Michelle Obama Tries to Create an Era of Understanding
August 27, 2008
Michelle Obama gave a phenomenal speech on Monday night. I have no idea how her husband is going to top her.
I found it fitting that both Obama & Clinton, archetypes for women’s rights and advancement, set the stage for the future of this country’s Democratic agenda. Specifically, both women will be re-defining what their next positions as First Lady and Senator/Former Presidential Candidate mean and how they are managed. Both Mrs. Obama and Sen. Clinton were tasked with re-presenting themselves to the people, for different reasons. Obama had to give us a new image because hers is being assaulted by the conservative press.
Creating an Era of Understanding
Michelle Obama’s speech (full text & video) was one of the most tactically written, beautifully executed addresses in this generation, and she isn’t even a politician. Her and her speech writers successfully reframed both her and Sen. Obama as family people, as Americans, as people who have a Black version of white America’s experience. The reason that she even had to give that speech is because there is a fundamental misunderstanding between Black people and other people about the similarities and differences between one another’s life experiences. One would think that in a society where Black and white have been juxtaposed for approaching 400 years, white people’s pre-conceived notions about Black women would bear some semblance of accuracy. This is not the case, and it is up to the future First Lady to do what Black men & women have to do all too often: carry the image of their entire race on their shoulders in everything that they say and do.
This unfortunate reality will persist as long as there is misunderstanding. There can be no “post-racial” society (sidebar: I hate the term post-racial) or “post-anything” society without first building bridges of understanding and empathy between races, sexes, genders, cultures, sexual orientations, etc. The understanding is something that must be both actively pursued and actively distributed, meaning that we can’t just close our eyes and snap our fingers and have everyone magically move beyond racial tensions. Michelle and Barack Obama have the largest megaphone with which they can usher in this Era of Understanding, and I’m looking to them to set an example for others to emulate.
This is the type of change that we need.
One Love. One II.
Live at the DNC - I survived a PUMA
August 26, 2008
I’m finally at a place where I can write a full on post about what I’ve seen thus far at the Convention. It’s been interesting. In order to stay up to the minute on what I’m seeing, follow The SuperSpade on Twitter at http://twitter.com/superspade, where I’ll be sending updates from my phone on various events.
The PUMAs are coming
My shuttle ride in from the airport was 2.5 hours long. I shared that shuttle with an Obama volunteer, 2 Hillary Clinton delegates from Virginia, and a woman from Real Democrats in DC. What I found in them all were women that were ostensibly passionate about democratic and the Democratic Party, but who underneath were actually angry and disappointed in their party’s treatment of Hillary Clinton and how the party selects its nominee.
Some of the arguments made sense, but others had a strange hint of ‘my discrimination is better than yours’, even if it wasn’t intentional. For example, the Hillary folks never liked the caucus process, and I never really understood why. Now I do. They felt like caucuses gave some voters the chance to intimidate other voters in certain districts. Ladies and gentlemen, don’t be confused: that is code for Black voters scared away white voters in Black districts. It’s just like calling Barack Obama arrogant: the “pc” way of saying that he is out of place.
They did have a different take on why her time as First Lady should count as experience: the analogy was a family-owned business. In many cases, the husband’s name is on everything (loans, bills, etc.) and the wife may not even be on the official payroll. Nevertheless, she contributes to the business operations (management of paperwork, employees, travel planning, etc.) and also is effectively a consultant on business strategy and decisions (e.g. Should we open another store across town? Should I hire an intern? etc.). This I think has merit, since I KNOW that I consult significant other when making business decisions. The nuance of this though was probably lost in the election mayhem.
Another thing they said was that a lot of older women in the Northeast were withholding their money from the DNC, which is dangerous considering the amount of money that the Republican Party has been raising ($75 million compared to the Democrats’ $28 million).
What do they want?
Something has to be done to bring these women to the table. When I asked the woman from Real Democrats who she wanted held accountable, her answers were:
- The Democratic National Committee for ignoring their complaints on caucus practices
- The Obama Campaign for doing that and taking these upset voters for granted
The really scary part: Hillary doesn’t control them
The press and the Obama campaign keeps saying that Hillary Clinton needs to “get her supporters in line.” These women were very clear when they said to me that there was nothing that Hillary Clinton could do or say to change their position. Nothing. What that means is that this thing has legs all its own, and their going to keep kicking and screaming.
Hopefully though, it’ll somehow die this week.
One Love. One II.
