NARAL has endorsed Obama. This is an inexcusable betrayal of a feminist champion, a woman running for president.
It’s not only a betrayal and extremely disrespectful — a slap in the face — it’s also insanely stupid.
They could have fucking waited another month for her to drop out and then diplomatically endorsed the Democratic candidate. They didn’t have to do this. They’re also way off the mark — Obama is not a feminist. His only claim to feminist fame is having a woman for a spouse. He’s a fence-sitting, non-woman-employing, non-discerning regular privileged male. Why do feminists seem to think that because he’s not white, he’s more of a liberal? He isn’t.
It’s also extremely stupid because Hillary is not dropping out of the race and then dropping out of politics. She’s not packing up and going home. She’s a powerful senator, and they’re fucking going to live to regret this backstabbing, and for once, I will say they deserve it.
I hope Hillary remembers — I’m actually sure she will remember — all the liberals who’ve stabbed her in the back.
Fucking assholes.
Filed under: Feminism
Just wanted to say HI. I found your blog a few days ago on Technorati and have been reading it over the past few days.
In case you haven’t seen it yet…the “sweetheart” incident.
It is a measure of America’s political and moral decline that people like myself are now reading conspiracy theories into so much that is happening on the American public stage – conspiracy theories that are usually the corollary of the sullied muddied hopelessness of failed states.
Something just does not ring true! What’s the point of NARAL’s jumping the gun this way? Wasn’t it obvious that they stood to antagonize their own supporters? For what???….anything at all that they would not have gained had they waited for Hillary to drop out? …NARALs action stabs Clinton in the back and cuts her out; it hurts NARALs own support base and antagonizes strong democratic women who are now less likely to vote Obama! ….the only winner I see coming out of all this is McCain!
Edwards and NARAL endorsed today to help him in the groups he’s alienated/losing: working class whites and women.
What just crushes me with the irony is the statement that “every day that passes, Sen. McCain gets a free ride on the issue of choice. That free ride ends today.” They’re the ones giving him the free ride. They are a pro-choice advocacy group, and giving McCain hell is their job. Instead of issuing a press release about McCain, they decided to beat up on Clinton. Why? Because beating up on Clinton gets you more attention than actually advocating for your issues. Shame.
Thank you for covering this so well!
Disgusting. Appalling. I’m out of words.
Also, one could argue that his “sweetie” stuff is a metaphor for what will happen when women’s issues arise.
I’m not even sure “having a woman for a spouse” is a reasonable claim to feminist fame. After all, doesn’t Hefner have 4-5 female partners? Also, Schlafly was married for 40 years or so and something tells me her husband wasn’t a feminist.
Just a thought here, could it be at all possible that Clinton has strayed away from feminist ideals by the use of racist rhetoric? Feminism should include anti-racism and in her bid to be elected Clinton has pandered to the lowest common denominator. Just because she is female does not mean that she is positive for the feminist cause.
The funny thing is that NONE of the NARAL chapters had any say about the endorsement and are mad as hell for not having a say.
Word is that the NARAL chairman ordered it so they can link up with Obama donors.
SELL OUTS!
Do you really think women should support Hillary just because she’s a woman? And blacks should support Obama just because he’s black? This is the fatal trap of identity politics, which ends up in identity chauvinism. The reality for this white male voter: Clinton is just a candidate who happens to be a woman, and Obama is a candidate who happens to be black. As a Democrat, I’ll be happy to vote for either one.
How dare they? Now not only will I be forced to vote for McCain out of spite, but I’m going to have to start writing checks to the American Family Association out of spite too. Why are my fellow Democrats forcing me to do these things?
Octogalore, I was being sarcastic when I cited Obama’s feminist cred as Michelle. I agree that’s not much to base a feminist platform on.
Renee, Clinton is not a racist and has not used racist rhetoric.
Rob, you’re missing the point. I’ve said elsewhere that I wouldn’t have supported Clinton if she was (for instance) the American counterpart of Thatcher. In other words, if she wasn’t a feminist, wasn’t a Democrat, I wouldn’t support her. But being a feminist Democrat with a good track record of supporting women’s rights, yes, she deserves support.
Nobody has said support her “just because she’s a woman.” She’s a feminist.
Identity politics is important to anyone who isn’t a white male. We don’t have your luxury of not caring what people in power look like. I don’t obsess over it too much, but yes, given a choice between a feminist woman and a non-feminist man, of course I’m going to choose the woman.
No Clinton just implied her color and had others in her camp make the direct racist statements. I am no fan of Clinton, nor am I a fan of Barack but we should call it like it is.
Rob – Blacks DO support BO just because he is black. At least women have an accomplished person with a record of accomplishments. To compare the two of them is preposterous. We would not vote for Shaffley or the Viagra guy’s wife. We are proud of Hillary and find criticism of her mainly sexist foolishness. I don’t even respond to it anymore.
Of course I don’t agree with all her positions but that would not be a realistic expectation.
Renee – It is still permissible to use the word white – and to praise hard working white people – which is another way of saying working class whites -demographics are a fact of life.
The way BO supporters throw around the word racist shows they do not know anything about racism. They just name call like angry 3 year olds who think bully tactics can substitute for skills.
Have you all seen Taylor Marsh’s blog today – the Not So Fast ad is up there
This is what I mean about the word “white”. Over on Twisty’s blog they are dissecting a young feminists campus writing and calling her racist BECAUSE SHE IS AFRAID TO USE THE WORD WHITE, and therefore is insulting.
Here is her sentence.
“[B]oth women and women of color have made gains in the workplace.”
She was afraid to use the word white because white has become a dirty word. This is ridiculous in light of the whites who died with blacks in the civil rights movement and who fought for Justice all through the history of the country. For every slaver there was an abolitionist and for every Robber Barron there was a settlement house organizer. There it is – there is no devil group only devil people – this leftist demagoguery has to be challenged or our brains will become twisted and our words will not make sense.
To praise white people is not an insult to blacks and is not racist.
I am hardly afraid to use the word white. I do however believe that praise of white should include acknowledging a little thing called privilege, which all white people exist with BTW.
Those abolitionist you speak of, where you aware that some of them wanted to ship blacks back to Africa. Some were religious zealots on a civilizing mission, and some even wanted to bring slavery to an end to save the white man from the black female slave. Yep white men couldn’t keep it in their pants so blame the black woman.
I am not implying that there is no such thing as a good white person. What I am saying is that until someone is able to acknowledge their unearned privileges their actions will always be mitigated by racism.
Renee, how do you know Clinton hasn’t done that? And how do you know Obama has?
Reply @ octagoalore, I am not claiming that Obama has owned his gender and class privilege either. I do not see this as an Obama Vs. Clinton issue, neither of the two are progressive enough for me and since both are intent on continuing with the bourgeoisies power structure there will be no substantial change.
The fact that Clinton felt that it was necessary to remind everyone her draw with white hard working Americans is clear that she has not owned her racial privilege. Even though she spoke out against Ferraros commentary regrading how lucky Barack is I simply do not believe that, that commentary was anything but strategic.
Bottom line is, no matter who you side with fundamental change cannot be made to an already corrupt system. The masters house must be dismantled for people to truly get their due.
Renee — I see where you’re going, but I think context is important. If Clinton were giving a talk analyzing politics or a talk at a school graduation, and talked about her demographics in a race against a MOC, then yes it would be ideal if she commented that identity politics and/or racism/sexism will play a role in some people’s decisions, and that she both benefited and lost based on that.
But this was a quickie factual analysis of her demographics. She first said working class. That’s factual, BO’s done better among highly educated white collar types. Then she most likely thought — well, in fact, BO has also done well with the black working class vote, need to be fair about that — and qualified it to white. The context wasn’t really one in which she was analyzing the “why.”
If someone asked her point blank if she’s benefited from racism, which she knows is out there as she’s worked to combat it, I’m sure she’d own that. Just as I hope Obama would own that he’s benefited from sexism.
I don’t like Hillary because of her stance on international law.
She supports sending cluster bombs to countries that have a record of using them against civilian populations, supported the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006 despite massive civilian casualties which human rights groups have said were not simply collateral damage but involved actions tantamount to war crimes, supported the illegal Iraq war, is opposed to the ICC, supports Israel’s illegal wall, even though it is partially in Palestinian territory, etc. She will be George Bush part two in terms of our reputation throughout the world and particularly the Middle East.
[...] a comment I left with the Apostate’s succinct and apt post about the issue: What just crushes me with the irony is the statement that “every day that [...]