Here Comes (My Musing On) Honey Boo Boo!

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo airs on TLC and is in its second season.

For the ridiculous sum I pay for cable, I watch approximately 5 channels: Food Network, Cooking Channel, Investigation Discovery, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and any random channel that might have a show that lets me get my crime TV/forensic fix. When these channels simultaneously broadcast shows that I have seen or that I don’t like, my life is thrown into an uproar. I typically throw down the remote and pick up a book. Occasionally, I go channel-surfing. During one such surfing-in-desperation episode, I stumbled upon the premiere of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” I saw people on Facebook writing about it and got the gist of the background of the Shannon/Thompson family (if you’re not familiar, the show is about the now-seven-year-old Alana Thompson, who competes in children’s beauty pageants and her family, including her mom and dad, three older sisters, and new born niece). I expected to be critical of the beauty pageant element, in particular, and what I thought would be the drudgery of it (I don’t like reality TV), in general. I do have a lot to say about the children’s pageant element, but I found that, overall, I liked the family. One of the main reasons is that, as rural southerners, they are familiar to me. I found the mother, June Shannon, funny, confident, and patient with her girls. I watched more than one episode, a true sign of my interest.

But… within a few episodes, I realized, to the producers of this show, my feelings about June and her family must seem an anomaly. In my opinion, whoever is staging this show goes out of hir way to make this family a subject of mockery, ridicule, and disgust. From the opening montage, the audience gets a clue of what to expect—the family is first gathered, all smiling, as if they are posing for a portrait. And then, someone passes gas and they dissolve into arguing amongst themselves. Why, you may wonder, are they repeatedly cast in such an unflattering light? I believe we are meant to be repulsed by them because of a number of social characteristics of the family members: they are southern, working class, and some of them are fat.
I cannot list all the tropes trotted out to play on stereotypes of people who fall in the aforementioned category, but let me try. We see June, the heaviest member of the family, eating. No shame in that right? But we see her eating in ways that we can look down upon. We see her eating with her hands. We see the show edited (for example, the Thanksgiving show) to make it seem that she eats non-stop. We see her eating large portions (as on her date with her partner, Sugar Bear). And we are encouraged to make judgments on how she cooks for and feeds her children, some of whom (including Alana) are heavy. She sprinkles sugar on their already sweetened cranberry sauce and says it’s how they get their servings of fruit. She makes a dish called “sketti” that includes spaghetti, ketchup, and butter. She tells us about feeding them venison culled from deer killed in car accidents. As if that does not drive the point home enough, Alana laments the fact that they haven’t had venison in a while, noting that, “It’s been a while since I had road kill in my belly.” Largely ignored is June’s comment that she is trying to feed a family of six on $80 a week, leaving little room for gourmet fare, and that she cooks almost everyday to control food costs.

And, oh, these uncouth southerners! The children curse. The parents curse. They argue and laugh loudly. The camera makes sure to document each time they pass gas or burp or pick their noses. They play in mud on several episodes (I mean, you know how we southerners love our dirt—food, toy, flooring—it’s multi-purpose!). They go to “Redneck Games.” The editing of one episode emphasizes that gnats fly around them. When Alana meets the current Ms. Georgia, Ms. Georgia notes that she is unsure of how far the little girl will go in the pageant world because of her lack of refinement. And attempts to teach Alana “proper” etiquette seem exasperating for the child and the instructor, as if the little girl is hopeless!

The presented image of Sugar Bear, too, is often unflattering. He is always shown with a pinch of chewing tobacco in his mouth, leading to comments about his breath. He speaks softly and seems shy and, quite often, scenes are edited to emphasize that June is the “boss” and the girls pay him little attention. This further contributes to the appearance of the family as disordered, given our culture’s creation and castigation of “matriarch” figure and common lamentations about men losing their status in various ways. But I don’t see Sugar Bear as weak because he is quiet. In fact, in Sugar Bear, I see my own dad and my favorite uncle. My dad was a quiet man who loved pickup trucks and hunting and fishing and dealt with my sister and me gently. My uncle is much the same way and, like Sugar Bear and many southern men, he’s usually chewing a pinch of tobacco and clamoring for a “spit cup.” I do not find him disgusting. I have never been repulsed by his breath or his tobacco habit. A quiet disposition does not indicate a lack of engagement or importance in a family circle. Sugar Bear’s love for June and those girls is obvious. He works hard for his family. And when June’s oldest daughter, his step-daughter, has a baby, his sweet words about how she reminded him of Alana and seeing him cuddling the newborn reinforced the comparison I made between him and my dad.

The Shannon/Thompson family has a strong sense of themselves as working class southerners and are even untroubled by the term “redneck”—and why should they be, given “redneck’s” origin as a term to describe hard-working farmers whose necks were burned red by exposure to the sun? But given all the negative connotations that label has, it seems outside the realm of possibility to the producers of the show that one can be comfortable and even proud of a rural southern identity. In comments of posts or articles that talk about the show, you will commonly see them called “white trash,” as well. Now, I have to say, first, that while I understand the sentiments of poor white people and scholars who have tried to “reclaim” the term “white trash,” it is a very problematic term, particularly in its implication that “white trash” is such an anomaly that we must include a racial marker. Most white people are not perceived to be trash, thus the label; but what does this say we think about people of color? The racialized terms by which we are referred have been constructed in ways that imply an innate subordination, impoverishment, “less-ness” in a way that the term “white” has not been constructed. In fact, so anomalous is “white trash,” that scholar Matt Wray explored the idea that people given this label are often perceived as “not quite white.”

For the purposes of this essay, I want to focus on another adverse meaning of the labeling of the Shannon/Thompson family as “white trash”: in the words of Matt Wray and Annalee Newitz, “white trash” is often the “white Other,” “the difference,” indeed, the “threat” within the bounds of the privileged status of whiteness. There is no clearer evidence in “Honey Boo Boo” that the South and, in this case, white southerners are being othered, portrayed as foreign, unknown, and unknowable, than the fact that the family’s speech is captioned, as if our English is any more accented than that of people from other regions of the United States! But those other accents are normative, unnoticeable, default, and, in the end, not an accent at all, but the way “real” USians talk!

I think the whole family is portrayed in a way to make each member an object of ridicule, but I believe our greatest disgust is supposed to be reserved for June. June seems, to me, to have a great attitude. She finds the humor in many situations and she is affectionate with her girls. She is confident about her relationship with Sugar Bear and her attractiveness to him. She is a bit adventurous and she likes to have fun. June is also money savvy; she endeavors to be an “extreme couponer”: “You save money for your family — that’s what it’s all about,” she said [on Jimmy Kimmel Live]. “I could be a multi-millionare and still want to get the best deal for my family.” Additionally, “she’s putting the show’s earnings into trust funds for her children,” noting that, “I want my kids to look back and say, ‘Mama played it smart.’”

Funny, confident, beautiful, smart… apparently, those are all things forbidden to fat southern women. When June decides to have fun on a water slide, the camera focuses on the fact that she struggles to climb it (even then, she laughs amiably at herself and is clearly having a good time, but the joke is supposed to be on her—HaHa! She’s too fat for this!). She notes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that she and Sugar Bear both appreciate her beauty (a fact that he confirms). Yet, she is shown as the opposite of all those things that are constructed as beautiful in our society, from her disdain for makeup to her refusal to obsess over her weight. And, true to common characterization of southerners, there are plenty of “duh” moments when we are given the impression that the family members are not intelligent. I cannot, in one post, catalogue all the ways this woman is mocked and cast as the butt of some joke that everyone else is in on.

But, what really endears June, and indeed, all her family, to me, is the fact that, in the face of a country that derides most things about them, they STAY proud and true to who they are, something that I understand as (and I deeply, deeply hope is) a refusal to accept the mandate that they apologize for being themselves, for being working-class and southern. When I see June, I am reminded of Liss’s post about having the audacity to be fat and happy and I can’t help smiling myself. For me, the othering of the South and southerners, the positioning of us as inferior to northerners, the constant stream of jokes about our stupidity and “in-breeding,” our “strange” food (and even deadly, until soul food and southern food are properly gentrified by northern chefs—but that’s another post!) and weird customs, means that I proclaim my southern-ness often and loudly, from the language I use on social media to referring to myself as a southern (b)elle to making a conscious effort to use my “real” voice in my classes and other settings so that my accent, which I find lovely and luscious, shines through. And while part of that has come from the process of being comfortable in my own skin, part of it is DEFINITELY a “Ha! I am progressive, smart, funny AND southern”-thumbing-of-my-nose at those who would believe such a person cannot exist. I read June’s actions and attitude in the same light.

I have a delightful feeling that I am right.

Same Script, Different Cast

[Trigger warning for racism; classism; sexual violence.]

A caveat: I have not seen "The Help." I do not plan to see "The Help," yet I feel pretty confident that I have "The Help" all figured out. If you don't know about this film, please see this post. I'm going to ground my thoughts about "The Help" in two other documents I will link: Valerie Boyd's review entitled, "'The Help,' a feel-good movie for white people" and "An Open Statement to the Fans of 'The Help'" from the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH). A brief description from Boyd:

"The Help" — the film adaptation of the best-selling novel by Atlanta author Kathryn Stockett — is a feel-good movie for a cowardly [wrt to the ways we deal (or don't deal) with issues of race] nation.

Despite its title, the film is not so much about the help — the black maids who kept many white Southern homes running before the civil rights movement gave them broader opportunities — as it is about the white women who employed and sometimes terrorized them.

And there you have it, the problem at the heart of works like "The Help" that blossoms into myriad other problems—the centering of white women in a story that is supposed to be about women of color, the positioning of white women as saviors who give WoC voice. As my colleagues in the ABWH note,

Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers.

I want to meld these critiques of "The Help" with my own, which is rooted in who I am: My name is elle, and I am a granddaughter of "The Help." And while I can never begin (and would never want) to imagine myself as the voice of black domestic workers, I can at least share some of their own words with you and tell you some places you can find more of their words and thoughts.

I. The Help's representation of [black domestic workers] is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy… [p]ortrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites…—ABWH

Early on in "The Help," we hear the maids complain that they've spent decades raising little white girls who grow up to become racists, just like their mothers. But this doesn't stop Aibileen from unambiguously loving the little white girl she's paid to care for. —Boyd

When you put white women at the center of a story allegedly about black women, then the relationships between those two groups of women is filtered through the lens and desires of white women, many of whom want to believe themselves "good" to black people. That goodness will result in the unconditional love, trust and loyalty of the black people closest to them. They can remember the relationships fondly and get teary-eyed when they think of "the black woman who raised me and taught me everything." They fancy themselves as their black nanny's "other children" and privilege makes them demand the attention and affection such children would be showed.

From a post I wrote some time ago:

I hated, hated, hated that my grandmother and her sister were domestics.

Not because I was ashamed, but because of the way white people treated them and us.

Like… coming to their funerals and sitting on the front row with the immediate family because they had notions of their own importance. "Nanny raised us!" one of my aunt's "white children" exclaimed, then stood there regally as the family cooed and comforted her.

But, as the granddaughter of the help, I learned that the woman my grandmother's employers and their children saw was not my "real" grandmother. Forced to follow the rules of racial etiquette, to grin and bear it, she had a whole other persona around white people. It could be dangerous, after all, to be one's real self, so black women learned "what to say, how to say it, and sometimes, not to say anything, don't show any emotion at all, because even just your expression could cause you a lot of trouble."** They wore the mask that Paul Laurence Dunbar and so many other black authors have written about. It is at once protective and pleasant, reflective of the fact that black women knew "their white people" in ways white people could never be bothered to know them. These were not equal relationships in which love and respect were allowed to flourish.

Indeed, with regard to the white children for whom they cared, black women often felt levels of "ambiguity and complexity" with which our "cowardly nation" is uncomfortable. Yes, my grandmother had a type of love for the children for whom she cared, but I knew it was not the same love she had for us. I think August Boatwright in the film adaptation of "The Secret Life of Bees" (another film about relationships between black and white women during the Civil Rights Era that centers a white girl) voiced this ambiguity and complexity much better. When her newest white charge, Lily, asks August if she loved Lily's mother, for whom August had also cared, August is unable to give an immediate, glowing response. Instead, she explains how the situation was complicated and the fragility of a love that grows in such problematic circumstances.

Bernestine Singley, whose mother worked for a white family, was a bit more blunt when the daughter of that family claimed that Singley's mother loved her:

I'm thinking the maid might've been several steps removed from thoughts of love so busy was she slinging suds, pushing a mop, vacuuming the drapes, ironing and starching load after load of laundry. Plus, I know what Mama told us when she, my sister, and I reported on our day over dinner each night and not once did Mama's love for the [white child for whom she cared] find its way into that conversation: She cleaned up behind, but she did not love those white children.

II. The caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as physical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers.—ABWH

From films like "The Help," we can't know what life for black domestic workers is/was really like because, despite claims to the contrary, it's not black domestic workers talking! The ABWH letter gives some good sources at the end, and I routinely assign readings about situations like the "Bronx Slave Market" in which black women had to sell their labor for pennies during the Depression. The nature of domestic labor is grueling, yet somehow that is always danced over in films like this.

As is the reality of dealing with poorly-paid work. In her autobiographical account, "I Am a Domestic," Naomi Ward describes white employers' efforts to pay the least money and extract the most work as "a matter of inconsiderateness, downright selfishness." "We usually work twelve to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week," she continues, "Our wages are pitifully small." Sometimes, there were no wages, as another former domestic worker explains: "I cleaned house and cooked. That's all I ever did around white folks, clean house and cook. They didn't pay any money. No money, period. No money, period."**

Additionally, the job came with few to no recognizable benefits. The federal government purposely left work like domestic labor out of the (pathetic) safety net of social security, a gift to southerners who wanted to keep domestic and agricultural workers under their thumbs. After a lifetime of share-cropping and nanny-ing, my grandmother, upon becoming unable to work, found that she was not eligible for any work-based benefit/pension program. Instead, she received benefits from the "old age" "welfare" program, disappearing her work and feeding the stereotype of black women as non-working and in search of a handout. (I want to make clear that I am a supporter of social services programs, believe women do valuable work that is un- or poorly-remunerated and ignored/devalued. So, my issue is not that she benefited from a "welfare" program but how participation in such programs has been used as a weapon against black women in a country that tends to value, above all else, men's paid work.)

The control of black people's income also paid a psychological wage to white southerners:

[Their white employers gave] my grandmother and aunt money, long after they'd retired, not because they didn't pay taxes for domestic help or because they objected to the fact that our government excluded domestic work from social insurance or because they appreciated the sacrifices my grandmother and her sister made. No, that money was proof that, just as their slaveholding ancestors argued, they took care of their negroes even after retirement!

The various forms of verbal and emotional abuse suffered are also glossed over to emphasize how black and white women formed unshakeable bonds. By contrast, Naomi Ward described the conflicted nature of her relationships with white women and being treated as if she were "completely lacking in human dignity and respect." In Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody says of her contentious relationship with her employer, Mrs. Burke, "Mrs. Burke had made me feel like rotten garbage. Many times she had tried to instill fear within me and subdue me…" Here, I wrote a bit about the participation, by white women, in the subjugation of women of color domestic workers.

And what of abuse by white men? " 'The Help's' focus on women leaves white men blameless for any of Mississippi's ills," writes Boyd:

White male bigots have been terrorizing black people in the South for generations. But the movie relegates Jackson's white men to the background, never linking any of its affable husbands to such menacing and well-documented behavior. We never see a white male character donning a Klansman's robe, for example, or making unwanted sexual advances (or worse) toward a black maid.

This a serious exclusion according to the ABWH, "Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness."

Why the silence? Well, aside from the fact that this is supposed to be a "feel good movie," when you idolize black women as asexual mammies in a culture where rape and sexual harassment are often portrayed as compliments/acknowledgements of physical beauty (who would want to rape a fat, brown-skinned woman?!), then the constant threat of sexual abuse under which many of them labored and still labor vanishes. But black women themselves have long written about and protested this form of abuse. My own grandmother told me to be careful of white boys who would try to make me "sneak around" with them and an older southern man who was a fellow grad student told me that he and other southern men believed it was "good luck" to sleep with a black woman. Here, in the words of black women, are acknowledgements of how pervasive the problem was (is):

"I remember very well the first and last work place from which I was dismissed. I lost my place because I refused to let the madam's husband kiss me... I believe nearly all white men take, and expect to take, undue liberties with their colored female servants."*

"The color of her face alone is sufficient invitation to the southern white man… [f]ew colored girls reach the age of sixteen without receiving advances from them."*

"I learned very early about abuse from white men. It was terrible at one time and there wasn't anybody to tell."**

These stories abound in works like Stephanie Shaw's What a Woman Ought to Be and Do, Paula Giddings's When and Where I Enter, Deborah Gray-White's Too Heavy a Load and other books where black women are truly at the center of the story. Black women's concern over sexual abuse is serious and readily evident, but "The Help," according to the ABWH, "makes light of black women's fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief."

III. The popularity of this most recent iteration [of the mammy] is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.—ABWH

This mention of the White House is not casual (Boyd opens her review with an Obama-era reference, as well). I'm currently working on a manuscript that examines portrayals of black women and issues of our "desirability," success, and femininity in media. To sum it up, we, apparently, are not desirable or feminine and our success is a threat to the world at large. Many black women are trying to figure out why so much is vested in this re-birthed image of us (because it's not new). One conclusion is that it is a counter to the image of Michelle Obama. By all appearances successful, self-confident, happily married and a devoted mother, she's too much for our mammy/sapphire/jezebel-loving society to take. And so, the nostalgia the ABWH mentions comes into play. It's a way to keep us "in our place."

It happens every day on a smaller scale to black women. I remember someone congratulating me in high school on achieving a 4.0 and saying that maybe my parents would take it easy on me for one-six weeks chore-wise. The white girl standing with us, who always had a snide comment on my academic success, quickly turned the conversation into one about how she hated her chores and how she so hoped the black lady who worked for them, whom she absolutely adored, would clean her room.

Even now, one of my black female colleagues and I talk about how some of our students "miss mammy" and it shows in how they approach us, both plus-sized, brown-skinned black women with faces described as "kind." I do not need to know about the black woman who was just like your grandmother, nor will I over-sympathize with this way-too-detailed life story you feel compelled to come to my office and (over)share.

IV. [T]he film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists in Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field secretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers' assassination sends Jackson's black community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized confusion—a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who continued his fight.—ABWH

Embedded in this is perhaps the clearest evidence of the cowardliness of our nation. First, we cannot dwell too long on racism, in this case as exemplified in the Jim Crow Era and by its very clear effects. "Scenes like that would have been too heavy for the film's persistently sunny message," suggests Boyd. I'd go further to suggest that scenes like that are too heavy for our country's persistently sunny message of equal opportunity and dreams undeferred.

Second, when we do have discussions on the Jim Crow Era, we have to centralize white people who want to be on what most now see as the "right" side of history. They weren't just allies, they did stuff and saved us! And so, you get stories like "The Help" premised on the notion that "the black maids would trust Skeeter with their stories, and that she would have the ability, despite her privileged upbringing, to give them voice." Or like "The Long Walk Home," (another film about relationships between black and white women during the Civil Rights Era that centers… well, you get it) in which you walk away with the feeling that, yeah black people took risks during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but the person who had the most to lose, who was bravest, was the white woman employer who initially intervened only because she wanted to keep her "help."

These stories perpetuate racism because they imply that is right and rightful that white people take the lead and speak for us. (On another note, how old is this storyline? Skeeter's appropriation of black women's stories and voices, coupled with the fact that "Skeeter, who is simply taking dictation, gets the credit, the byline and the paycheck" reminded me so much of "Imitation of Life," when Bea helps herself to Delilah's pancake recipe, makes millions from it, keeps most for herself and Delilah is… grateful?!) The moral of these stories is, where would we have been without the guidance and fearlessness of white people?

I know this moral. That's why I have no plans to see "The Help."

_______________________

*From Gerda Lerner, Black Women in White America.

**From Anne Valk and Leslie Brown, Living with Jim Crow.

_______________________

I'm So Dreading Valentine's Day

I saw this slideshow, catchily entitled "Where the boys aren't" last week at NYT, discussing the major issue raised by the fact that women "have represented enrollments at American colleges since at least 2000." You might be surprised that said major issue is not "schools are hostile to boys" or "this is proof that men are underprivileged."

Nope. It's that college women can't find dates and face bitterness, desperation, and meaningless hookups. (Read the captions, f'real)

So, let's follow the NYT's premise for a minute--which seems to be something along the lines of "all college women are interested in men and see dating as a significant part of their college experiences." This sad state of affairs produces not only a sex ratio imbalance, but a power one, in which men have all the control. Note the following quotes:

The on-campus gender imbalance puts guys in a position to play the field, and tends to mean that even the ones willing to make a commitment come with storied romantic histories.

"On college campuses where there are far more women than men, men have all the power to control the intensity of sexual and romantic relationships," said Kathleen A. Bogle, a sociologist at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

The accompanying pictures are primarily of social settings in which women outnumber men (7 to 1 in the last one), highlighting how serious this crisis is!!! I mean, a girl can no longer go to college and pursue what her real goal should be--finding a man???

Particularly touching to single me, however, was this lovely quote:

Thanks to simple laws of supply and demand, it is often the women who must assert themselves romantically or be left alone on Valentine's Day, staring down a George Clooney movie over a half-empty pizza box.

I couldn't help thinking, "Wow! It's eerie how accurate the NYT is on the lives of single women!"

Update: Apparently there's a whole article linked to this travesty. I started writing this a few days ago and just saw Jill's post on it:

It seems to be a problem of perception more than statistics — if there are roughly equal numbers of men and women in a room, or if there are a few more women than men, we perceive the situation as thoroughly female-dominated. The same phenomenon happens with race. We’re used to seeing men (and white men in particular) as the standard; we’re used to them dominating higher education and the workforce. When we up the numbers of non-men in a situation where men have traditionally made up large majorities, the perception is that no more men exist – even though men are nearly half of the room.

Co-sign!

Also, the article talks in much more troubling terms than I did about a "power imbalance." Even my flippant self paused and wondered about this:

“A lot of my friends will meet someone and go home for the night and just hope for the best the next morning,” Ms. Lynch said. “They’ll text them and say: ‘I had a great time. Want to hang out next week?’ And they don’t respond.”

Even worse, “Girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with, to lock it down,” Ms. Lynch said.

As for a man’s cheating, “that’s a thing that girls let slide, because you have to,” said Emily Kennard, a junior at North Carolina. “If you don’t let it slide, you don’t have a boyfriend.”

...

Women on gender-imbalanced campuses are paying a social price for success and, to a degree, are being victimized by men precisely because they have outperformed them.

...

“If a guy is not getting what he wants, he can quickly and abruptly go to the next one, because there are so many of us,” said Katie Deray.

Emphasis mine.

Sexism vs Racism

The other thing I tried to get DR. ELLE to elaborate on in regards to this historic presidential campaign are these so-called feminist Clinton supporters who are charging that sexism is the reason their candidate lost and that many of them will "defect" and vote for John McCain to "show" the Democratic party or teach us all a lesson. Huh?

How is it advancing the feminist cause to put a man in office who will, undoubtedly, place another ultra conservative on the Supreme Court during his time in office. The Supreme Court which is thisclose to repealing Roe v Wade. Isn't reproductive rights CENTRAL to the feminist cause. He is anti- almost everything the feminist cause speaks to, but because the Democrats somehow denied Hillary Clinton the nomination.....they are going to show us their considerable power and vote for John McCain? Because Barack Obama is soooooo different than Hillary? Besides a very slight difference on health care and a bigger difference in ideology on whether or not the POTUS should speak to our enemies, Clinton and Obama agree on about 98% of the issues. So what is the real reason not to vote for Obama in the fall if you are a Democrat or Independent Liberal who believes in Liberal/Democratic causes? Because he was an upstart who "took" her nomination from her? Who is really to blame for that?

Clinton was the de facto/presumed nominee up until January of this year. I was sure she'd win. I was sure no one would vote for Obama. But 18 million people did. The fact is, she had all the advantages when this thing started - 100% name recognition, her husband was a beloved Democratic president, she had the big money donors in her court - she had it all. So to say that she somehow lost because she is female is disingenuous. Were there people out there who would never vote for her simply because she's a woman? OF-COURSE there were. But so too were there those who would never vote for a black man. Was there blatant sexism in the way she was covered by the media. Absolutely. Having CNN commentators actually discuss whether it's okay to call her a bitch is astoundingly sexist and uncalled for. And yes the dumbasses of the world showed up to shout "Iron my shirt" and sell Hillary nutcrackers. But the dumbasses of the world are always going to be there. Did any of that cost her the nomination??? With all the advantages she had the notion doesn't add up.

So now there's this idea that "Bitch is the new Black" (per Tina Fey), in other words, sexism is the new "racism" and sexism is more acceptable than racism in this country today and in this campaign. Elle's already talked about how maddening it is to see it become a competition for who's more maligned and who has it worse. The two are not competing "isms". They both exist and they both are something that is deeply ingrained in this country.

As for this campaign and which has been "worse", for me it comes down to the source of the racism or sexism. In my opinion Clinton, her husband, her surrogates (like Ferraro) and her campaign were openly courting and touting the votes of people ("hard working white Americans)who clearly showed racial resentment (at best) towards Obama and made no efforts to dissuade the ignorance of her constituents who believed Obama wasn't one of them (i.e. "He's not a Muslim.....as far as I know). Where is the honor in that? Of-course she wanted their votes. So did Edwards - but at least publicly he said he wanted not part of people who were voting for him only because he is white and male. Obama, his wife, surrogates and campaign never openly courted the good ole boys by diminishing Clinton as a female. He did question her touted experience as First Lady and what she really did that qualified as experience, and I know that upset many, but I think that's legitimate when your opponent is saying they have experience and you don't. I don't see that as an attack on her for being female. So for me, openly courting and touting the racist vote and playing on fears of "outsiders" is what made racism trump sexism in this race.

Regardless of your opinion on who had it worse in this campaign, the underlying question is, why are these women willing to punish themselves by voting for John McCain to stick it to the media and other idiots who have been blatantly sexist when the candidate left standing in the Democratic party is completely on their side when it comes to the feminist cause? Clearly not all, or even a majority, of Clinton's supporters are saying this, but it's enough that the chatter is being heard, and pretty scary to me.

Trying to Understand the Division

**What I was trying to say, much more eloquently**

Kim sent me a link to this article that I believe is a must-read. By Marie Cocco, it's entitled Misogyny I Won't Miss:

As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss.

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.

Erica Barnett's Women In Politics: The Same as It Ever Was is even more detailed about sexist tactics and attacks used against Senator Clinton:

This kind of shit ought to be behind us: Hillary Clinton is a bitch. A big ol' bitchy bitch. And a cunt. A "big fucking whore." Fortunately, you can "call a woman anything." She's "Nurse Ratched." She'll castrate you if she gets a chance. She would like that. She's a "She-Devil." She's a madam, and her daughter's a whore.

I am linking these pieces both because I find them significant and so on point in their own right and because I think it's ridiculous to claim that anyone can miss the misogyny directed at Sen. Clinton, in particular (and the idea of powerful, politically involved women in general), during this campaign, even if s/he won't acknowledge it. I received an e-mail that really, quite politely took me to task about this post in which I discussed my perceptions of (what has turned out to be) the battle for the Democratic nomination in terms of race and racism. The e-mail began with the question of whether or not I believed sexism had played a role in this campaign in the way that I argued race had and it (d)evolved into a sort of kinder, gentler, elle-you're-letting-race-trump-gender scolding. And, I thought, no, no, no--not this again.

I am not blind to the misogyny from various sources--the media, Obama supporters, blogs, Republicans--that has been horribly evident during Senator Clinton's campaign. I do not think it is less significant or has any less impact than the racism Obama has had to endure. I know I'm not the only person who sees the effects of both. So when I say that I have been put off and disheartened by the campaign, let me explain quite simply why.

I have seen the writings and exclamations of the most ardent supporters on both (Democrats') sides. I have seen them accuse each other of pretty near apocalyptic offenses. And I wanted to write a partially-irritated post about how I don't get it. But I think my intended tone may have made light of some people's very real concerns and what they perceive as righteous anger. So, in all seriousness, I have to say, the viciousness, the hatred, I don't get it.

I realize that my cluelessness may be a result of my studied indifference towards the race once it began to get so ugly. But it is also a result of who I am—southern, black, woman, historian. I am the daughter of people who remember when their parents couldn’t vote. I am the granddaughter of a woman who so cherished finally getting the franchise that she voted up until the end of her life. That may seem insignificant, but at some point, diabetes led to my grandmother having her legs amputated. The recreational center that was her polling place did not have access for disabled voters and one of my last memories of her is that she insisted that she be driven to the center and that people lift her wheelchair through the door.

I live in a region where “W, the President” bumper stickers usually exist side by side with confederate flag stickers and majority white/white-only “Christian” school stickers. I have studied about the Southern strategy and still see it in force here—you wouldn’t believe (well, you might) the code words and innuendos used to appeal to Republicans. When I lived in Texas, I remember an incident where a black woman ran for some office as a Republican. Her slogan? “She’s one of us.”

My impression of the Republican Party and what it’s all about is shaped by those things. That’s part of the reason why I don’t believe the world will end if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. And I don’t believe the world will end if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.

I don’t think an Obama candidacy equals the end of racism in this country. Neither do I think it will usher in the Most. Sexist. Administration. Ever. Similarly, I don’t think a H. Clinton candidacy means the days of entrenched misogyny are over. Neither do I think it will mean “gender has trumped race.”

So when I read that if Sen. Obama is denied the nomination, African Americans may just not vote anymore, I think, surely, given our history, that is not true. And when I read that if Sen. Clinton is denied the denomination, millions of working class whites and (white) feminists will flock to the Republicans, I think, surely, that is not true. In the end, even if I feel a grave injustice has been done by the Democratic Party in choosing, I won’t not vote. And I will not vote for the Republican Party that is so repugnant to me. The more I think about it, I might defy my past practices and vote for a third party candidate. Or, I might decide that, whoever was my preference, either Democratic candidate is better, in my opinion, than John McCain. But please trust, I will exercise my right to vote. I don’t think staying home is the answer. And I don’t think that feminists and working class people voting for a party known for its anti-feminist, race-baiting, let’s-treat-corporations-like-they’re-people-and-treat-working-class-people-like-they’re-shit stance is the answer, either.

The saddest thing? Before this primary season, I think many of us thought of both of them as good, accomplished, typically-on-the-right-side-of-an-issue Democrats. Why has that been lost?

OK, I Have to Start Thinking about It

One of the other things that former Arkansas State Representative Joyce Elliott said that resonated with me was that we need to stop putting down politics and our political system. Paraphrasing Dale Bumpers, she noted that while the system was flawed, it's all we have right now. She encouraged us to work towards change from the inside.

I am guilty of simultaneously expressing scorn for the infighting within the Democratic party and symbolically washing my hands of it, as if I'm far above the mudslinging that has gone on.

In truth, it has worn me out. But I need to start thinking about it.

Like my parents, I am a die-hard Democratic voter. In fact, whenever I've voted for multiple elected positions and the only candidate for some position or other has been a Republican, I did not vote. There is a part of me that has never allowed me to vote for a Republican, for what that party stands for in its current manifestation.

And I'm not the type of person who can vote to prove a point in the sense of voting for a third party candidate to express my disgust with the "big" parties. To me, that feels like throwing my vote away. I know it's wrong. I know we need more than two viable parties, but given our system, that's just how I feel. Besides, when I vote for a Democrat, I'm not just choosing the lesser of two evils. I truly do wish for change, for politicians that care about average people and not just corporations and/or the super-wealthy.

That said, I do not think the Democratic Party is a worry free haven for me. For one thing, I realize that I'm much further left than many Democrats. One reason I have not been all engrossed by the presidential brouhaha is I am not just head-over-heels about either of the Democratic candidates. Both Senators Obama and Clinton are a little too centrist for me.

I have been horrified by how divisive this thing has gotten. And one thing that has been enlightening, but kind of heartbreaking for me is seeing the growing rift in feminism. (How could I have forgotten to link Crenshaw and Ensler's "Feminist Ultimatums?" The rest of this post is definitely about how I'm viewing either/or feminists). As Shark-Fu noted:

Senator Clinton’s run for the Democratic nomination has not produced a split in feminism. It just flushed away a lot of that tolerance bullshit and exposed a rift that’s been there since way back in the day.
[snip]
It is layered with issues of class, race, orientation and identity that all play a role in our goals and tactics. The reason it may seem new is because we haven’t had a happening that demanded an unavoidable examination of our values and our goals in some time.

A few weeks ago, I e-mailed some friends about a WaPo article in which a white feminist opined that black women who supported Barack Obama had "forgotten sexism." My response, of course, was my usual "Is she for real?" I wanted to explain that for some of us, sexism and racism can't be neatly separated, that I, for one, don't have a schedule that reads, "M-W-F, focus on 'the race'; T-Th, do your 'feminist' stuff; S-Su, other stuff--every third weekend off." Unnecessarily snarky I know, but, damn, see if you don't get tired of people trying to compartmentalize and dissect who you are.

But even worse than the demands to compartmentalize or prioritize, is the absolute disappearing of black women by some white feminists as they argue against an Obama candidacy. A little while ago, on Taylor Marsh's blog, I read a comment in which a woman wondered what the Democratic Party would do when Democratic women left the party if Obama was the nominee. Now, if I'm understanding correctly, 90% of black Democrats who've been voting support Obama. I'd hazard a guess that a significant portion of that 90% are women. And yet, we don't count as Democratic women?

And on the Reclusive Leftist, after a post in which Dr. Violet Socks explains why she will not vote for Obama, comments include:

36. What’s happening here is that the women of America— the regular voters — are putting their foot down.

Black women are not part of the women of America?

68.. It’s about whether or not we are OK with the Democratic party basically saying they don’t have to do look out for us. Women aren’t important the way blacks are.

You can be a woman or black, but not both?

If Obama is the nominee, Cynthia McKinney would be the ideal alternative choice. How can anyone label us racist if we vote for her?

A black woman becomes the vehicle by which you get to express your disapproval and earn your I'm-not-a-racist card?

Then there's the wider dismissal of black voters in general or, in a similar vein, as Pam Spaulding says, the casting of the black vote as "a "problem" because it skews to Obama." The beginning of it was not Sen. Clinton's observations of support for her among white people,"the people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that," though that bothers me a whole lot. The feeling that I get from that is, so what that Obama has overwhelming black support? Our votes don't matter. So many comments on blogs reiterate this meme--the only support Obama gets is from black people and academics so it doesn't count. I'm too tired to get deeply into that, but I'm black and an academic, so my general feeling is, glad to know I pretty much don't matter to the party I always support.

And then there is that which remains largely unexamined by Sen. Clinton's supporters. I see lots of dissection of the "not good" reasons people vote for Obama: "Academics vote for Obama cuz he's elitist. Young people vote for him cuz he has rock star appeal. Black people vote for him cuz he's black." But for Sen. Clinton to stand flat-footed (as my grandmother would say) and claim, "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening," as if that statement is unproblematic... I respect Melissa's analysis:

What I am keenly interested in is Clinton's having either intentionally or unintentionally equated "hard-working Americans" with "white Americans." Because, you know, on one hand, it's a cynical and ugly dog whistle to racists who equate brown-skinned people with laziness—and, on the other hand, it sounds exactly like a cynical and ugly dog whistle to racists who equate brown-skinned people with laziness. Even giving her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't intend to imply that non-white Americans aren't hard-working, the effect is the same

I want some Hillary supporters to dissect some of the "not good" reasons people vote for her. You know, just begin a sentence with, "Some white people vote for Clinton cuz..." or "I'll vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee because..." and use your imagination.

There is something troubling about some white* feminists who support Hillary Clinton claiming the Democratic Party is acting as if the black vote is "too" important, a sort of not-so-soft whisper of, "Don't forget who really matters," both in terms of votes and the existence of the party, an invocation of power and privilege.

Because they envision this contest as one in which someone is going to be "thrown under the bus," I think they're making it pretty clear who that had better be.
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Got some links from here and here.
*This is a little simplistic, since I don't think the rift occurs wholly along racial lines.