All About Me

Warning: This post follows a truly sleepless night and risks rambling incoherence...

One thing I try to do as a blogger is not speak for others.  I do my best to draw on my own experiences, or on those described in research or by large sources of data (of varying degrees of scientific rigor) with which I'm familiar.  Several interrelated aspects of this Democratic primary are thus driving me mad:

• my frequent total loss of perspective over Clinton's (vs. Obama's) candidacy;
• the sense that I'm being stereotyped - however indirectly - in the crude brushstrokes used to paint Clinton (vs. Obama) supporters;
• the mismatch between criticisms of Clinton and those leveled by many of her supporters.

Part of the reason for last night's insomnia has been my growing frustration from the Clinton RFK remarks skirmish.  It began in earnest when I read Kevin's response at Slant Truth, in which he stated that regardless of her intent, it was his personal associations of the assassinations of black leaders that mattered to him. He added that he was further troubled by the racially segregated - and polarized - link networks he was seeing in response to her comments; i.e., whites were linking to other whites in support of their perspectives, and bloggers of color - including many African-Americans - were linking to one another in opinion solidarity.  When I read this, I thought Duh! Obviously. Anyone following this election, especially since early '08, has seen this cultural fracturing around the blogosphere, as we all interpret the candidates' actions, statements and alleged motivations and intent based on our personal and/or collective experiences and identities. 

Then I read a compelling analysis from Latoya at Racialicious, which I found to be strongly undermined by her absolutist language that (my emphases) "...there is no way Hillary was talking about herself when referencing the RFK campaign."  Latoya's voice is one I really respect in the 'sphere, yet so is Pocochina's, who convincingly argues that Clinton could be thinking of her own safety in referencing RFK, not to mention having RFK on the brain because it was a defining (generational) moment for her in her political development.  [UPDATE, 5/29/08: This paragraph has been edited, due to the helpful comments from Kai in the attached thread.  I have edited my description of Latoya's analysis, as well as removed my original interpretation of Pocochina's post, because I realized that I was actually projecting a lot into her argument that isn't actually there.  Ironic, I know...]

So who's right, here?  Who's interpretation is valid?  Hopefully you realize these are trick questions - obviously all of them are, as they are grounded in experience, identity, and each blogger's situated knowledge.  So what's a of-the-working-class-now-creative-class white feminist social-justice activist, Northeastern elite librul Clinton-supporter, Obama-agnostic like me supposed to do?  This is where the loss of perspective come in...

I remember last fall at the Congressional Black Caucus Conference wearing a Clinton pin and an Obama button.  I remember my cynical detachment about the two of them, centrists not remotely interested in challenging the status quo other than via their own historic candidacies and the legitimately new perspectives they would bring to the Oval Office: the first serious female contender with her gendered and generational whiteness, modern marriage and professional career working with women and children,  and the first multi-racial, cosmopolitan, almost-not-a-Baby-Boomer, black-middle-class Presidential candidate.  Yet, as the months have passed since Iowa, I'm getting more and more narrow-minded in my support of Clinton, mainly in response to her unparalleled opposition.  My emotionalism is seriously challenging my more "rational" preferences for her policy positions, campaign platform and professional experience. 

Though I continue to bring up the use of race, racist tactics or examples of racism in this primary, my cites are less frequent, more detached and less interrogatory of Clinton and her campaign.  I've never considered myself particularly self-aware about my white privilege, but I have prided myself on an ability to relate to and fight for the positions and perspectives of allies who differ in their class position, geography, nativity or ethnicity/race - most often because of similar life circumstances.  I feel like in this election I'm becoming unable to see any fault on Clinton's part in this campaign (other than strategically).  My head says her campaign has used racist tactics, my heart says she hasn't, and honestly, in the current anti-intellectual, superficial, kyriarchically privileged media climate I seriously question most of my knowledge and my interpretations.

Clinton's RFK comments obviously come from a place of white privilege. Whether her intent was innocuous, self-referential, or malicious, her statement revealed that she either a) did not consider the context of running against a black political leader in referencing such a charged, historical event, and b) possibly identified personally with the image of the white fallen leader, or c) that she was well aware of the context and is hoping that her message is acted on somehow, somewhere in violent, oppressive racist political climate. 

What I think has been the real issue in this campaign - in the politics waged from both sides that have employed or capitalized on systemic sexism and racism - is that both campaign have condescended to the other.  I don't find Clinton's campaign so overtly racist as much as using race as a means to belittle Obama as a candidate - his positions are a "fairly tale," he'll finish in SC like the last serious black candidate (because he and Jesse Jackson has so much in common, obviously), he wouldn't be where he is today if he wasn't black. Insert sexist commentary towards Clinton and you get the same result - an undermining of Obama and Clinton as both leaders and human beings - because both are discounted, whether by their race and/or gender. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here - it's racism and/or sexism or it isn't, no doubt.  But this isn't the viral e-mails about Obama as Muslim or the Clinton nutcracker for sale.  From the perspectives on both sides of the aisle, both campaigns have sufficiently and skillfully employed prejudicial tactics just enough to reinforce their supporters' selective hearing and judgment, or to compel us to fatefully choose our battles.  Yes, there are many folks who identify with both candidates and/or remain attuned enough to call both camps out for the actions, but they are a dwindling group.  Or, the rest of us have just stopped reading them - we can fit only so many allies in our corners these days. 

One thing that amazes me in my blogosphere is how mismatched the critiques seem.  Clinton supporters are stereotyped as racist, but from my perspective in the pro-Clinton 'sphere, the most righteous souls are up in arms over sexism, classism or cultural elitism.  I find in the (mostly white) women, working-class, Latinos, Asians, gays/lesbians and others' staunch defense of their role as core members of the Democratic party either disappointment or disconnect that a major group is missing from the constituency: African-American voters.  It's not that the bloggers I read are surprised by Obama's African-American support, it's that they seem to either have accepted the loss or dissociated from it in their cries against sexism and party elitism.  It's odd to hear feminist and/or working-class coalition battle cries without this major population as part of the "movement"...for me anyway, especially given the latter, as my work of the last number of years has involved multi-ethnic economic development activism, with strong representation from women of color.  It's mind-boggling to hear protests over the sexist elitism of the black-middle-class candidate and his minions of mostly white, liberal male and hipster bloggers and mostly white, male elder party elites.  It's especially confusing to then have charges of racism leveled at these Clinton supporters, given that their protests are not so purely white-washed due to the strong ethnic and class variations of many Clinton supporters. 

Because what exactly is white, anyway, and how can we possibly isolate ethnicity and race from gender, class, geography and nativity?  Sociologist Mary Patillo argues that white suburbia is presumed in the American middle-class.  In Boston neighborhoods white and black have numerous ethnic and class identifications (British Boston Brahmin vs. Irish; African-Americans vs. Haitians vs. Cape Verdeans), and economic competition does not easily follow the typical gentrification storyline (Irish immigrants vs. Brazilian immigrants in Brighton; wealthy foreign Vietnamese investors vs. low-income Irish-Catholics in Fields Corner, Dorchester).  Some of Clinton's most strenuous female supporters were crossing their fingers this morning that Sen. Webb would endorse Clinton given his Appalachian, Scotch-Irish working-class connections...I was totally thrown that these women who have criticized vociferously the misogyny in this campaign would then praise this allegedly sexist politician due to his ethnic, class and regional connections. Supposedly Obama choosing Webb as his VP would be an affront to female Clinton supporters (and women) everywhere.  Someone better let Riverdaughter and her thousands and thousands of Clinton-supporting readers know that. 

All of this is getting to my long-drawn-out conclusion: that for most of us this primary has ceased to be about the two candidates, and all about ourselves - in all our complicated beauty.   Which of our multiple identities is elevated consciously or otherwise in feeling drawn to the candidates, what our biases or privileges really are, what our core personal networks really look like, what we feel we're owed by society personally or collectively, and what we're projecting onto these two figureheads who are similar triangulating centrists - one with most of her dirty laundry exposed, and the other with his soon to come out to dry. 

I feel like I've lost a lot of virtual allies in this primary (hopefully temporarily), but gained a plethora of new ones.  At my old blog I wrote I how I tended to identify with middle- and moderate-income white ethnics and women and men of color I meet because our life experiences are often quite similar.  Who I have met in numbers on-line via supporting Clinton are many new young outspoken working-class and middle-class Asian-American and white ethnic feminists.  I have purged many middle-class and upper-middle-class mostly white male and female bloggers who I felt marginally about to begin with.  Good riddance.   They don't speak for me.  I'm not sure who does these days...   

- Redstar

Comments

[scottreads]

What affronts me about this campaign is the need to read very off-hand remark through the filter of one's emotional or partisan commitments before you try to understand it. The RFK thing is the tip of the iceberg, and you could point to the "fairy tale" remark about the war as well. I'm not sure who I can really look to anymore (other than Digby or Greenwald), because even someone like Atrios has his views shaded by his preference for Obama. Maybe Avedon Carol. Whatever happened to just analyzing things and giving honest feedback regardless of who it helps or hurts in a fracking primary? I thought that was the 'sphere was upposed to be about. Disheartening.

[Redstar]

scott - i am most humbled that you read this entire post (if you didn't, allow me to indulge in the ruse).

I hear you...the lines b/w critique and debate and complete partisan bloviating are getting blurrier by the day. I'm sick of myself and most everyone in my Google reader these days...

[greg]

It is refreshing to read someone confident and self-aware enough to admit that "I feel like in this election I'm becoming unable to see any fault on Clinton's part...I seriously question most of my knowledge and my interpretations."

It really gets boring to read stuff by either Obama or Clinton supporters who just happen, through amazing feats of coincidence, to have intellectually come to the exact same positions as their campaigns-of-choice on almost every issue. (Comments at Talkleft breathlessly calling Obama a "LIAR" for confusing two German concentration camps were really just too much...as are those who seem to really think that HRC is hoping to swoop in via assassination).

In any case it's depressing that this primary -- historical and at a time of Democratic ascendence -- has come to this. I know many disagree that this campaign is very unprecedented in its divisiveness....but it has been the longest, probably the most evenly matched, with extremely sensitive issues of identity at the forefront, and ever greater levels of information-source ghettoization. Will it matter in the fall? I hope not, but I become ever less optimistic by the day.

[Redstar]

Greg - "information-source ghettoization" - this is an excellent way of putting it (and thanks for the compliments, btw!)

Last night I was ranting to my boyfriend, and he was like, what are the examples that pp use to describe Clinton's racist campaign tactics...and I was like, uh, well...there's JJ, fairy tales, assassination...and I felt awfully ignorant in comparison to my outsized outrage...I can barely remember the details or sources of most of these "fights" we're all in right now...

And over at The Hillary 1000, I'm acting out, being totally obnoxious to (insufferable Unity zealots...oops, did I say that out loud? I mean) commenters who dare critique Clinton supporters. I'm turning into the equivalent of an Ezra Klein commenter...

(I'm sure there's way more obnoxious threads out there, but that's about as rude as I ever saw)

[jinbaltimore]

Excellent post, Red. I have to admit, even though I saw this narrative headed here while all the "old white guys" were still in it, and while I was still so complacently and detachedly supporting Edwards, I have been sucked into this maelstrom of Clinton vs Obama vitriol.

I can't remember where I saw it posted weeks ago, but some blog was on the money with the notion of "bad faith," i.e. supporters of the opposing candidates, without fail, defaulting to the most cynical, frankly hateful, interpretations of what the other candidate or their supporters said.

As ugly as this has gotten, though, I still don't see McCain winning in the fall. Being deeply superficial, I just don't see him succeeding in the world of TV and Youtube over either Clinton or Obama. Maybe that's the problem. For many, including me, the primary is the "real" election this time around.

[Redstar]

Jim - thanks! Bad faith is an excellent critique.

I'm chuckling about McCain...he didn't knock it out of the park on SNL a few weeks ago? ;)

[Phylise]

Wonderful, honest and thoughtful post - thank you. I am a British born black female, formerly rational Clinton supporter who was flabbergasted that anyone would think Senator Clinton, of all people, was a racist(if you did, you really don't know what racism is). However, I am now an ostracized, lonely soul who dreams of pouring concrete into Donna Brazile's mouth! Who would have thunk it!

[Tessy]

Neither Obama nor Hillary can be called right or wrong. Both are in degrees right or wrong.

I have also been a partisan Hillary supporter and often wondered whether I excused her too often while blaming Obama for literally everything.

The thing I got from this introspection was that Hillary may have been wrong couple of times and is often clumsy (not always poised) in her statements. But she is a fighter and a person whom you can trust. She has earned this trust the hard way by working for it for 8 years in senate. She is not a saint by any standards and sometimes uses tolerable dirty tactics (like all politicians do), but then she has never claimed to be a Saint.
With Obama you had this person who claimed to be holier than thou. He claimed to be morally superior to Hillary though he is a politician from Chicago. He and his wife talk about "family values" and sacrifice etc etc as the cure to all ills. He keeps claiming erroneously that he is above dirty politics etc etc. Obama and his supporters try to portray Obama as a Saint when there is enough evidence that says that Obama is just another Chicago Politician. It is this self righteous intolerable of any dissent and moral preaching campaign that has put me off thoroughly against all things Obama. Obama is a hypocrite.

As for the RFK statement. Hillary is clumsy sometimes. She is not the most graceful putting high sounding words together. She is sometimes more blunt and direct. Many times before this I have thought that Hillary may have been at fault for some of the charges against her but in this case I am convinced she is innocent. Team Obama have played extremely dirty with her by trying to attribute malicious intent to her statement.

[Redstar]

Phylise and Tessy - Welcome!!

[Kai]

[Kevin] was further troubled by the racially segregated - and polarized - link networks he was seeing in response to her comments; i.e., whites were linking to other whites in support of their perspectives, and bloggers of color - including many African-Americans - were linking to one another in opinion solidarity.

Hmm, which passage from Kevin's post suggested to you that he was troubled that bloggers of color were linking to one another?

[Kai]

By the way, greetings, Redstar! I'm here by way of Racialicious trackback. I clicked because I saw someone say that Latoya's argument was "strongly undermined by her strident vocabulary", which I hope you realize is a standard boilerplate dismissal of people of color, which we in the melanin-rich blogosphere call The Drowning Maestro. On the whole, I appreciate where you're coming from here, though. Just sayin.

[Redstar]

Hi Kai!

Re: Kevin - I meant he was troubled by the segregation/polarization, not that POC (and whites) were only linking to one another. Is that not clear in that sentence?

As for the dismissal, my bad...I fear I am turning into an academic (not surprising given I'm a PhD student) and wishing for cool-headed arguments...this is my own worst nightmare since I am fairly strident in my own writings...

...and truthfully, I was actually more turned off by LaToya's referencing of her boyfriend's grandmother, but didn't think that was a "fair" critique...it reminded me too much of the way we on-line tend to use personal anecdotes to support our arguments in a rather idiosyncratic way ("well my dad thinks this...my brother had this happen to him so it must be true..." etc.) but reading the description of her elder's knowledge and experience I felt like it was legit invocation and I was just being unjustly cranky about it...so I settled on LaToya's tone because I felt like she was trying to present an historical argument as authoritative/factual when it should be acknowledged to be a subjective interpretation - as any of ours would be.

Let me ask you...how can I separate out a double standard from the way I also recoil from a similar tone I find when I'm feeling talked down to by men (using argumentative types over at my Hillary site, for example, "well of course if you were choosing the most qualified foreign policy candidate you'd have voted for Biden..." - as if Biden=best for foreign policy is an objective view)...

[Redstar]

Kai (and for anyone else following the discussion) - I read the DM definition...I think there's a better way for me to try to get at what I'm expressing re: Latoya's post...I'm going to edit my post..

[greg]

Phylise -- this "Clinton is not a racist" line that I sometimes hear bugs me because it is such a strawman. No one (as far as I have heard) has called Hillary or Bill Clinton racists. What critics have said is that the Clinton campaign has a) deployed racially problematic rhetoric including dogwhistles and b) benefited from the racist rhetoric of others (ex. Ferraro) with either meek rebuke or none at all. Racism (like sexism, etc) does not have to be bigoted, hateful or deliberate. Often it is accidental. Often in politics, it is used subtlely by people who would never consider themselves racist but are nonetheless blinded by their sense of self-virtuousnes or are simply ignorant of their own privilige. For example Clinton's statement lauding hard working whites -- which is clearly racist because, at a minimum, it implies blacks aren't hard working -- does not make her a racist, it makes her someone who said something racist, deliberately or not, and I believe she apologized and clarified which is appropriate. Setting up a dichotomy with a bright line between racist versus non-racist ignore that virtually everyone has atleast some shade of racism -- and minimizes the extent and impact of the problem.

[Kai]

Hi Redstar, I'm back after like a week of craziness (!), and I just wanna say I think your re-wording of the Latoya criticism is nicely done and comes off much cleaner to me than the original which I gave you a hard time about. Thank you for giving a shit. As for Kevin, I guess my interpretation of his text was that he was troubled that white folks seemed to be linking almost exclusively to one another in an argument about racism; which is a slightly different point than being troubled by segregation in a sort of general symmetrical way.

Anyway, keep on doing what you're doing, I think you're a terrific writer and thinker and we need more of that!

Peace.

[Redstar]

Kai - I'm blushing!! Thanks!!! Likewise!!

Btw, I heard you on NPR recently and felt very cool because I was like, oh, I "know" that guy. ;) Thanks for pushing on me.

Re: Kevin's post - interesting point. I hadn't thought about it that way...