(On a side note, "Isms" are the reason I decided to not get my PhD—after my MFA, I just couldn't take five more years of pretentious intellectuals who couldn't compose a sentence without at least two words ending in an "Ism." Yet here we are with a whole post about the dang things. Go figure.)
First, there is Mr. Spitzer and the early post about his dalliances, Fuck Gate. If you can get beyond the obviousness of his breaking the law and cheating on his wife, you still have to "swallow" (so to speak . . . teehee, Creative Kerfuffle, that's for you!) the fact that Spitzer was Mr. Law and Order. I mean this was a dude that didn't believe in shades of grey and yet here he is swimming in a vat of Sherwin William's Meditative. Anyway, once you digest all of that information then you get to the "Ism"—and this time I think it is chauvinism. Yes, this man broke the law after not just vowing to uphold it but threatening to hunt it down and hog tie those who break it. However what I think sticks in my craw more is that this man has three daughters. And these girls will now forever know that there dad thought it was acceptable to not only cheat on their mother, but do so with a prostitute. Wow! Does anyone else see some therapy and major relationship issues ahead for these poor girls?
Moving on we come to sexism vs. racism with this week's comments from former vice presidential-nominee, Geraldine Ferrarro. I think this quote from her remarks sums it up best:
"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"
No Ms. Ferrarro, they aren't attacking you because you are white or even because you are a woman. They are attacking you because you opened your mouth and inserted not just your foot but your whole ass.
Maybe there is so truth to the idea that Obama has gotten a bit of a pass from the media and whomever because he is young and charismatic and maybe, just maybe, because he is non-Caucasian. That doesn't negate the fact that he is a smart, qualified man. And I think that Ms. Ferrarro was, in fact, trying to negate those facts. Obama remarked that it was ridiculous for anyone to say that being an African-American man running for president put him at an advantage is correct. I don't think it puts him at an advantage, it might possibly mean that in most cases people hesitate to attack him as vigorously so as to appear without racism, but I don't think it does anything else for him.
The whole thing makes me sad. While Ferrarro may have gotten a bum deal when she was named the vp candidate, I would have hoped that bitterness might have cooled in the ensuing 20 years. I guess it hasn't.
I think Keith Olbermann had a valid point the other night when he made his special comment about the Ferrarro issue. He addressed Hillary Clinton's response to Ferrarro's comments. He believes Clinton missed an opportunity to truly denounce the comments and distance herself from it. Heck, Obama's camp fired Samantha Power for calling Clinton a "monster" but Ferrarro says Obama has gotten a break because he is a black man and yes she stepped down, but she was far from truly apologetic about it.
No Clinton just disagrees with the remarks and says the remarks were regrettable. What is regrettable is that our country continues to make a person's skin color or sex an issue.
Can't we all just grow up?
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