The May 9, 2008 Chicago Tribune referred to a USA Today interview with Hillary Clinton. I had to read her quote several times before I believed it. The quote was, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." She cited an Associated Press article "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me." click here to read more
To whom is she pandering with statements like that? Let's dissect the phrase: "...working, hardworking Americans, white Americans..." By using "working", followed immediately by "hardworking" and "white" meant that all three words are related to one another, and are adjectives of, "Americans." Perhaps the punctuation between "Americans" and "white" should have more properly been a dash - rather than a comma, so as the read, "...working, hardworking Americans - white Americans..." By limiting her apparent definition of hardworking Americans to white Americans in this way, she did not allow that there are other hardworking Americans who are Asian, Hispanic, African-American, et cetera.
I hope she was just misspeaking again, as seems to her wont at times. I hope that she was not appealing to some base emotion that should have been eradicated by now. As you can see, hope is something in which I fervently believe. And so I close with the hope that my April 17 prediction of Clinton and Obama supporters uniting will come true. But please, Hillary, think about your words before you say them. I know it's difficult when making speech after speech, sitting for interview after interview. Actually, you shouldn't have to think about your words to ensure that they don't sound like code. Your words should flow freely and express what's in your heart, not be what's politically expedient.
Friday, May 9, 2008
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6 comments:
That's one way to interpret it from a perspective of "hearing what you want to hear". But there are other ways to interpret it as well.
For the sake of argument, let's look at it from the perspective of someone who doesn't care much for Hillary OR Obama (That would be me):
among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again
"hardworking Americans" Oooops, I didn't mean to talk about ALL hardworking Americans. his support from hardworking black Americans is not in question... therefore perhaps I should clarify my comment to avoid confusion... 'White Americans".
It's like saying "I hate fast-food restaurants, burger joints because they serve unhealthy food."
Is it wrong to immediately correct my statement to avoid a sweeping generalization?
Yes, you could interpret the statement as meaning non-white Americans are not "hard working", but but that misses the context of the sentence.
the context was about the weakening support of hard-working Americans... which is an INCORRECT statement id you don't clarify it as "white Americans".
just another case of people hearing what the want to and applying their own meanings to other peoples, candidates words.
See... I just did the same thing in the sentence above by clarifying "other people's to more specifically "candidates".
Why does everyone turn everything they can into racial issues? It sickens me.
It's almost perfectly grammatically correct.
It is not ALL hardworking Americans whose support for Obama is weakening... it is only "hardworking white Americans" whose support for him is weakening.
Explain to me again why it was wrong for her to clarify this?
Or would you have preferred that she kept it as "ALL Americans? Even though that would be blatantly inaccurate.
Someone tries really hard to speak clearly and specifically and they get beat up over it. Wow.
All baseball players, major-league baseball players, are over-paid.
Big cities, east-coast cities, have pretty harsh winters.
Surveillance agents, swing-shift surveillance agents, are cool.
Okay, okay, I've harped enough about this. Sorry.
The context in which I judged the comment was broader than the context you chose. I considered earlier comments by both Hillary and Bill Clinton, and various surrogates.
Her campaign has been the one to inject race into the primary process. When the early primaries showed that Obama's appeal was broadly based, the Clintons began attempting to narrowly define him as simply the African-American candidate, with amateurish comparisons to Rev. Jesse Jackson, rather than as just another Democratic candidate.
If she wanted to clarify a point that Obama's support amongst white Americans was eroding, she could have said just that. But no. She attached the words "working" and "hardworking" to "white Americans", with all the associated implications of that usage. Had she erred in her statement and needed to clarify it, why didn't she explain her correction on the spot, or have her campaign issue a correction afterward?
I cannot concur that "...everyone turns everything they can into racial issues?" If they did, it would sicken me too. I recognize that there are those who benefit from an indiscriminate 'racialization' of topics: professional victims, and professional self-appointed spokespersons for these victims. It angers me when I see that, for it weakens those legitimate cases where race does play a factor.
Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again...
Simple test:
Remove "white Americans" from the quote... is it still a true statement? Well, no it isn't. Why not? Because then it would suggest that his support is waning from ALL hardworking Americans.
Therefore is is only a true statement if "white Americans" is said. Which it was.
You seem to only see "white Americans" as a modifier to "hardworking Americans", when in fact "white Americans" is a modifier to "support is weakening again..."
Similarly, my support from writers, young writers, is growing.
If I remove "young writers" it changes the meaning of the sentence and makes it an inaccurate statement.
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