It's "puzzling".  That's not the Geraldine Ferraro we knew.

I think she is saying that they are "bitter".

Geraldine Ferraro was a drag on Mondale in '84 and in this campaign she has utterly disgraced herself. Gerry, just go away.

I make of it this:

a) Geraldine Ferraro does not use a speechwriter to pen her OpEd pieces

b) GF's expository writing skills are rather weak for someone of her prominence in the Democratic Party

c) "racial resentment" is a clumsy way of expressing a more profound and disturbing concept, which is the all-too-prevalent politics of tribal identity that infects the Democratic Party

d) identity politics is what causes our party's brand image to be so poor among the broader public, thereby undermining our huge advantage on all issues that don't directly concern identity politics

e) it's up to our party's prospective nominee to address the problems of tribal identity politics. This can be done most effectively by making a major speech calling for ending the anachronism that is race=based aff action in school admissions and replacing it with income-based aff action.

Batter up, Obama. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by scrapping race=based aff action. You know it's the right thing to do. It's also the politically smart thing to do. Landslide awaits.

Isaac, it's quite clear that she's babbling. Just like Hillary talking about Zimbabwe and Florida in 2000. They have lost their heads.

As for number 2, I think she meant to say "reinforced."

Your guess is as good as mine as to the others.

It reads like an entry in Gov. George Wallace's diary.

Um... what I make of it is that my party's erstwhile Veep pic doesn't know when to cut her losses and stop talking.  

What she's saying is that a lot of white people resent black people, but don't like to be called "racists."  Whether one wants to spend one's precious time parsing this with a microfine razor is, I suppose, one's own business.  I think one has to give Ferraro more benefit of the doubt than she deserves not to consider this whole piece incoherent, inflammatory and distasteful.  What seems beyond a doubt to me is that Ms. F has some really, really craptacular political instincts.

Geraldine's and Bill's racism is nothing if not sublime.

This is an interesting tactic, though, claiming resentment.

Isaac, I'd ask you consider this: there are pleanty of racists whose support for Clinton over Obama is based on race more than anything else.  However, there are also a lot of Clinton supportes who have been accused of racism (really: "you're either racist or an idiot") simply for not supporting Obama.  Jennifer Rubin has something on that about Jews -- she writes something like "if you don't trust Obama, it's not legit to look at all the anti-Israel people in Obama's fp braintrust and be suspicious, it must be because you think he's a Muslim."  If you are in this latter camp, wouldn't you resent it?  

Also, is this that different than what Joan Walsh writes on

So, I guess I see both dynamics going on.  When Ferraro made her original comments, I thought she was half correct but that her motives were all wrong (the correct part: it is absolutely impossible to imagine a 1st term African-American woman senator generating an Obama like movement and contending for the presidency).  

Okay, I defended Ferraro's remarks (to some extent) in the comments following Mike's post, and I'll stick my neck out again here.

First, before folks accuse me of being some Klan-lovin' Clintonista, be aware that I have given the Obama campaign $500 this campaign and have given Clinton and McCain exactly a total of nothing. My money represents my labor, which represents my time, which is finite upon this planet. My support of Obama is genuine.

Second, I believe that Ferraro's comments strike a chord with a large number of Americans whose votes, like it or not, count just as much as mine or anyone else's. Those votes and their owners deserve, a priori, our respect. That is the whole idea behind democracy. Either one believes in democracy or one doesn't. Every American has the right to be wrong, ill-informed, or just an asshole, just as the rest of us have the right to be enlightened uber-perfect gurus of political wisdom.

Third, the voters to whom Ferraro refers are among the most important in the upcoming election. They populate swing states by the zillions, Clinton kicked Obama's ass in seeking their support, and McCain's people are targeting them this second. My fellow Obama supporters who think November is a slam dunk because of antipathy toward George Bush or an impending McCain implosion may wish to think again.

Now, on to the very important point that Ferraro is making (possibly in spite of herself). The America of 2008 (as John Edwards has most eloquently observed) is ruled by class. Those in a position of power are quite happy to allow the assorted myths and fears and visceral responses to rule our hearts and thence our minds and thence our wallets and our ballots. One of the ways they do this is by promulgating the ever-popular "either/or" parsing of policy, so either blacks become victims or whites do.

I happen to believe that, for the vast majority of people in this country, both blacks and whites are suffering. Blacks are clearly suffering more than whites, but that does not mean that whites are not suffering. We do not have to delineate the ways here. There are too many examples of both, and each is unconscionable in my view, given that they need not happen. That is enough to know, and it is too much to know without a response, and that response is, alpha and omega, from the heart.

To merely dwell on Ferraro's error and paranoia and folly in accusing Obama's campaign of orchestrating some anti-Whitey purge is to miss the salient kernel of truth in her remarks that must be confronted and corrected if Obama is to win the election in November and, of far greater importance, if this nation is to be elevated to the position of greatness for which it was designed but has so far fallen short in attaining.

Millions of white Americans, during their lifetime, have seen their children's lifespans decrease to less than their own, have watched their jobs go overseas, have seen kids they know--possibly their own--return from a stupid war in a thankless desert in body bags, have watched retirement turn from a given into a sick joke, have seen a doctor's appointment be something you could get in two days to something you wait two months for, etc. etc. etc. etc.

The powers that be, in their Machiavellian social-Darwinistic greed and well-practiced benign neglect, are all too happy to watch whites and blacks turn against each other, as is happening at this moment, in this country. The air is thick with false prophets, from Geraldine Ferraro to Jeremiah Wright. The powers toss them crusts of bread and wish them Godspeed.

Just as Jeremiah Wright's words, beneath their anguish and vitriol, contain important kernels of truth, so beneath Ferraro's words the truth lurks.

And truth will out. It always does.

I have no sympathy for Ferraro ("rhymes with 'rich'") or for the folks she purportedly champions.  It's really class resentment, which the Right has always managed to divert away from the true plutocratic targets and onto racial/ethnic minorities and educated liberal "elites."  People like she and HRC should be telling it like it is instead of behaving like Republicans.  If McCain wins, we'll know whom to blame.

I can somewhat understand what she's saying, but there's a level of resentment and a lack of understanding on her part of where Obama is coming from in his campaign.  Yes, whites have to walk a very fine line that isn't applied some times to African-Americans, but look how Rev. Wright was castigated over his sermons by whites.  The Political Correctness Police go after whites and blacks today.  They don't go after sexists anywhere near as strongly as they should though.

I think the real problem here is that we have this deep-seated fear of being called a racist by anyone under any circumstances. Our national conversation on these things would be so much more honest and free flowing if people didn't bandy the phrase about so much (and Obama himself did NOT play the race card on Ferraro... he didn't have to) and people like Ferraro didn't go ballistic in response. I blame it on a liberal guilt that's so pervasive it affects many conservatives too (and the ones it does not often truly are bona fide racists).

And here's one white person who hates the euphemism of "national race dialogue". I interpret that as, "I'm against affirmative action but I want some cover so that no one calls me a racist". Pah-lease. If you'll pardon my sexist analogy: if you're against a policy like affirmative action or welfare, sack up and just say so. Of course, do so knowing full well that your rationale will be scrutinized by others, and it may very well be racist in some objective sense.

All of this is my way of saying that I see some kernel of insight in Ferraro's op-ed, but that's clearly all she has to offer as she sees these issues through lenses over-tinted with race.

Interestingly, tep, some of the things I read indicate that Obama's not all that keen on race based affirmative action.  It could be interesting where he takes it.

I have been thinking about the way the US has treated blacks like a track and field coach who gets two runners.  One he chains to the benches and won't let him do anything.  The other he trains.  At some point he's told he must free the chained runner and train him.  He frees the runner, but won't do anything for him, and sometimes, when he races the two students to choose one for a meet, he gives the one he trains a head start.  Finally, he's replaced with someone who sees the injustice.  This person begins giving extra training to the formerly chained student.  But then the first student complains.  At what point should the extra training end?

All GF says to me is that she's bitter.  Obama  was right all along, some sure are bitter.

Does she drink, do you think?

What happens when you believe that you are racially neutral when in fact you are a racist?  You get comments like Ferraro's.  The paradox lies in her head.  

GF is a 70 something Italian American woman from Queens. She could easily be from many neighborhoods in Philadelphia too, she sounds exactly like my husband's grandmother.  Let's just say the relationship between the two communities from that generation is...strained.

I wish she'd explain the difference for us between racial resentment and racism, maybe they understand that sort of thing better in Boston.  Sounds too deep for me.

(Her accusing Obama of being sexist is the clearest example of projection I have seen in years).

Germans resent Jews because they (the Germans) tried to exterminate them (the Jews).  If I do something nasty to you, but you end up beating it and sticking around, I will resent you because you keep reminding me I'm not God's gift to humanaity that I want everyone else to think I am.

As GSP indicated above, Ferraro's folks resent blacks because they used Jim Crow to keep them as intimidated second-class quasi-citizens but the civil rights movement came and won that war.  Now blacks are hanging around in America, reminding said folks of their historical ass-holery.  They want to resent, but not be thought racist.  But that doesn't work.

Who wouldn't be even more resentful?  But then, people living on resentment have a thin diet, and have to get over that.  It's what people do.  It's what the Germans had to do.  Come on resentful white guys and gals, you're better than Clinton, Ferraro, and the Republicans want you to be!

what yard said. Class, not race.

Help the puppies, whatever their color, not the yuppies, whatever their color.

I think by "racial resentment" she means the racism of others projected on to innocent (i.e. not racist) parties.

I think she interprets "our time has come" as the black folk are taking over the power.

Maybe Ferraro drinks something bitter.  Then again, some bitters are quite drinkable.  Or something like that.

Tep - Obama has been clear that there will be no Sister Soulja moment in this campaign.  He's had a few pretty substantial leaks on that one.

On substance: he's also made it clear several times in several venues that he is open to moving towards class based affirmative action, would a speech at a bowling alley make it seem more sincere?  That seems to condesending to me.

He just doesn't need to pander that way. That just isn't his way and would reek of phoniess. Besides, he can be straight forward and that is enough.  

aonevent - we're now on the third generation of aff action recipients. Even Justice O'Connor, in her famously incoherent opinion in U Michigan, highlighted the need to apply statute of limitations logic to this problem, which is now dwarfed by the massive and growing problem of INCOME inequality and its impact on diminishing access to educational opportunity.

I mean, really, why should Thomas Sowell's grandchildren or Obama's children or Oprah's kids receive any preference at all due to the amount of melanin their bodies contain? It's not needed, it does f-all for poor black kids, it injures deserving working-class non-black kids, it's been overwhelmingly rejected by the voters of Michigan and California (and soon will be in many other states).

If anyone can put an end to this and speak up for class-based preferences, it's Obama.

Show some leadership, Barack.

GF's saying what Hillary's asked her to say, but obviously can't herself: there's enough of America that won't vote for a black for president that if people don't want to see McCain elected, they better select me as the nominee and worry about the machinations that requires after the White House has been secured.  Oh, and anyone who doesn't support Hillary is nothing but a sexist pig.

Tep:  I don't see the nation worked up about race-based affirmative action.  The racial issue is illegal immigration.  Obama substituting "class-based" for "raced-based" will not accomplish the sister souljah moment I think you're looking for.

I’ll take a shot at paraphrasing her and answering your 3 questions. (This paraphraser takes no responsibility for the following content.)

Reagan Democrats are pretty indifferent to the treatment of Hillary Clinton by (whom? I’m not sure, Itzik Basman, but I’m guessing) Obama and his supporters, including his black supporters and the  mainstream media. They are more concerned by how they are being treated (I’m guessing again) by Obama and his supporters, including his black supporters and the mainstream media. An example of their perception of  being treated unfairly is how I myself was treated when I commented on “the influence of blacks on Obama’s historic campaign.” That I was accused of being racist for saying this has led to working class whites stopping me to express a common sentiment: if you are white you cannot say anything, whether simply factual or critical, about Obama and his support amongst blacks without being accused of being a racist. They further tell me that they see Obama and his campaign “playing the race card” and not being called on it. And they are frightened and upset that no one is calling Obama and his campaign on playing the race card. They are upset at the double standard: it racist, they are told, for whites, as I have said, to comment factually or critically issues concerning Obama and his black support and the fact that he is himself black; but it is not racist for him and his surrogates to exploit the race card and no one dare call him on that exploitation. So Reagan Democrats are not driven to being upset and feeling like victims of unfair treatment because they are racist, but, rather, because they resent racially different treatment accorded to whites as compared to black supporters of Obama. You could call that their racial resentment. Their feelings are reinforced by their perception that Obama does not understand them and does not understand their problems. They believe when he said after he won in South Carolina, “Our time has come”, he was telling his black supporters their time had come and implicitly telling the time for working class whites had passed.

So in answer to your 3 questions:

1. Racism is making invidious distinctions based on the irrelevant criterion of race. Racial resentment is an emotion, in this context, evoked by, and aimed at, unfair critical treatment of whites in comparison to the uncritical treatment of blacks for similar behaviour.

2. By “enforced” she means “reinforced.”

3. Yes: she is saying the perception is that white working class’s time has passed.

Having gone through this process, I’d say that this is a shockingly badly written and reasoned op-ed for a former and serious vice presidential candidate.

Yard says, referring, I'm supposing, to white working class voters:

"Those votes and their owners deserve, a priori, our respect. That is the whole idea behind democracy. Either one believes in democracy or one doesn't. Every American has the right to be wrong, ill-informed, or just an asshole, just as the rest of us have the right to be enlightened uber-perfect gurus of political wisdom."

Well, the right to be a stupid asshole is different from respecting assholes' stupidity.  One can believe in democracy as the only just political system while at the same time viewing its tendency to place political power in the hands of morons as a downside.  (That was certainly the view of the found fathers.)  I believe strongly in the First Amendment but I hardly respect every exercise of free speech rights and often use my own to voice strong disagreement.

Consider, for example, the likelihood that many will not vote for Obama because he's black, just as many would not vote for Hillary because she's a woman.  Those are views I don't respect, even  though those voters are entitled to hold them and vote based on them.  Ridiculing West Virginians for explaining their votes by reference to Obama's identity as a Muslim or his middle name -- ("HOO-sane") -- is entirely justified.

I find all this solicitude of the white working class that we've been seeing in this race to itself be pretty condescending -- it's its own sort of bullshit political correctness, as though this group of voters is (a) mysterious and (b) highly delicate.  Someone once called this "respect idiocy" attitude the soft bigotry of low expectations.  I forget who.  The point is, it's apt here.

Obama gave a speech in which he expressed his understanding of white resentment and his desire to move past it with initiatives aimed at lifting all struggling Americans.  That part of his speech was similar in substance to much of this op-ed piece.  Ferraro dismisses that as "just words."  Of course, there is little to judge Obama by except his words and actions, which are highly working-class friendly -- more so than any candidate in either party we've seen for some time.  What does she want him to do?  Be a better bowler?  Be more white?  Be less educated?

No, what she really wants is class-based pandering.  She thinks it's important for him to do what Hillary did:  *Lie* to white working class voters.  Treat them like dumb children.  ("Does little Polly and Johnny wanna a gas holiday?")  Al Gore tried that.  John Kerry tried that.  Everyone thought they seemed like big phonies when they were doing it, because they were.  (As it happens, a lot people thought Hillary was a big phony when *she* was doing it too.)  Obama is a different sort of candidate.  His instinct, which we see time and time again, is to be honest and straightforward.  I like that about him, and I don't want to see pragmatic concerns of the campaign (which, of course, need to be addressed) overwhelm why we like this guy in the first place.

tep,

Barack has shown leadership on this issue and expressed that a purely race-based affirmative action doesn't make a lot of sense, using his two daughters as examples. It's not a policy, but it's not the empty rhetoric of Bill Clinton ("mend it, don't end it") or the dead silence coming from Hillary (because for some reason, the press never asks her, and because at this point they're afraid to offend any more black voters).

In fact The Clinton Campaign is pretty much afraid to even mention black people aside from saying how proud black voters must be of Barack, which of course meets their two goals in a nice way: (1) It reminds white voters that Barack is a symbol of black pride -- which scare/angers many white voters; and (2) it ham-handedly kisses up to black voters. Although, that was the last month. Now that there are only thirty-seven black voters in the remaining states, she can focus on anything.

lymon,

That said, I think you are seriously underestimating the animosity toward race-based affirmative action. The core Clinton demographic by and large does not care about "diversity as a value", Grutter, Gratz, quotas or Lewis Powell. They think one thing about affirmative action: That it gives someone else an un-earned advantage. Affirmative action needs to have an end point and it needs to be economically fair. There was a Washington Post poll a few years ago that asked white and black people if the average white or black person had it better or worse -- the results were disturbing, and the impression that whites had about opportunity in the black community was maddening.

If she believes that she was labeled a racist by some for simply talking about "the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign," she is delusional.  What she said was was that Obama was the lucky beneficiary of  people who were only voting for him because of the historic nature of his campaign.  If she doesn't understand that her comments were offensive to both Obama (who attained his standing in the party through merit, not affirmative action) and his supporters (who just might prefer his politics AND be thrilled to support a black candidate), then she really should just stop commenting on the presidential race.  If anyone were to make a statement that Hillary is doing as well as she is only because she is married to Bill Clinton, is there any doubt that Ferraro would the first to cry foul?

Hey, I am a Reagan Democrat. Sorry, I don't remember much resentment in Reagan's campaign. "Morning in America" "Shining city on a hill." etc. I voted for Reagan because I am anti-Communist, and thought the welfare state has gone amok. I didn't do it because I resented blacks, it was an affirmative act. She was on a ticket that got totally destroyed by Reagan and still she learned nothing from it. As to the notion I worry I won't be treated well because I am white, honestly that is just beyond insanity. My entire life I have gotten jobs specifically because I am white. In China, hiring white people is almost in fashion to show how international the company is. The same was true for me in Mexico. The Universities want their English professors to look as English as possible, no asians, blacks, or hispanics need apply.

When I worked in the states, I interviewed on a tuesday and started on a wednesday because I was white and was of the same background as everyone else in the office. 11 years not a single black worked in the office (cleaning the floors, hell yeah.)

I come from a white, large Irish Catholic family, not one of my relatives, male or female is poor. How many black families can say the same thing?

These upper class white women are so obsessed with the glass ceiling, they never look down to see the poor minorites cleaning the floor. They think their breaking through represents a victory for these poor people, as though they will look up and say "yay, not it is a white woman who looks down at me, and not a white man."

No, screw GF, she has made her life excrement and is trying to tell us the stench is perfume.

As tep tips the hat to me, so do I tip the hat to tep.

If Obama fails to show leadership, the opportunity cost will be to cry for. And if he succeeds, what a huge victory it could be! Start showing a little holistic color-blind class-aware moral gravitas, ain't no tellin' what we could do. At the very least it would put some pride back in our stride. Hard to be proud when the brothers in the small towns are gettin laid off, the ones in the cities are droppin out of school to sell rock, and too many of the rest of us are rollin over like damn dogs.

As ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons shouts after his first go-round with that famous John Lee Hooker lick opening "La Grange": "Have mercy!" That there white boy and that there black boy sure know something about guitar licks.

I have hope (!) that Obama will win, catch his breath, then call us over to the kitchen table to have a little chat about a few things, race vs. class being near the top of his agenda.

jhildner,

On whose authority is your position on an election superior to that of, say, an undereducated paranoid brain-damaged bigot? I know mine isn't. We can make our respective cases but in the end his or her vote counts as one vote, and yours and my votes each count as one vote. I don't respect somebody's stupidity or bigotry or addiction to myth but unfortunately for me (and fortunately for our country) the Constitution does.

(This is why democracy is inherently risky; one either has to be a masochist or an optimist to believe in it, because otherwise one is simply waiting around for the unwashed hoards to take over and run society into the ground. Conservatives are neither masochists nor optimists, which is why they have such a hard time with it.)

As for what Ferraro wants Obama to do, I think she wants him to eat shit and die. She wants Clinton to be her President and feels wronged, as do a shitload of other women (see Dionne's column, "Women Scorned"). That and four bucks will get her a gallon of regular.

I don't care what Ferraro wants, and I don't care what she thinks of Obama. I think Obama is just fine, which is why I voted for him in the primary, donated to his campaign, and will vote for him in November.

However, I don't think she is lying or hallucinating when she speaks of being approached by anxious white people. Honestly, I think Obama respects them more than she does, but he's still got his work cut out for him convincing them that he is in fact holding the flap of the tent open for them and that, once inside, nobody's gonna bite 'em.

He's going to have to start by listening to their fears, as irrational as those fears may be (and not all of them are). One rarely changes somebody else's mind by speaking first.

Yard, he can't do it until he wraps it up, which at this rate won't be until the first round of the convention, at which point Hillary is as likely to storm out of the convention claiming how it was all stolen from her since she had more "popular votes." due to Obama willfully taking his name of the ballot in Michigan because he knew he would get zero votes there.

At this point, I don't thinks the Democrats have a chance in hell in November because Hillary has way too much invested in proving that she is right, that Obama can't win. The only way for her to say "I told you so." is by ensuring he loses. I think she believes she has hit her stride as the great populist and 4 years will wash away any bitterness about it.

We have known since Wisconsin he would win, Mitt Romney faced the same math and did the right thing leaving way before the contest was over. Call me cynical, but election day will indeed be a black day for blacks.

For women, well I am pretty certain from here on out the VP will be a woman (Unless the main candidate is) You might have Hispanics on either side (as long as they pass for white). We won't see a black run credibly on the Dem label  probably for a generation. I truly believe that this wound that Hillary is seeking to inflict will be that long lasting.

I am sorry, it might sound racist, but I wouldn't want to be a black man in America unless you gave me a ton of money in which case I would move to another country.

Of course, McCain might also pick Colin Powell, in which case we might have a black President, only Republican. (that is if McCain dies in office, Powell doesn't have the fire in the belly to run)

But willyard, basman, and others, the question remains, even if "anxious white people" are queuing up around the block to register their anxiety, as to what they are so anxious about.  I keep asking that in different ways around here, and sometimes it gets an answer and most times it's ignored (don't worry - I'd ignore me too if I had the chance!), but it really interests me that we can come down to the wire on this question but we can't seem to step across it.  What exactly are these people worried about?  How on earth can the fate of the "white working class" fall into in the hands of black Americans, who are a small percentage of the total population and indeed are mostly working class themselves, for chrissakes?

If some says "I'm anxious" it's totally reasonable to ask them what they are anxious about.  If they can't tell you, that says something -- perhaps even that their anxiety doesn't have a real basis in the world but is rooted in fantasy.  If somebody says "Obama claimed their day is come, and that means our day is past" then it's totally reasonable to ask them what they think that means.  If they can't tell you, or only speak in generalities, that says something -- perhaps even that they don't really know what it means.

If someone leaving a polling place says "yes" in answer to a question about whether race was a factor in their vote -- as significant numbers did in KY and WV -- then it's totally reasonable to posit a segment of anti-Obama opinion as being not entirely driven by noble motives of policy disagreement.  I'm getting tired of the disingenuousness that denies the factual basis for the reasonable assumption of a racist component to some anti-Obama feeling.

We need to get to what's at the root of the matter.

tep, you are of course being ironic in your initial post, right?

Yard, then I take it that Obama has an impossible job in order to get elected, to wit, he must prove he isn't who he is, right?

FWIW, I think I do get what you're saying, but, all sentiment aside, aren't your expectations and hopes for Obama a tad unrealistic. Aren't your stakes too high? All I care about is that he is elected, * then* it will be his job to do the impossible, and hopefully succeed a little. If this or that group can't tolerate his being President, they might just have to in the end. And, as we say, tolerance...

Yard, I'm not shy about saying that my opinions on numerous subjects are far superior to those of brain-dead bigots, as are yours.  You know that they are.  I don't think we need to argue about that.

Here's my problem:  This country's greatest weakness is its anti-intellectualism, and I hate to see it coddled and, worse, cloaked in the flag or the Constitution.  This is not a criticism of democracy.  Most developed nations are democracies.  Most developed nations are peopled by shitkickers.  But few *celebrate* stupidity as we do.  It's a cultural criticism.  I find it pretty disgusting that having a high quality education is viewed as a potential problem for a presidential candidate, and view "is he like me" politics as vacant and narrow and beside the point and, most importantly, destructive.  So I get irritated when what may be a perfectly valid pragmatic suggestion -- refine your message to increase its appeal to x or y important voting group -- is presented in terms of political morality when it's really just a matter of bogus political piety.

hildner, what I find most sad about this is that it is a Democratic candidate who is espousing this anti-intellectual line. McCain adopted a girl from Bangladesh. I believe he desperately wants to win on the issues and not on race. I can never imagine McCain uttering the line "I am the candidate of hardworking, white people."

Hillary has been an absolute disgrace to the values of the Democratic party, beyond that, to America itself.

The last thing that Reagan Democrats need is an advocate like Ferraro (and, incidentally, it amazes me that she claims to speak for a group of people from her party who, by definition, voted against her).  Aside from the lousy writing, there's the unsupported claims, the mind-boggling hypocrisy, and the general tone of paranoia and resentment.  Rather than spotlighting real issues that exist, she wraps them in a big, easy-to-dismiss package of crazy.  She does a disservice to both the people she claims to speak for and those she rails against.

Jhildner, Irony, Tep, Black, WilliamY, Barncle, tilt, tomeg, et all - it just doesn't get any better than this thread.  

hildner - it's not "pandering" to a minority interest group to focus on the needs of workgin America. They're the majority. One of the big lies they and we tell each other is that they're middle-class, prosperous, comfortable, secure. They're not. They're badly educated, have in many cases few marketable skills, little or no real security, and their kids, increasingly, are facing diminished opportunities with each decade that passes.

The grand bargain-- never explicitly stated, or voted upon, but there for all to see- that BOTH parties put forward back in the Volcker era has failed. That bargain, in essence, was that the working classes of this country would accept union-busiting, low wages and reduced social services in exchange for low inflation and low prices for consumer goods, cheap and widely available consumer credit, and lowered taxes should they decide (and have access to) to invest their meager savings into equities.

This bread-and-circus bargain has failed. Failed to provide retirement security, job security, security of access to health insurance, access to quality public education for their kids. This failure has NOTHING  at all to do with issues of race, and EVERYTHING to do with the triumph of hyper-mobile global Capital over immobile Labor.

We need to get beyond race and identity politics and get focused on this, the central problem of our and our children's eras.

Ya know what, let's be real here, we are all relatively reasonable people.  Does any of us really believe that if Barack Obama somehow came out against "racial" affirmative action that all of a sudden the people would cast aside their, if not racist, then prejudiced views and overwhelmingly vote for Obama.  I belive in giving people the benefit of the doubt (I have the audacity of hope if you will), but I no optimistic fool either.  

IBesides, I vaguely remember a poll some time ago, that said that many of these people who believe that this reverse racism exists or that harbor racist views, also frown upon interracial dating/marriage.  Does interracital dating have anything to do with Affirmative action??? Ah...no.

I guess what I trying to say here (in I admit a very blabby type of way) is that when people have already decided to embrace a way of thinking regardless of factual evidence to the contrary, then no matter what you do to try and appease them, you are damned no matter what.  

So all Obama can do is make the effort, which I hope he does, as an African-Amercan, I find that most people are more likely to think favorably/differently about minority people once they have been regularly exposed to us, and let the chips fall where they may.

Maybe, Wandrey -- but honestly there's times when some chicken wings and a Pilsener Urquell can really cheer me up.

That reminds me of Pat Buchanan's "A Brief for Whitey."  If you haven't read it yet, you absolutely must: sableverity.wordpress.com/.../pat-buchanan-finally-a-whitey-whos-not-afraid-to-show-his-racist-ways

Not a lot of space between Geri and Patty-pat-pat

lamh31 -- as with most things in politics, Obama's coming out  against aff action would be not a "souljah" but a hugely important symbolic GESTURE. A signal, if you like, but signals matter, hugely.

What is missing from our national debate is any recognition, let alone understanding, of the unique pressures that American (and for that matter western European, and Canadian/OZ/Japanese) _working families_ now face from a world in which capital is mobile and labor is not; in which labor-saving technologies are expanding exponentially; in which inverted demographic pyramids are reversing popular expectations about retirement and savings calculations; and in which markets introduce greater volatility into nearly every sphere of socio-economic life.

All of this means that people with access to global markets and data/knowledge-worker skills will do fine and those without such skills and access will struggle. It's the volatility, stupid.

People, this is not about racial or gender politics. Those conflicts are irrelevant to this, the central problem of our era. Could we please, please PLEASE get beyond our 1960s-era fixation with tribal/gender/racial politics and move our party and our platform into the 21st century.

<here endeth the sermon>

As always when statements like hers are made, they are never followed up with "and we need to find a way/work together, etc. to change it"  They are just left to sit there as if it will always be that way.  That's why the Clinton team will never get Obama's message of change.

Tep, Yard ...

Rather than rely on anecdotal evidence of any kind to point out just how wrong the two of you are, allow me to offer a simple but telling statistic.  Regardless of what you may think, numerous studies, including a rather famous one courtesy of the University of Chicago, have shown that when employers are presented with otherwise identical resumes, they respond to 33% fewer of those with stereotypically African American names and neighborhoods attached.

Tep,

It seems pretty clear to me that Obama is trying to move the party and the country into the 21st century and Hillary is trying to drag both backwards because that is the reality she understands and the reality in which she thinks she can be powerful.  

It is strange to think that for many white Americans in the 21st century the only black person they regularly invite into their homes is Oprah Winfrey.   With so little knowledge about black life except as seen in its extremes, many white working class voters are fearful.  It is an ignorant and juvenile response, but it is real.  For most of American history, working class white voters have been told that even though you may not be rich or successful, at least you are white. And that make you better than "them."  The heroes that these voters are taught to admire and the politicians to whom these voters have given their support are probably all white.   They are forever frightened of the invasion of the "other."   And Ferraro's comments reflect that.   These voters would rather not have to deal with the "other."  It is just too uncomfortable.

The great (and only) hope of the GOP in the fall is that the white working class will rise in revolt against "them."   [BTW, I am one of "them.]  That notion of the "other" (the lazy, unpatriotic, criminal black who takes your job through affirmative action and now wants to take the ultimate American symbol) permeates her op-ed and her grievance.

I think there is also a notion that being American is a racial designation.  For many people, Obama cannot be president because he is not "American" in the way the popular culture deemed an American to look.  An "all-American" does not have brown skin and dark eyes.

I am so blessed to be an African American.  I can love this country completely but realistically.   I see it all because the class-based problems compound the race-based problems.   I do not know how things will work out for Obama (though I wish him well).   I love America.  Sometimes I have to love it with all its flaws in full view.

dgamble576: Lovely post. Your expression of patriotism is superb. It is a qualified patriotism as patriotisms should be because nothing is perfect. It is only the triumphalist right that traffics in unqualified, uncritical patriotism. Theirs is a Platonic patriotism, preserved in amber. Your patriotism is alive and realistic.

dgamble576: I have to allow that even with the various gradations which might constitute ' the other' there is but one justice though the cut of this justice is modified by the individual/collective phenomenon. What is true within the individual regard should hold true within the collective regard. This happens to be a very difficult place to get to given our self serving tendency toward rationalizing anything inconvenient for our personal ambitions or desires. This holds true across all spectrum of humanity. That our individual identities are necessarily contingent upon ' our kind'  it is this definition which suffers the slings and arrows of intellectual dishonesty. Thus contention for our political spectrum.

I am a provisional Obama supporter. I think it likely that in a one on one relationship this true disposition would prevail. It is my hope that his larger campaign will be able to remain focused as such. I will hold the McCain campaign to the very same standard lest they incur my wrath. It is my hope that a degree of honesty might be had this year. Perhaps WE might take a small step forward toward reconciling these difficult issues.

Count me as one that thinks Tep and Yard are barking up the right tree. Good discussion at hand. Thanks.

Tep,

"One of the big lies they and we tell each other is that they're middle-class, prosperous, comfortable, secure. They're not. They're badly educated, have in many cases few marketable skills, little or no real security, and their kids, increasingly, are facing diminished opportunities with each decade that passes."

Would this reality not make one bitter when the truth leaks out?  BHO understands this very well and his language in articulating this point in SF was not smooth but correct.

They know it's a lie, have known this all their lives. They're not "bitter," just in denial, like the rest of us. The point which BHO doesn't understand is that these people are sophisticated enough to hold multiple truths in their head at once. Their faith and their assessment of their and the nation's economic situation work in separate spheres.

BHO's crude, even lumpen, marxist analysis misses the point: we need to stop tangling up cultural issues with economic ones, and start addressing the economic quandary in its own right, on its own terms, independent of all the kulturkampf and identity-politics noise.

When you do this, you see that swamping the low-end labor market with an imported, semi-literate proletariat is insane, and that failing to make the case for UHC to Limbaugh-sympathetic small businessmen and contractors and the self-employed is a huge missed opportunity. Instead, we get dopey pop psychoanalysis of demographic groups. This more than anything highlights why I'm not impressed by Obama.

Tep, Yard, Obama didn't invent the southern strategy, didn't conflate class w/race, didn't pit poor [or "struggling"] whites against blacks - That was done before he was born, and used for political gain by Nixon, and now Ferraro [she hopes].

I agree that there needs to be more discussion about affirmative action - does it do what it's supposed to do, for one thing. I think it's like busing - a pathetic substitute for what really needs to happen, which is MAKE THE SCHOOLS THEY GO TO BETTER. There. You made me go all-caps. See what you did?

Ok, tep sez:

"BHO's crude, even lumpen, marxist analysis misses the point: we need to stop tangling up cultural issues with economic ones, and start addressing the economic quandary in its own right, on its own terms, independent of all the kulturkampf and identity-politics noise."

No no no no no, that WAS his point. He decries, bemoans, laments the conflation of cultural stuff with economic stuff. The hurting people are being ignored, and this is a bad thing, and they've given up on it getting better, and politicians have used their cultural, not economic, interests, to address them. God 'n' Guns. Never mind that the politicians are misrepresenting even those issues, but whatever. Obama DOES address the economic stuff independently of the cultural. Unlike Ferraro.

oh wait wait wait -!: "Instead, we get dopey pop psychoanalysis of demographic groups" - you mean the "bitter" comment? Is that what this is? He said that in answer to a question about demographic groups at a fundraiser - that was not for broad public consumption, and CERTAINLY not "instead" of an economic policy argument. wtf, tep.

Tep,

If you're really wondering what Obama has in mind economically, take a closer look at the electoral map he has in mind and ask your self what those states have in common?

More importantly, ask yourself what kind of freedom of action, economically, a victory based on that map would give him?

Tep, you're speaking in a lot of generalities here, and it's hard for me to understand what exactly you would have Obama do.  At points, it sounds like you want him to reinvent the American economic system.  Your withering critique of the "bargain" -- decreased job security for low inflation -- doesn't answer anything.  What do you want to replace that bargain with?  Increased job security and rampant inflation?  Obama is an FDR type of Democrat, except he's smarter.  What I mean by that is that he doesn't subscribe to ideological policy orthodoxies.  He's nimble.  He wants to try things to help the working class, he trusts experts, and he doesn't want to do anything counterproductive.  FDR was a pragmatist.  He didn't set out to "socialize" anything.  In fact, his agenda had the effect of saving capitalism from itself.  The two are similar in that they regard large-scale economic insecurity as an unacceptable problem and want to listen to all comers to address it.  The sense in which Obama's "smarter" is that he is pretty savvy on the intellectual side of these issues, unlike FDR.  He has the tools personally to make better choices.  If you want to know what sort of policies he'll like the sound of, I think he will be interested in those that move things in the right direction -- that is, toward increased economic security -- while preserving choice and entrepreneurship.  Examples:  He'll like the sound of the EITC more than the minimum wage.  He'll like the sound of automatic enrollment in a health care plan you can opt out of more than forced enrollment.  He'll be skeptical of protectionism, but dig progressive taxation.  At the same time, he'll seek federal investments that get a return on the dollar, such as in education, such as in new economies that can't be easily transported overseas.  His administration of the vast federal bureaucracies would, I'm betting, be neither liberally irrational nor neoconservatively irrational.  Both approaches to business regulation are common, and Obama is the sort who will want to run the numbers on things like consumer safety, which is the only rational approach.  (Otherwise, you're left with "do everything" vs. "do nothing," neither which is right.)  I think he's probably very much interested in protecting collective bargaining rights, and his NLRB would be a strong one.  These impressions come from having watched him and listened to him for a long while.  Do you get a different impression?  Anyway, what do you want to hear him propose or do that he's not proposing or doing, other than eliminate race-based affirmative action, which (as you note) is merely a gesture?

JHildner: Beware of intellectuals. There was always Daniel Patrick Moynihan but Jimmy Carter is more likely. There was never anything made that intellectuals could not screw up and I say this as one who fiercely values the intellect and who reads extremely widely. Which makes me all the more aware of the pitfalls.

hildner - help the puppies, not [his cherished core demographic which is] the yuppies. You can fill in the blanks re. specific policy menus, but the gist is that WORKING FAMILIES, not childless yuppies, require a wide array of specific, targeted interventions by the state that currently don't exist in this country and that, were they implemented, would make an enormous difference to the security of ordinary workign class Americans.

Here's a few off the top of my head:

-- significantly increase (double, triple, or quadruple) the child tax credit and provide all kinds of child development-related tax credits, for preschool, medical expenses, etc

-- support means-tested school vouchers. Admit the obvious truth, that the Catholic schools in the core urban areas are usually the *only* hope for parents of kids trapped in these hellholes

-- make a serious push for sweeping educational reform aimed at substantially reducing overhead by consolidating school districts and by monitoring, and rewarding, districts for the %of spend that goes to the classroom. Offer federal tax incentives to the states to induce the desired behavior

-- buck the environmentalists and favor drilling off the coasts and in ANWR in hopes of bringing gas prices down for low and moderate income Americans, most of whom have no choice but to commute long distances to work, given the extraordinary runup in residential real estate costs over the last 10 years

-- insist that any health insurance plan sever the link between employment and health insurance

-- argue for income-based aff action in college admissions and urge the states to end race-based aff action

Plenty of other possibilities I'm sure, but this is a start. However, the most important thing of all is to FOCUS like the proverbial laser beam on the needs of *WORKING* *FAMILIES*. Not yuppies, not the post-college crowd, not the tribalists, but parents of school-age children. Right now, the Repubs carry two-thirds-- yes, that's _two-f***ing thirds_ -- of this core constituency that accounts for maybe 30% of the voting population overall and a vast majority of the voters who swing every presidential election.

These should be our voters. Right now, we're falling on our face with them, and it's because our candidates simply aren't focused on them and their needs with a lean, tight, crystal-clear FAMILY-focused economic agenda.

Nice post, JHildner.

tep, I think that's a very workable and almost inspired plan, but I have to disagree with point #4.  We can't carry on this fantasy-in-reality of cheap gas for much longer.  We need significant investment in denser communities and public transit networks, and we should begin to give major tax breaks to companies that come up with imaginative transport solutions for their employees, and to cities and counties that work hard to increase the quality and frequency of buses, subways, subsidized minibuses, municipal carpooling, non-profit car-sharing, and the like.  We need to demand some INTELLIGENCE in the planning of new communities.  We need to take note of the fact that Los Angeles and NYC are among the least energy-wasting areas of the country -- so in fact it's the city and inner suburban dwellers that live the eco-dream, not the hippie couple out on the farm.

LibRef:  "JHildner: Beware of intellectuals."

Oh phooey.  This little bit of cliched American folk wisdom is vastly overstated and gives false comfort to a public that repeatedly votes for retards who fuck everything up.  Far better to know what you're doing and know what you're talking about.  If the concern is that the smart person will suffer paralysis (because he sees too well all sides of an issue) or ideological extremism (because he takes his logic too far), three things to consider: (1) Those things are actually *failures* of intellect, not examples of some sort of pathological smartypantsiness.  (2) Dummies have been known to exhibit overconfidence (manifested in extreme ideological rigidity) as well as paralysis (because they don't know what they're doing and are in over their head).  (3) Anyway, Obama has not demonstrated either flaw at any time.