Why do people hate Hillary? - Page 3

Exactly. For every overt racist--I once heard a guy in Kansas say, "If they ever elect a nigger president, I'll kill him myself"--there are another hundred voters who will quitely vote for whichever candidate looks most like them.

Especially since you know a serious Obama campaign would open the floodgates for bad Leno comedy from every corner. Did you hear the first change Obama will make if he's elected president? Putting rims on Air Force One, hyuck, hyuck, hyuck. And changing the national bird from a bald eagle to fried chicken, wokka, wokka, wokka. And there will be MONTHS of that shit, and all those closet bigots will start to wonder if Obama really represents who they are and what they stand for.

And I think the same danger exists for Hillary, only swap racism for gender bias. Pink curtains in the Oval Office, dismantling the army because chicks hate guns, etc. Because for every stereotype out there, there's a sizable percentage of the population that honestly believes it might be true.

Sure, it's early. But a lot of pundits have been speaking ill of Hillary's chances with Obama in the race. This poll shows that Hillary is still the putative front-runner and Obama has his work cut out for him.

Well, we'll at least be spared the Leno comedy, since he's leaving the tonight show next year, with Conan taking over. So we've got that much going for us in any case.

Leno's not leaving until 2009.

Well, fuck.

Yeah, I get that, and I agree that it might have some impact. But that type of subconcsious racism seems to me to be:

A. a racism grounded in class and culture, which means that black people like Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Oprah, and Obama don't have the stigma attached that people like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, both of whom did work for and were embraced by poor black communities, do. To be reductive, these people may have black skin, but they have what I guess you might call white cred. If they're centrist enough, they get a pass on the skin color.

B. a racism grounded in proximity. Celebrity puts a lot of distance between the public and those they elect. Like I said, the teenage black kid on the bus might unnerve this type of racist, but that same subconscious racist might simultaneously be Samuel L. Jackson fan number one.

The small-minded of this country are more prepared for a black president than a female one, although both types of candidate would have their own uphill battles to fight. And part of this is how visible and accepted the sexism or racism would be allowed to get. Just look at Slater's post and imagine how each of those jokes would go over. The Obama lines would cause a national scandal, no question. The Hillary jokes would be waved off as harmless "the difference between men and women" quips.

Yeah, people view race and sex through different prisms. But I also think a lot of this also has to do with personality. Obama's a celebrity, Hillary not so much.

Not saying race isn't an uphill struggle, but this is the first time that a credible black candidate is running for President. This is something to be celebrated and encouraged, I think. And assuming that Obama isn't electable now (which I don't) or in 2012, he will probably never be in his lifetime.

I'm all for a woman president, just please not Hillary.

White people hate fried chicken!

Eh, I'm not American, and I live in the most multicultural city in North America, so I guess I don't really have a good handle on this stuff. Still, in spite of the last 6 years, I look back to the decade before that when the USA seemed like it was Cultural Liberaltonia and wonder which is the "real" America. The answer, of course, is neither. There's a pendulum that swings back and forth. 50% of the country can't be purely racist homophobic fundamentalist greedheads; they've just been, unfortunately, voting for them. By the same token, I don't think you need over half the country to be babykilling east-coast metrosexual porn stars to get a Liberal, or a woman, or a black dude, elected. Dave's comments about Oprah are pretty much dead on.

In another thread we talked about how some fundies might "hold their nose" and vote for Mitt Romney, despite their dislike of Mormons; by the same token, might even prejudiced people not put that aside and elect a black dude if it meant, say, an end to the war in Iraq?