This Morning Edition story is what I was talking about. Listen to the broadcast, the text of the story is not complete and misses a lot of interesting points from Pennsylvania Governor and Clinton supporter, Ed Rendell, about racists in the Democratic party.
Even if you completely disagree with me and are a huge Clinton supporter, hopefully you can agree with me that it is a tragedy that "working-class whites" has become a euphemism for "racists."
I'm looking at you EZ.
(For frack sake, not to say that EZ is a "working-class white," but that I'd like to hear his response).
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2 comments:
I am in the middle of finals, so I can't respond in as much detail as I would like.
Look first off, I agree that the US has a festering race problem, but it also has a huge sexism problem.
Your lament that "working class whites" have become equivalent to "racists", is actually made worse by your candidate's own arguments. Obama's comments in SF last week play into the same theme...those dumb (white) hicks in PA and IN don't support me because of race.
Look, voters in these states have consistently said that they were voting (in OH and TX) and will be voting (in PA, WV, IN and KY) primarily over economic and policy issues, and Clinton has the more specific plans, whether it be on mortgage relief, Universal health care, or boycotting the opening ceremonies. Obama's campaign even confirms that they are more about "politics" than "policies." ("I don't want to sound like a broken record," Max Lesko (Obama Campaign Staffer) said, "but this campaign is about politics, not policies." http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/11/penn_dems/)
This frame, that the Obama camp wants us to use to understand the PA and IN votes, is not a valid one. His supporters are arguing that Obama is losing PA because the voters are a bunch of racists.
It would be like saying that Hillary is losing Oregon because of sexism in the state. The polls show that men in Oregen are supporting Obama. Is that due to sexism?
His campaign is benefiting from the sexist sentiments that you know some Oregon voters harbor.
In my opinion, neither frame is useful to understanding the race.
The whole term "lunch bucket Democrats" is part of the cultural effort to make whiteness normative. Do Blacks and Latinos not own lunch buckets? This term is a more comfortable way for journalists to say "working class whites" and allows them to pretend that the concerns of working class whites are the concerns of all working class people.
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