Gender versus race is a sad and dangerous division in the Democratic party's ranks that threatens to assure Sen. John McCain's ascendancy to the White House. Geraldine Ferraro, Cokie Roberts and Gloria Steinem have had their say. Now I've had mine. Here's my EbonyJet.com commentary, posted today, discussing the development.
Is History Deserved or Earned?
the ferraro debacle
Friday, March 14, 2008
By Monroe Anderson
Barack Obama's political success has white women of a certain age angry and frustrated.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," Geraldine Ferraro told the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, California. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is."
Ferraro, who was pretty lucky herself when she was chosen 24 years ago to become a first as the Democratic party's vice-presidential candidate, was not the only feminist to express her vexation over the ever increasing possibility that a black man may become Leader-of the-Free-World before a white woman does. Before Ferraro vented her exasperation last Sunday, there was Cokie Roberts last month on ABC This Week voicing her frustration.
"The only group she still really has is white women. And I do think that there's some possibility that you will see a sort of reaction among white women," Roberts said after Sen. Clinton's primary loss to Obama in Wisconsin. "I had the opportunity to interview Billie Jean King this week, and she said, you know, 'I feel like everything I've worked for all of my life is going out the window.' And there is that sense. I mean, here is this woman who's worked hard, she's done it all the way you're supposed to do it, and then this cute young man comes in and says a bunch of sweet, you know, nothings, and pushes you out of the way. And a lot of women are looking at that and saying, 'There goes my life.'"
"Facing a contest between melanin and the white Y chromosome, I saw no reason why the Y would not be the victor."
After Obama's unexpected Iowa win in January, there was the Gloria Steinem essay in the New York Times where she complained that women have a tougher time than African American men. "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House," wrote Steinem, a cofounder of the Women's Media Center and Clinton supporter. "Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women"
Never mind that white men gave black men the vote, then took it away and that the number of women CEOs currently running Fortune 500 companies is in the double digits and there are less than a handful of African American men doing the same. There seems to be this sense of entitlement among white feminist that when it comes to running the Oval Office, it's their turn. Period.
Six months ago, the white women would have gotten no lip back from me. I assumed they were entitled to their sense of entitlement. Facing a contest between melanin and the white Y chromosome, I saw no reason why the Y would not be the victor. My expectations were realistically restricted. I had high hopes that Hillary would break through the good ol' white boy barrier, paving the way for an African American to follow sometime in the near future.
Back then, of course, Barack was not the front-runner and Hillary was the Inevitable One. Back then, there were debates as to whether Sen. Obama was black enough to appeal to his own ethnic group and polls predicting that Sen. Clinton would command the biggest share of that vote.
That was before it became apparent that there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two candidates on major political issues and it became even more apparent to everyone, but older white women, that Barack was a better candidate than Hillary and running a better campaign as well.
There is also this obvious reality: Obama now leads in the dedicated delegate count, the popular vote and the number of states won. The former First Lady can only win if the party's super delegates hand her the nomination in a brokered convention this summer in Denver. Such an unacceptable maneuver would surely turn off the party's fired-up youth and African American vote.
So unless Sen. Clinton and her supporters are willing to see the 44th white man take the presidential oath on January 20, it looks like they're going to have to accept this overwhelming probability: Their dream will be deferred.
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