First he was criticized for not being a fighter now Obama is being criticized because his was/is a political fighter. Check out his article on CNN.
Obama played hardball in first Chicago campaign – CNN.com
The double standard strains credibility even as the nation’s “first black president” talks about his candidate wife not getting a fair shake as a woman. I don’t get it. Obama is a wimp that can’t win in one breath and a mean nasty (black) man in the next. Is that fair.
Someone (an Obama supporter) asked me if he could win I said I don’t know. I beginning to move back to my original thought that unless the mental models that we have around race and particularly black men in this country changes he can’t win.
OK so several comments on this post so far have focused on liking Obama or Clinton. That misses the point of my post. I was pointing out the disparity in dealing with the candidates based on their race or gender. Not really interested in partisan perspectives just perspectives on how race factor into the treatment of the candidates.
If you posted a comment but don’t see it, it is because the comment focused on political partisanship rather than issues of diversity. Sorry if that wasn’t clearly articulated in the post but I’m not interested in a political shouting match. I really don’t care if you are for Hillary or Obama or McCain. Your political preference is just that yours. I do want to have a conversation about the role of race in social discourse including the political. So my bad if you don’t see you comment.
I didn’t think my first comment fell into partisanship. I was exlpaining that there are exceptions to many of the white people who won’t vote for him because he is a black man.
My take on that? It’s very sad and the “damned if you do damned if you don’t” point you make is very well made. However, the duality of is he a fighter is he not a fighter cuts to the core of why this white man can not vote for him. And I think that is something that should be taken into account in this discourse on race.
Why is it a white man, like myself, is not be allowed to say that yes, some whites won’t vote for him for terrible reasons, but not all and here is why? Why is that political partisanship and not part of the social duiscourse on race? I never even mentioned another candidate.
I think it may be because you don’t consider this view important in the discourse. And sadly, I run into that often. Are you moving down your “totem pole”? If I as a white man can not tell you why it is I won’t vote for Obama without being censored, there is no discourse.
Rich, I just re-read your comment and as I first thought it does deal with your voter preference as did the others I excluded. I don’t want this conversation to drift into a liberal conservative gabfest. Its not about that for me. Too often that is where we do to avoid dealing with the more difficult issues which i point out in the follow up post. My bad for not putting that caveat out there in the first place.