Yes, indeed.
I wonder what people think about the
chances of Obama’s success, given the hard and deep reality of racism in the US. Is this
country really ready to elect a black president?
Joan
From: Feminist ethics and social theory [mailto:FEAST-L@kookaburra1.jmu.edu] On Behalf Of Janine Jones JCJONES2
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 2:34
PM
To: FEAST-L@kookaburra1.jmu.edu
Subject: Re: FW: NYTimes.com:
Judith Warner: Woman in Charge, Women Who Charge
And piggy-backing on what you say here, Gail (thanks for
your comments), a lot of racist comments directed at Obama and his
voters/supporters were not conceivable as such, for the reasons you give.
Front certain viewpoints it was absolutely clear that Obama dealt with a great
deal of unnamed, dare I say unnameable racism. In postings a couple of
weeks ago Sarah Hoagland made reference to the construction of ignorance. (She
was referencing Charles Mills, who is concerned with certain forms of cognitive
dissonance.) I think that leaving things unnamed, making them
unnameable -- e.g. certain forms of racism -- is one of the key ways in
which ignorance is constructed. As you say, racism and sexism
operate in different ways. Going hand-in-hand with Mills project one
might ask both why certain forms of racism are unnamed, they have become
unnameable, and what are the effects of the kind of ignorance thereby
constructed.
-----Feminist ethics and social theory <FEAST-L@kookaburra1.jmu.edu> wrote: -----
To: FEAST-L@kookaburra1.JMU.EDU
From: Gaile Pohlhaus <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: Feminist ethics and social theory
<FEAST-L@kookaburra1.jmu.edu>
Date: 06/08/2008 01:46PM
Subject: Re: FW: NYTimes.com: Judith Warner: Woman in Charge, Women Who Charge
I think it is very important that we recognize the
amount of misogyny that has transpired over H. Clinton's
bid for the nomination and I also think juxtaposing that misogyny to the
popularity of Sex in the City is brilliant (a show that my students continue to
tell me is "really diverse"—because each of the 4 women have really
different attitudes about sex... there are so many different ways white
women can relate themselves to men! Imagine that?). Still, I am not
sure how helpful it is to say "if similarly hateful racial remarks had
been made about Obama, our nation would have turned itself inside out in a
paroxysm of soul-searching and shame. Had mainstream commentators in
2000 speculated, say, that Joe Lieberman had a nose for dough, or made funny Shylock
references, heads would have rolled." Racism and anti-Semitism don't operate in the exact same ways that sexism and
misogyny do, so why would we expect such easy comparisons? While I
imagine
the statement is intended to emphasize how far we have *not* come with
regard to sexism and misogyny, it can (and I think does) have the effect of
making it seem like we *have* come a long way with regard to racism and
anti-semitism/Christo-normativity. And the ironic thing (to my mind) is that
one of the reasons (I believe) that we don't
hear blatant racist jokes out in the open in the media is precisely because
white America wants so much to pretend that race & racism do not exist
anymore (one of the ways racism operates: problem? what problem?) —so it would
seem that many would be very quick to read the statement in the "wow
racism just doesn’t exist anymore, does it?" way. Consequently, the
_effect_ of the statement is to make a (purportedly) feminist point off the
backs of people of color and nonChristians, isn't
it?
There's been plenty of racism
abounding in this primary and the Obamas lives have been plenty disrupted by
it--they can't even join a new
religious community until the campaign is over for fear that reporters will
continually disrupt that community hoping to get sound bites that will scare
white America. The fact that that racism comes in ways that are different
from the ways in which sexism comes should be no surprise to this list.
Easy comparisons at the expense of nonChristian women and women of color
only undermine feminist work.
In Solidarity,
GP, jr.