to penalize Michigan and Florida to begin with, i.e., give them 0 votes. Another crazy part of the political circus!
You angry Clinton supporters have a right to be angry but you have to stay away for your race-based affirmative action arguments, because wouldn't YOU think it awful if someone reduced YOUR candidate's lifetime accomplishments to sheer affirmative action? And YES, white women have also been HUGE beneficiaries of affirmative action. And rightly so.
Affirmative action by definition means using minority status to break a tie between two equally competent individuals. Instead it's become codeword for a convenient attack on any minority that has a powerful position a non-minority wants. Would you like McCain to have said Clinton became a one-and-a-half-term Senator only through women's affirmative action and being somebody's wife? Of course not.
You can be angry, but if you scream and accuse, expect people to scream and accuse back.
The writer is suggesting she's no better than anyone else, and that we shouldn't cast stones?
I'll try to remember that the next time I fly (or drive, whatever) across half a country to protest any decision but the one that gives my candidate a 100% victory, cry foul when the decision doesn't go my way, then stand up in front of national television - three days before the last Primaries - and call the other candidate an "inadequate black male".
Harriet has forught for 40 years for equality??
With her help no wonder it is taking so damn long.
:-D
Oh "shut up", to quote another attendee at the DNC hearings. I believe that the word "bitter" goes a long way to describe Hillary and her angry followers. Something happened to these women on the way to the White House race. Something really awful.
As a 50 something white woman I have been discriminated against for being a woman, passed over for promotions, called the c word by my ex, and have struggled to make ends meet and put two kids through college while spending way too much energy making sure their father did his share. But I can hardly say that all of this happened because there was some black man stealing my rightful place.
I'm not bitter. I'm stronger. And I am not angry that we didn't elect Hillary. She's not the one. Our time will come.
And by the way, I date a black man - a very adaquate one, thank you very much.
You go Carenoi - LOL!
Congrats for perservering. I hope all the struggle was worth where you got to.
I really appreciate you!!! Senator Obama has helped me come to grips about mixed relationships and marriages. I applaud you for being with someone who makes you very happy.
Something wonderful happened between the Sr. Obama and Ms. Dunham. To meet that has made all of the difference in the world.
I really am proud where America has come from. This gives me great confidence about the remaining distance that we have yet to go.
I look forward to the day, perhaps, in 2016, that we elect the first female President.
Rather than being disillusioned to the pending outcome, we just have to know that it is Senator Hillary Clinton has more than paved the way for a woman to be President of the United States!!!
AdvantageObama '08
I am a white woman 61 years old. I am not rich....I am not poor. I live in Kansas, in rural America. My husband is a farmer. I am the demographic of those supposedly outraged women incensed that Hillary isn't getting the nomination and taking it personally. Only thing is.....I'm not outraged. I'm for Obama and could have been for Hillary but for the way she ran her campaign, especially in these final months. I think women like Harriet Christian took their cues from Hillary thinking, like I've long suspected Hillary does, that she should somehow have an entitlement to the nomination. Believing you're entitled because your math is fuzzy and includes delegates you haven't earned and leaves out delegates earned by Obama in caucuses, and having a hissy fit in public about it, just makes you look like the crazy old fool that many people have called you.
As a 62 year old white woman, not rich...not poor, in Charleston, SC, I am also not outraged that Hillary will not get the nomination. I was for Obama before he announced he was running and rejoiced when he announced he was running, but thought I could vote for Hillary if things didn't pan out. After her negative campaigning and outright lies and smears I knew I would NEVER vote for her. There is a point that can be reached before you are considered a spoiled brat demanding what has not been earned, and Hillary reached that point a couple of months ago. I think she should be completely shunned for any post in this administration, and to be considered as the VP candidate is really laughable considering her conduct during the primaries.
As a 61 year old white woman, I am relieved Hillary did not get the nomination. My 89 year old mother is for Obama. My sister has been for Clinton, but is happy to vote for Obama now. We all appreciate the desire of women of our generation to elect a woman president. I have a friend who voted for Hillary in the primary solely because she was a woman. She thought she was dishonest, but said she'd vote for her anyway because she passed the threshhold of being competent. She just wanted to vote for a woman. The identity politics has been so divisive and so misguided. Obama has not acted in a sexist manner. For Obama to tell Hillary during a debate that she is "likeable enough" after she'd been ridiculing him on the stump for weeks and coyly set him up with the query during the debate was not sexist. It was gentlemanly. To call a young female reporter "sweetie" (like we call our daughters) is not sexist--unless you choose to hear it that way for your own neurotic reasons. Tone of voice says it was not sexist. I'm thrilled Obama is our presumptive nominee (and Michelle Obama is our presumptive nominee's wife). He and she are a breath of fresh air! Hillary should stop fanning the flames of her "outraged" female voters, in contrast to what she did Tuesday night. Hopefully, she will bring a fire extinguisher with her to the event on Saturday . .
Harriet was clearly preoccupied with race. You can call me white but I can't call you black she said. Inadequate Black Male she said. I'm less than a second class citizen, said the lady from Manhattan. Where the per capita income is twice what it is elsewhere in New York City.
Her comments aren't racially motivated, said the ridiculous on the bus guy. She's talking about affirmative action, said the on the bus guy, revealing his own prejudice in his assumption Obama's success is indeed a result of social promotion.
Question for Will Bower, genius at large:
Obama graduated in the top 1% of his class at Harvard Law.
Hillary failed the DC bar.
Who's the real affirmative action beneficiary here?
This bashing of HRC and all her supporters has to stop. The DNC awarded MI delegates to a candidate that didn't earn them. They blatantly violated their own rules for the sake of "party unity". Exactly how can "unity" be achieved when one candidate's delegates are given to another. That is outright theft. Perhaps some would argue that it's payback for a long history of... something. Well, in our society, if you commit murder, it's not justifiable homicide just because murder has been committed by others in the past. Anyway, I accept the fact that Barack Obama has won a large number of delegates and has run an extremely successful campaign. But Hillary Clinton has won the major states Democrats need to win in November, she has won more of the popular vote, and she is really not that far behind Obama. It's outright disgraceful the way she is being vilified, in the press and generally. That treatment is a large reason why her supporters are so outraged. The Obama supporters at that DNC meeting and others cannot seem to contain their contempt for her and her campaign. This is irrational and undeserved. It's also very thinly disguised sexism that no one seems to acknowledge as a bad thing - except for Hillary Clinton. She has a right to keep going - she is not that far behind and has run an historic campaign.
"Perhaps some would argue that it's payback for a long history of... something."
Have you seen or heard anyone make that particular argument about Michigan? I haven't. I'll bet you haven't either.
"But Hillary Clinton has won the major states Democrats need to win in November, she has won more of the popular vote, and she is really not that far behind Obama."
The one and only criterion is delegate count, and that didn't just occur this year. That's been the criterion for a long time, and you know as well as I do that if Clinton was ahead in that one relevant criterion, YOU WOULD NOT BE COMPLANING.
I beg to disagree. Senator Clinton HAD NOT EARNED the delegates until they were AWARDED by the RBC. I don't believe that you have forgotten that both FL/MI participated in a primary that WAS NOT SANCTIONED by the DNC.
What Senator Clinton received was a GIFT from the RBC.
I understand WHY you were disappointed about the outcome on Saturday and potentially tonight's outcome. As an African American, I would feel the same way if the situation was reversed.
I do agree that is way past time that a woman became the President of the US. Because of Senator Obama's pending nomination that nominating and electing a woman as President of the US.
We need your demographic to keep the Republicans out of the White House. Senator Obama's demographic will certainly help guarantee that a woman will be elected as President.
A female democratic candidate can certainly count on my support in the future!
AdvantageObama '08
This women mentioned in the article (A true bigot, she is no friend of black people.she's worse than the clan because see poses as decent people)..Wow, stop making excuses for white racism. I always thought White Democrats we reasonable people, that some how they understood the value of working collectively....
Wow, just let HRC take it to the convention..ruin this illusion of fairness... She has no shame, she isn't a stateman/stateswomen of any sort. I clearly understand why Rep hate her...After all black folks have done in supporting her and that lying fake dollar Bill.
Please go
You're alluding to the "white guilt" excuse.
Funny how people that vote for Obama always have to explain why.
Can it possibly be because he speaks to us? That we believe in his message?That we see him as a good, accomplished, capable leader?
No no, can't be that? It must be only because we're stupid and feel like we HAVE to vote based on guilt!
You have completely disregarded the fact that Obama had the votes for a 50/50 split of the Michigan delegates and chose to take the 69/59 split that favored Clinton more than himself. There was no crime committed at the RBC meeting. Florida and Michigan did not have any delegates going into the meeting. They left with delegates. Just because they did not go entirely Clinton's way does not make it a crime. This anger toward Obama over this is irrational and it does nothing but hurt the country. If people are going to vote for McCain over this, I pray for our country because we will need every prayer we can get if McCain is elected.
yes:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=H00mg4KE_uI
It's not irrational to be angry that a candidate who voluntarily chose not to put his name on the ballot in MI not only get delegates which represent the valid category of "uncommitted", but he also gets delegates which Hillary Clinton won outright. That is not democratic. It's just as undemocratic as the Supreme Court appointing George Bush president when Al Gore actually won.
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