Because I Still Believe Women Can Change The World

RedStar asked me at the end of my recent media commentary - which had the "call to action" she's so longed for in my writing (what can I say, I'm very "well, now that I've looked at both sides... let's have lunch") - what I thought should be done about our problems with the political media. And the thing is... I don't necessarily have an answer.  I think the first step is identifying a problem... and frankly we've gotten away from that with the media and the state of political coverage.

Besides... Red''s doing it all without me anyway.

As analytical as I can be, Red's the true Virgo: while I have a point of view... she has data.  And she's been putting together a small wealth of observations about the sociology of groups, and how much demography helps us to understand the appeal of both Democratic candidates (and even, by extension, Republicans, however dense Jonah Goldberg may be).

In her latest post, Red gets at what the media's not seeing, and why - below the fold, I quote her at length:

...Donna Darko, an Asian-American feminist blogger, takes issue with the insinuation that the votes of Asian-Pacific Islanders for Clinton are somehow not made of their own free will.  She goes on to write,

Clinton is not the establishment candidate if women, the poor, the elderly, Asians, Latinos, union workers, GLBT, United Farm Workers, liberals and Democrats support her. She’s the Democratic candidate. These groups are not low-information, they’re high-practicality, because they sense she’s very good on domestic issues and won’t start a war.

Darko’s observation is exactly what Matt Yglesias, one of the white, male Atlantic bloggers I stopped reading awhile ago, calls out as the input that is overlooked by political pundits.  He makes the valid point that

“the college educated men who dominate punditland have spent a lot of time missing the fact that there actually are enthusiastic Clinton fans out there — they’re just mostly working class women and thus mostly not in the room when this CW gets hashed out.”

While not all Clinton supporters are “working class women” (see above and the many links I have in this blog), he’s dead on that many of us lining up behind Clinton are not the ones with a vocal seat at the proverbial table.   

Meanwhile, some highly educated academics bloggers try to discount the real phenomenon that many white, liberal voters believe deeply in the racial transcendence implied in Obama’s candidacy, because, after all, we know better.  (And so does, apparently, Frank Rich.)

Setting aside the obvious handicap of dealing with a press who treats us all as members of single, monolithic groups (white women, black, Hispanics, etc. etc.), those of us who have worked in communities of color and/or low-income communities know that yes, the racial and class divisions that are on display in the primary are real.  Neither the Clintons nor Obama are inventing the schisms between Hispanics and African-Americans, or lower-income whites and any ethnic group they see as a threat, or affluent whites and those who work for them and live far from them, nor should we be surprised when they seek to benefit from these schisms, whether overtly (as Clinton is repeatedly accused), or implicitly (as Obama is repeatedly championed for *earning* white votes.  The fact that we find it remarkable that a highly educated, highly successful, highly charismatic, compelling and qualified black man can win votes in a predominately white country shows how far we have to go as a country in dealing with race.  The joke is hardly on Obama, but on us as a nation.).

Red goes on to note that Amanda Marcotte, who has gone from key Edwards blogger to Obama supporter, also gets at the media's Clinton bias as not just being sexism, but also about class. Talking about the David Shuster episode, Marcotte observes:

The pimping comment is also part of a larger Village narrative about how the Clintons and only the Clintons are treated as sleazy for standard issue politician behavior. There’s a double standard on women, but also on the Clintons, who are treated as interlopers. For lack of a better term, the Clintons have been bombarded from day one with the nouveau riche slam, the deeply held belief in The Village that certain behaviors (including all standard campaign behaviors) are only permissible to those deemed insiders, which the Clintons still aren’t in the eyes of the mainstream media.

In other words, what I got from the pimping comment was 50% “how dare a mother?” and 50% “how dare the Clintons act like they’re one of us?” Shuster is eating a lot of shit right now, and I’m sure it feels unfair, because in a sense it is. He’s eating shit for doing what basically everyone else does. It’s scapegoating of a sort. Someone had to fall for what is non-stop, relentless abuse of the Clintons on both the sexism tip and on the nouveau riche tip, and he mostly had bad timing. It worries me, though, because it’s not going to change a thing. He was thrown to us as appeasement. And what we need is not scalps, but an overhaul of the entire system, so that both these narratives, the elitism and the sexism, are tossed out. Not any individual person.

... and this is my point: we need to be agitating more, collectively, for the media to change.  To challenge not just the "one bad reporter" but the atmosphere that encourages the Bad Reporting.  And, when my main evidence of just that comes from Donna Darko, RedStar, and Amanda Marcotte... well, if you ask me why I'm a feminist... it's because I think women can change the world.  Still. You go, girl. :) All of you.

Okay... now go.  I'm serious. :)

Comments

[Redstar]

:) :) :) :)

And for the first time since I've been blogging, my stats are WAY UP and holding. Apparently sneaking my sociology into electoral politics coverage is a lot more effective than just outright lecturing! ;)

Hope all those folks who lined up to comment on your HRC post keep coming around to us, and getting busy fighting the good fights on their ends!!

Sometimes I do feel like we really are joint blogging!

[donna darko]

Thanks, NYCweboy.