Let's Reject All the Isms

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

The Obama campaign is in a dither because Clinton-supporter Geraldine Ferarro observed, in public, that Obama is getting the lion’s share of the African-American vote and they are crying foul. They see racism.

But whoa!!!!

After every state’s votes are counted, the media rush to note that Hillary Clinton has got a majority of the women’s vote, with special emphasis on white women. That would be sexism, then, wouldn’t it? With a tinge of reverse racism yet!

So what’s the difference? Are the observations equally inappropriate, or are we going to have dueling isms, a rank-ordering of which ism is better (or worse) than the others. Which ism is truly taboo. Which ism is little more than petty quibbling.

A friend and I noticed something interesting this morning. One of us is an Obama supporter, the other is a Clinton supporter. The Clinton supporter is livid over the sexism and misogyny that she perceives in press coverage of Hillary’s campaign and doesn’t see why it’s so horrible to note that African-Americans might be disproportionately in favor of Obama. The Obama supporter doesn’t notice the vitriol that’s been directed toward Hillary, but she’s not so happy about references to the African-American vote.

Interesting, no?

And come the general election, we’ll have another ism to contend with. Ageism. Most twenty somethings should pray to be able to function at the intellectual level of John McCain—and he’s zipping around a lot faster than a log of sluggish sixteen year olds I’ve known. But the age issue comes up all the time. Is seventy really that old in the 21st century? Isn’t it time to stop throwing words like geezer around? Even Golden Ager is pretty contemptuous.

So let’s face facts. We have an African-American, a woman and a guy with white hair in this campaign. They are all pretty sharp. They are all very well informed. It’s possible to have very strong personal feelings about one or the other, it’s possible to make meaningful policy differentiations, but let’s agree that all the isms are equally unsavory and to be condemned.

Comments

[Courtenay Barnett]

So some white
women support Hillary because she is a woman - and - some African - Americans support Obama because he is African-American. But, the offence seemed to derive from the fact of claiming that it was his "African-Americaness" that gave Obama an easy ride- is this a fair observation - is it at all close to the truth?
Courtenay

[bbot]

Interesting that you mention ageism, then turn around and insult everyone, male or female, white or black, under the age of twenty.

Since questioning the ability of an old man to lead is so much worse than questioning the mental competence of the young, of course.

[Courtenay Barnett]

READ....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/opinion/11patterson.html

[Karin]

Yeah, McCain is so well informed he keeps talking about Al Qaeda in Iran.